Revolutionary Rhodes
One is mistaken.
Oh, Rhodes provides plenty of energy and enthusiasm in his childish, decadent Don, but he is surrounded by an astonishingly dull 1991 production that could not be more conventional. Any unusual or insightful character choices? Nope. Any unusual or insightful phrasing choices? Nope. Are you hoping for revelatory set, lighting, or costume designs? In vano, in vano. I just kept wondering why on earth Opera Australia would place this gutsy and fascinating performance by Rhodes in the midst of this safe, careful performance that might well be most useful for high school student matinees.
On the good side, the singing is quite good, especially from the women. Taryn Fiebig is a lovely and touching Zerlina, her lyric soprano beautifully expressing the character’s innocence and vulnerability. Rachelle Durkin is a fine, womanly Donna Anna, singing both the long Mozartean lines and her coloratura will skill and ease. Occasionally the voice turns a bit cold and hard-edged in the upper reaches of the role, but her middle voice is creamy and flexible. I also liked Jacqueline Dark’s angry Donna Elvira, but I wished for more variety in volume (mostly loud and louder); there is more than one way to express anger in music, but Ms. Dark finds only one. She is most interesting in her softer, pleading moments.
The bass Conal Coad is a blustery, farcical Leporello; one can tell that he knows his buffo skills, but there isn’t much voice left here. Henry Choo is a standard-issue Don Ottavio, singing plaintively but without the silvery sound needed to make “Dalla sua pace” a major moment. He is also a stiff and weak actor, harming the effectiveness of his duets with Durkin’s Donna Anna. Andrew Jones is a bright spot as Masetto, with loads of personality and rapid changes of emotion. Daniel Sumegi is a stentorian and powerful Commendatore, and his final scene with the Don is the most effective in the production.
Rhodes gives a very physical, always interesting performance in the title role, an unusually playful Don at times (though at the expense of others) but at the same time his sexual obsession and his unending desire for pleasure are vividly played. His velvety baritone manages all aspects of the role with ease, though I find the voice so covered that it sometimes sounds like he’s singing through a blanket. The real tragedy of this production is that the rest of the cast simply cannot match Rhodes’ energy, commitment, and charisma. He often appears to be a refugee from a different, more interesting production.
Stage Director Goran Jarvefelt does manage to make the story clear, and opera newbies and those committed to “traditional productions” will find some enjoyment here. Carl Friedrich Oberle’s dull beige set is enlivened by his colorful costumes; Nigel Levings’ lighting seems generally too bright, and the scenes of disguised identity are thus difficult to believe.
By far the best part of this performance is the arrival of the Stone Guest. Rhodes is at his most extreme here, in a frenzy of food-and-drink driven emotion. He uses his physicality beautifully in his struggle with demons, both real and internal. His defiant descent into hell works beautifully, spurred on by Sumegi’s relentless Commendatore. Unfortunately, Coad as Leporello only scratches the surface of the character’s fear.
The performance ends with a skin-crawlingly precious curtain call in which the whole cast forms a group in the middle of the stage, hugging and back-slapping each other in a festival of self-congratulation before sending the individual singers downstage for their bow. Fortunately, Rhodes gets two solo bows, and the audience erupts.
With the great number of DVDs of Don Giovanni on the market, I certainly can’t recommend this one. I do wonder if the generally high quality of singing might make this a very workable audio CD
Sorry you had to endure mediocrity AND attention-grabbing S&M costuming. Whenever I see the latter, I pretty much expect the former. Cheap tricks get you nowhere.
Hey! Some of my favorite tricks were pretty cheap!
Same here -- AND with attention-grabbing S&M costuming!
Yeah, Mon Coeur, but cheap tricks DO cover up the fact
TTR really does not have enough voice to sing the role!
I guess so. Just averting one’s eyes from that hot mess of a costume would probably take every cell in my brain. I just can’t unsee that. Ugh.
Perhaps this will soothe your pain and give you something other to regard, MCS’OÀTV!!!!!
Really? Did you see TTR in Don G in this production? I sat in the theatre in question during one of the performances of the season that TTR sang in (admittedly not the night it was recorded), and he certainly DOES have the voice for the role. I was actually surprised at how well the role suits his voice, as I was expecting to be underwhelmed by his voice in the theatre, (I had previously avoided him in the flesh for that reason) but be impressed by his acting. Instead I was impressed by both.
As for the criticism of this as a traditional production offering no new insights… You say that like it is a BAD THING? Most of the non traditional productions I see, leave me wondering what is wrong with simply telling the story, and getting the details right, instead just focusing on getting stunning performances out of all involved. I have yet to see a nontraditional production of an opera yet, where I have not cringed at the difference between the words being sung and the actions taking place. There is a reason traditional is popular, and to criticise a production for it, when it does serve the opera well, is a sad comment on the critic, more than the production.
offering no new insights… You say that like it is a BAD THING?
Offering no new insights is a good thing?
Not at all, but criticising a traditional production for being a traditional production makes me all ranty, when so much that is non traditional offers less depth and understanding than the traditional can.
I get that traditional can mean dull and boring, but this production is anything but. It is rather, a lively production which in this case was well served by an exciting cast who brought the characters to life in all their complexity. There is new insight in this production, simply because the performers themselves are so strong, not because the director brought his new ideas to to impose on the story.
There is a reason this production keeps being remounted by Opera Australia. It works. It works very well. And, with a cast like those recorded on this disk, it is, quite frankly, stunningly good. Would this cast have worked as well in a barn like The Met? Maybe not all of them, but that is not the point. The opera theatre at the Syd Opera House seats less than 2000, and the voices in this production were cast for that theatre, which they filled beautifully.
Seriously, if I had read that review above, I would have hesitated to go, and I would have missed one of the better nights of live opera I have had. Not my favourite by any means (but DonG will never be that anyway) but a production that brought an acknowledged masterpiece of the genre to thrilling visceral life, with a cast (with one exception) that performed it extraordinarily well. And, really, what more could you ask for?
But the production isn’t being criticised because it’s traditional, is it? It’s being criticised for being- quote- ‘astonishingly dull’. There’s no suggestion that traditional productions can’t be interesting, that’s just your projection.
You enjoyed it, which is great. The reviewer didn’t.
And I still can’t quite get over the idea that it’s unacceptable to say that a production with no new insights is a bad thing.
I usually sit out these “new insight” discussions because I primarily experience opera vicariously via records or DVD’s. But it just struck me — that very limitation gives me something legitimate to say.
Let’s say I have a record of which I am very fond — the Ferrier/Walter Lied von der Erde, for instance. Every time I play it, I hear something new in it — I get new “insight,” in short. If I am in a certain mood, and want to hear that music performed in that way, that’s where I go. Because I have become familiar with that record, I have learned to love that music and have learned to like other recordings and performances of DLVDE.
But suppose every time I stuck that disc in the player, I got someone else’s choice, or “insight.” DLVDE, as interpreted by Stan Getz or Lady Gaga. Okay, that’s too far-fetched. Let’s say my first discs were LPs, or 78′s (which they were), and they got scratched. My connection with the music would be severed. I’m expecting the Abschied, and instead I get A (click) bs (broooop) hi -- E -- d pop d pop d.
I think that’s what’s happening, and I don’t think it’s good. Audiences, impresarios, and above all actors have abrogated their rights in the interest of kissing the asses of directors.
When I still worked as a theatre director I expected to be treated as God. But I wasn’t God; I knew that. But I had to be God so that I could manipulate the skills of the actors (who also believed themselves to be God) into a coherent whole so that the marketing people (who also believed themselves to be God) could sell tickets to get an audience into the theatre so that all of us little God-lets would have a place to be God in the next day.
So I would say that yes, offering no new insights is a good thing — sometimes. Sometimes the wisest directorial decision is to cater to the audience’s occasional need for the familiar. Sometimes, one has to remember that being different is not necessarily being new.
Betsy Ann,
You are a rare soul.
You can direct my theatre, any time at all. And be God, too.
Love—
Camille
I agree that different doesn’t necessarily equal new, but I think there’s a point being missed here. A ‘new insight’ doesn’t have to involve changing the setting or the plot or the action. A rigidly traditional production can be full of insight- Johannes Schaaf’s 1987 FIGARO at CG was a totally traditional production which taught me more about the opera than any other before or since, because it was full of imagination and detail and-yes- insight into the characters.
It’s telling that your analogy is with a malfunctioning record player, distorting and destroying the music, as if any desire to be challenged by a production should be matched by a desire to see the opera deconstructed.
I don’t want to see a DON GIOVANNI which doesn’t surprise, or intrigue, or make me see aspects of the work in a new way. Why bother? I know it by heart and I have loads of recordings of it. But that surprise and intrigue doesn’t have to involve major regie overhauls- it just has to involve a director who brings out aspects to the characters and their behaviour which may not have struck me before. That’s possible in any kind of production, and it’s a bit of a dealbreaker for me.
Did anyone check out the free video presentation of the NY Phil Armory concert from last weekend? The DG Act 1 Finale is pretty fun.
http://www.medici.tv/#!/new-york-philharmonic-park-avenue-armory-alan-gilbert-mozart-stockhausen
My mistake.
At first glance I mistook this DVD cover for that of Giancarlo Menoriti’s long lost opus, “Rentboy”….
I love you.
Captions in many languages by clicking the UP arrow.
By the way, for those criticising the cover photo. That photo (or a similar one) was responsible for getting a lot of people who would not otherwise go, to see Don Giovanni. Reading some of your comments, I would assume you think that is a bad thing….I was at DG on a weeknight, and I had not seen the theatre so full on a weeknight before..
Thank you Betsy_Ann for expressing my problem so well. It IS about the director imposing his/her ideas, rather than allowing the music and the drama to speak. My concern is simply that when the director’s ideas are more important than the music the composer wrote, or the words which have been set, we have a problem.
And armerjacquino, my point was not about the no new insights but that the critic starts off saying that the production was dull, boring and offered no new insights. And he linked that to the traditional production. Yet, I would argue, simply by being well sung and acted (mostly) this production offered good insights into the opera.
Cool. What were they?
Well, it probably sounds funny, but my biggest take away was just how different those difficult arias become, when the singer is not concerned about how hard they are, but rather uses them to express what their character is saying and feeling. It had not occurred to me just how expressive the ARIAS could be when brought to life well, rather than just sung prettily. Too many times I hear them, and all I hear is look how prettily I can sing this, not the character’s fears/dreams/vacillation/whatever, that the arias are designed to portray. And yes, this probably reflects badly on the Mozart I have seen, but I find it rare to find a performance where I forget the artifice and find myself moved by the characters’ plights. This performances does (unlike, say OperaAustralia’s new Figaro) simply by drawing out vivid performances from the performers.
Oh Miss Betsy, doesn’t Miss Ferrier break your heart a million different ways? And Herr Patzak is so sweet some times. I can hear those final ewigs right now, on the bus, without even firing up the 78 machine