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Don set firmly on the dark side
A little seduction my dear: Nuccia Focile as Donna Elvira confronts the charms of David Kempster's Don Giovanni. Pictures: Richard H Smith Don Giovanni Welsh National Opera Birmingham Hippodrome **** I AM not quite sure what to make of this
new production by Welsh National Opera of Mozart's black comedy with its
supernatural overtones. Close your eyes and the sumptuous music and
glorious singing flows over you; open them and before you is not so much
black comedy as just . . . well . . black. The set is a sort of National Coal Board gothic
with what appear to be huge slabs of anthracite, monolithic blocks
carved with intricate Spanish themes, which are wheeled around to make
dark alleys, cemeteries, squares, gardens, palace walls and even give us
Rodin's Gates of Hell. Then there is a bunch of what appear to be
baroque Darth Vaders who glide around the dark and gloomy sets from time
to time for no apparent reason except to imply we are in a twilight zone
- or depths of night zone most of the time - on the edge of the realms
of life, death and the hereafter. I am not a lover of dark and gloomy sets at the
best of times and these often appear to be lit by a couple of 40 watt
bulbs with even the palace gardens looking like they are set on a bed of
nutty slack by the main seam in some deep coal mine. Gardens, incidentally, are portrayed by some
large volcanic rocks encasing bodies which are carried on and off.
The darkness tends to stifle all the comic
overtones of the opera which is a pity. David Kempster, who has a
wonderful baritone voice, did his best to inject some humour as the
rakish Don Giovanni. This is a man who makes Don Juan appear celibate
remember, a nobleman who lies, cheats, tricks and deceives as a way of
life and has no thoughts that stray far away from himself and pursuit of
pleasure – bit like a politician really. Kempster's bad Don is played a little tongue in
cheek but somehow you feel that the idea of the Don as a sort of Jack
the lad, men behaving badly, rakish rogue is not what is intended here He is helped and hindered in equal measure by his
reluctantly faithful servant Leporello played by David Soar, who
pulls out as many laughs as he can with asides and comments but you feel
they are tolerated rather than welcomed. He turns the catalogue song
Madamina, il catalogo è questo into a bit of a
romp as he lists Don Giovanni's conquests, 640
in Italy, 231 in Germany, 100 in France, 91 in Turkey, and 1,003 in
Spain (UK nil points it seems. What's wrong
with British women then!!) but much of the comic potential is stifled by
the heavy, black sets and gloomy, melodramatic direction. A pity,
as the audience, from the evidence of
their stifled titters, were up for a laugh
given half a chance but the chance never came. What was there though was a
solid performance carried on with real flair by the Welsh National Opera
orchestra conducted by Lothar Koenigs. A
mention too for Stephen Wood on harpsichord and Daniel Thomas on Madolin. The opera sees a quartet from
spring's production of Cosi Fan Tutte back in very different roles with
Robin Tritschler as Don Ottavio, the fiancé of Donna Anna, Camilia
Roberts. The pair were Ferrando and Fiordiligi at the seaside. Tritschler has a pleasant
light tenor voice which perhaps lacks the power and gravitas required
for the role of the avenging, wronged lover, and you wonder if he is
given a pair of specs to wear in the role to indicate a bit of a weedy,
nerdy nature, but he does come into his own with the difficult aria
Il Mio tesora, my treasure, when he swears to kill Don Giovanni, his
fiancées' father's murder. Roberts' Donna Anna, has been
seduced and then abandoned, as so many before – 1,003 in Spain alone –
by the randy Don and has then seen her father, the Commendatore, killed
trying to protect her honour.
It is an emotional role which
she relishes with a fine Or sai chi l'onore. Gary Griffiths, Guglielmo last
time around, is a solid, angry Masetto, full of fury and indignation as
the burly peasant lad who is about to be married to Zerlina, Claire
Ormshaw, when the Don steps in for first dibs, so to speak. Ormshaw, Despina in the
seaside romp, has less scope for humour here but her Vedrai carino
as she consoles her betrothed Masetto who has just been beaten up by Don
Giovanni, who in turn is disguised as Leporello, is a treat as is her
Batti, batti o bel Masetto as she tries to persuade her husband
to be . . . maybe . . that nothing had happened between her and
our local lothario, Don Giovanni. The same can't be said of
Donna Elvira, who, several hundred conquests ago, ended up married to
Don Giovanni and was probably not the first nor the last according to
Leporello. Elvira, played with a passion
by Nuccia Focile, has a mixture of affection and hatred of our anti-hero
always ready to believe he has reformed and begs for his life all to no
avail as he his nobbled by the Commendator's statue and sent to the
fires of Hell where he is turned into a sort of freshly-cast,
steaming, modern art sculpture – a sort of Antony
Gormley version of Pompeii. The story is there, the
singing and playing is first class, the sound clear and well balanced
and, in truth, it is a most enjoyable evening which could be made so
much more satisfying though if it were just to lighten up a little both
in terms of colour and candlepower, and in
attitude. Let there be light and fun amid the cheats never prosper
morality – after all Mozart catalogues Don Giovanni as opera buffa
– comic opera – and perhaps he should know Roger Clarke
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