Austria Mozart, Don Giovanni: Soloists, Chorus (refrain director: Thomas Lang) and Orchestra of the Vienna State Opera / Antonello Manacorda (conductor). Vienna State Opera, Vienna, 3.2.2023. (MB)
Production:
Director – Barrie Kosky
Designs – Katrin Lea Tag
Lighting – Franck Evin
Costumes – Theresa Gregor
Dramaturgy – Sergio Morabito, Nikolaus Stenitzer
Cast:
Don Giovanni – Kyle Ketelsen
Commendatore – Ain Anger
Donna Anna – Hanna-Elisabeth Müller
Don Ottavio – Dmitry Korchak
Donna Elvira – Kate Lindsey
Leporello – Philippe Sly
Zerlina – Isabel Signoret
Masetto – Martin Hässler
One of Barrie Kosky’s nice virtues as a director is that he doesn’t impose a one-size-fits-all method, or aesthetic, to his work with opera. There will generally, after all, be visible similarities – likely partly his, partly his design crew’s – however they’re intermittent and infrequently, if ever, figuring out components for the conceptual framework. (An particularly vexing false impression of the AMOP crowd is that designs ‘are’ the manufacturing. No surprise they fail to know something they see.) And that framework, prefer it or in any other case — I’ve usually fallen into both camp — is normally fairly clear.
What puzzled me most about this Don Giovanni was a relative lack of readability — whether or not in my notion or intrinsic. I feel I managed to piece a bit extra collectively afterwards, however a lot of it appeared, no less than to me, a bit undercooked: not a attribute I readily affiliate with this director. Is that maybe a by-product of its first outing having been on the top of the pandemic, when restrictions might have inhibited sure forms of motion? Characters actually appear to spend a great deal of time, although removed from all of it, far aside on a big stage. It is a rocky, fairly grim panorama, many miles (actually, I believe, in addition to conceptually) from early-modern Seville (or the Venice Da Ponte’s libretto typically appears basically to recommend). Nothing is hidden, or hid, in a wasteland that’s something however labyrinthine. It sprouts flora within the last scene of the primary act, as do the refrain (who, no matter I stated earlier on, resemble strikingly the refrain in Kosky’s Komische Oper Monteverdi Orpheus). But then it’s again to the gray, rocky panorama — and latterly, a pool of water.
That literal flowering appears to recommend some type of Bacchic ritual, it might appear, albeit curiously short-lived. Perhaps that’s the level: what does Giovanni do when issues aren’t flowering, when the wine is just not flowing — which doesn’t even appear to occur at his feast, nor certainly ‘Finch’ han del vino’? He waits, it appears: a curious undermining of the kinetic vitality that makes up his dramatic – in music and phrases alike – persona. Again, I think about that’s the level. Indeed, after, although solely after, the efficiency, I sensed that, particularly afterward, this had been for Don Giovanni and Leporello, maybe for the others too, a efficiency of Waiting for the Commendatore. Or had it? The concept of a Beckettian Don Giovanni is intriguing, however not very far more appears to be executed with it.
The different principal theme, maybe associated, is a centring of Leporello, who appears (not unreasonably, I suppose, given a standpoint of psychological realism) fairly traumatised by his experiences with Don Giovanni. Is there a way of abuse there? One would possibly argue that that’s intrinsic to the master-slave dialectic, although I’m not certain that’s fairly how Mozart and Da Ponte see it. I feel so, however extra robust, once more particularly in the direction of the top, is a way of an ersatz father-and-son relationship. Perhaps, in response to standpoint, that’s intrinsically abusive. One would possibly, honestly but not essentially revealingly, observe that every one of Don Giovanni’s relationships, if one might name them that in any respect, qualify as such. I sensed, although, that Kosky is saying greater than that, with out being fairly clear (in my thoughts) what that ‘more’ is. Donna Elvira appears to be behaving fairly unusually too.
Another Kosky advantage is that he is aware of his music. As with any director, certainly any musician, one would possibly disagree together with his response, however it might be unfair to say that he has not thought-about it. A living proof right here could be the concatenation of dances Mozart presents as a society of orders stands on the libertine – maybe even revolutionary – precipice. For as soon as, not solely do we now have the completely different bands of musicians on stage; the characters dance the suitable dance, lending visible realisation of a rare second whose import might not all the time be recognised by a twenty-first-century viewers. Too typically, administrators impose trademark foolish dancing for all-comers. (There is a little bit of that too, however not right here.) I couldn’t assist, although, however want that Kosky had interpreted the music, or no less than how I hear it, a bit extra. It is just not that music want all the time be doubled on stage, any greater than the libretto want, however within the absence of a stronger conceptual lead, it might need helped. Herbert Graf’s Salzburg Felsenreitschule manufacturing for Furtwängler continues to attain right here.
I’m cautious, as anybody needs to be, of claiming it might have been higher to have executed x than y. It appears extra fruitful basically to focus on y, although consideration of x might have some heuristic use in sharpening critique of y. For me — certainly additionally for Mozart and Da Ponte — Don Giovanni is certainly a non secular, certainly a Catholic, work, profoundly involved with sin and damnation. That doesn’t imply it should be introduced as such, but it surely suggests efficiency would do nicely no less than to discover a passable different to doing so, fairly than merely ignoring the problem. That could also be why, assuming God fairly than Nietzsche to be useless, Kosky steps, surprisingly tentatively, towards the Theatre of the Absurd and, maybe, past it to Artaud’s Theatre of Cruelty, although neither comes throughout so starkly as it’d. But then, maybe neither is meant to; if one thing is a context, it’s not essentially for me to say that it ought to turn out to be one thing greater than that. Is it, although, for an viewers member to voice bemusement regarding what, if something, the message may be? Surely it’s; for if not, not solely criticism however theatre itself should be useless. And, no matter Kosky’s message could also be, regardless of the unusual intermittent lack of theatricality to a manufacturing that but strains arduous to be theatrical, I strongly doubt he would want to suggest that specific dying.
As it was, a powerful solid of singers labored arduous to deliver theatrical in addition to musical values to the stage. Kyle Ketelsen was an lively, charismatic Don Giovanni, proudly owning the stage when he wanted to, but not and not using a sense of the chameleon when musically in addition to dramatically referred to as for. Philippe Sly’s wounded but spirited Leporello provided a tour de pressure within the service of Kosky’s unusually compelling conception. Hanna-Elisabeth Müller, an preliminary announcement however, and Dmitry Korchak each shone because the unambiguously seria pair, Donna Anna and Don Ottavio. They understood how coloratura works dramatically — and made us really feel that. Kosky’s Donna Anna is actually no unwilling participant: a extra controversial concept now than it might need been twenty and even ten years in the past, however actually not with out warrant within the rating, not to mention Romantic custom. Kate Lindsey’s ‘Mì tradi’ was well worth the value of admission alone; not that the remainder of this fascinating artist’s efficiency was not equally glorious. If I had been not sure fairly what Kosky was making an attempt to recommend right here, there was no doubting Lindsey’s dramatic and musical capabilities of doing so. Ain Anger’s Commendatore was intelligently sung, paying commendable consideration to the phrases in addition to to general aura. Isabel Signoret and Martin Hässler’s spirited Zerlina and Masetto likewise made a lot, although by no means an excessive amount of, of their phrases, marrying them with candy satisfaction to melody and general characterisation.
Antonello Manacorda and the Orchestra of the Vienna State Opera (to all intents and functions the Vienna Philharmonic) appeared neither at odds, nor utterly of 1 thoughts. There was no discernible try made to stymie the Vienna sound, commendably full now and again, and something however puritanical. (Imagine: puritanism on this of all works!) Yet while usually selecting wise tempi – I nonetheless can not come on board with the modern alla breve for Overture and Stone Guest, nonetheless ‘correct’ it’s held to be – Manacorda typically appeared to stay considerably on the floor: extra, maybe, of orchestra than rating. He was supportive of the solid, although, and I can not think about anybody being critically upset. I doubt use of the all-too-familiar conflation of Prague and Vienna variations was his doing. Whoever made that call actually ought to have identified higher, however nobody ever does (nicely, infrequently). The end result, save in probably the most blistering, highly effective of performances, is all the time dramatically unsatisfactory; this was no exception. Prague is, after all, the reply; it might be a superb begin had been somebody sometimes to ask the query.
Mark Berry