One thing about having to go into Barcelona for an opera which starts at 5.00 pm on a Sunday is that you don’t have to cope with what I thought were inevitable traffic jams getting to the Ramblas.
I left less time than I usually allow getting to the Liceu and still had enough time to get my tickets for the next season.
In theory.
In practice of course BBVA (surely the undisputed holder of the title ‘Worst Bank in the Universe’) ensured that things were not simple. I have a new bank book. This useful (hollow laugh!) item allows you to get a hardcopy update of any movements in your account by inserting it into a slot in the hole in the wall machines: it automatically updates. Except, of course, naturally, it doesn’t. Not mine. Nothing.
So I couldn’t check what tickets had been paid for by the woefully inadequate agency which I used to try and build up my visits to the Liceu. But, as luck would have it, the Liceu added their own little piece of unhelpfulness and wouldn’t allow me to buy any tickets for the next season anyway. Well, it was a Sunday so it would have been unreasonable to expect to buy any ticket except for the performance on that day.
A thoroughly unsatisfactory start to what turned out to be a thoroughly satisfactory performance.
This production of ‘Don Giovanni’ was one I saw on its first night some time ago London when it was roundly booed on its conclusion!
This experience was rather different.
The opening sequences demonstrate just how dark an opera ‘Don Giovanni’ is. The presentation of the morality of the piece in this production delights in ambiguity. Trying to work out the location of the moral centre of the opera is difficult.
The set, a series of angled posts with a cluster of lights at the top and the thrusting in of a long bar suggested a modern setting and the dissolute action of the characters suggested the drunken culture of the pleasure seekers Mediterranean resort!
The Don (Simon Keenlyside) and Leporello (Kyle Ketelsen) gave very physical performances with Ketelsen being a typical English yob complete with trackkies, shaven head and holdall full of cans. The English connection was emphasised by the Union Flag being used by Leporello in one scene to mask his amorous activities! The performances of the pair were excellent to the extent that I was sometimes surprised that they could sing as well! Both singers were strong but not outstanding; the fact that they could actually sing anything after the amount of leaping around they had to do was amazing.
The Don is at the centre of a vortex of gleeful amorality where, in his philosophy, anything goes and responsibility is a series of evasions or redefinitions. The tawdry showiness of much of the action and the props emphasise the empty moral values of not only the Don but also everyone else in the opera. As the action progressed I began to wonder if this opera was the musical equivalent of ‘Madame Bovery’ where the entire cast had lost any sympathy from the observer.
The sudden appearance of a pair of headlights towards the end of the overture and the slow appearance of the rest of the car was a coup de theatre and the boot of the vehicle was a suitable place to put the body of the Commendatore (well sung by Günther Groissböck) but also a point of controversy when his ‘corpse’ emerges from the same boot before being unceremoniously being re-deposited there leaving a pair of legs hanging over the side! This body was a detail that had not been thought out in sufficient detail for it to be a convincing part of the narrative. The speaking statue of the Commendatore being a bottle of whisky I could take, but his rising from the dead was one step too far.
The ‘Murder on the Orient Express’ ending of the opera where everyone took a stab (quite literally) at the Don as he was strapped and gagged in a chair down stage was more effective this time because the joint murder summed up the corrupted morality which informed the action of the whole of the opera from the viewpoint of the director Calixto Bieito.
The floor of the stage was a cluttered mess at the end of the production and the curtain call was conducted with a certain fastidiousness as soloists had to ensure that they did not go flying in the mixture of balloons, streamers, orange juice, cereal and other bits and pieces which were strewn around.
The reception of the piece was enthusiastic and it was a production which thoroughly deserved it.
I left less time than I usually allow getting to the Liceu and still had enough time to get my tickets for the next season.
In theory.
In practice of course BBVA (surely the undisputed holder of the title ‘Worst Bank in the Universe’) ensured that things were not simple. I have a new bank book. This useful (hollow laugh!) item allows you to get a hardcopy update of any movements in your account by inserting it into a slot in the hole in the wall machines: it automatically updates. Except, of course, naturally, it doesn’t. Not mine. Nothing.
So I couldn’t check what tickets had been paid for by the woefully inadequate agency which I used to try and build up my visits to the Liceu. But, as luck would have it, the Liceu added their own little piece of unhelpfulness and wouldn’t allow me to buy any tickets for the next season anyway. Well, it was a Sunday so it would have been unreasonable to expect to buy any ticket except for the performance on that day.
A thoroughly unsatisfactory start to what turned out to be a thoroughly satisfactory performance.
This production of ‘Don Giovanni’ was one I saw on its first night some time ago London when it was roundly booed on its conclusion!
This experience was rather different.
The opening sequences demonstrate just how dark an opera ‘Don Giovanni’ is. The presentation of the morality of the piece in this production delights in ambiguity. Trying to work out the location of the moral centre of the opera is difficult.
The set, a series of angled posts with a cluster of lights at the top and the thrusting in of a long bar suggested a modern setting and the dissolute action of the characters suggested the drunken culture of the pleasure seekers Mediterranean resort!The Don (Simon Keenlyside) and Leporello (Kyle Ketelsen) gave very physical performances with Ketelsen being a typical English yob complete with trackkies, shaven head and holdall full of cans. The English connection was emphasised by the Union Flag being used by Leporello in one scene to mask his amorous activities! The performances of the pair were excellent to the extent that I was sometimes surprised that they could sing as well! Both singers were strong but not outstanding; the fact that they could actually sing anything after the amount of leaping around they had to do was amazing.
The Don is at the centre of a vortex of gleeful amorality where, in his philosophy, anything goes and responsibility is a series of evasions or redefinitions. The tawdry showiness of much of the action and the props emphasise the empty moral values of not only the Don but also everyone else in the opera. As the action progressed I began to wonder if this opera was the musical equivalent of ‘Madame Bovery’ where the entire cast had lost any sympathy from the observer.
The sudden appearance of a pair of headlights towards the end of the overture and the slow appearance of the rest of the car was a coup de theatre and the boot of the vehicle was a suitable place to put the body of the Commendatore (well sung by Günther Groissböck) but also a point of controversy when his ‘corpse’ emerges from the same boot before being unceremoniously being re-deposited there leaving a pair of legs hanging over the side! This body was a detail that had not been thought out in sufficient detail for it to be a convincing part of the narrative. The speaking statue of the Commendatore being a bottle of whisky I could take, but his rising from the dead was one step too far.
The ‘Murder on the Orient Express’ ending of the opera where everyone took a stab (quite literally) at the Don as he was strapped and gagged in a chair down stage was more effective this time because the joint murder summed up the corrupted morality which informed the action of the whole of the opera from the viewpoint of the director Calixto Bieito.
The floor of the stage was a cluttered mess at the end of the production and the curtain call was conducted with a certain fastidiousness as soloists had to ensure that they did not go flying in the mixture of balloons, streamers, orange juice, cereal and other bits and pieces which were strewn around.
The reception of the piece was enthusiastic and it was a production which thoroughly deserved it.
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