We are opera glasses ready.
The orchestra tonight sounds amazing – the singing also with sopranos who pierce the air like shafts of light in darkness and tenors who sing to completion empty a whisper that dissipates into erupting applause.
I always find the double ending really interesting. The first climactic finale feels like a strong exclamation to end on, but then there is a tacked on ending that gives some moral messaging not to be like Giovanni – or be punished.
So what is Don Giovanni all about? The title character, lives a privileged life without consequences. We learn a lot about his character early on in the ‘catalogue song,’ where his servant lists the outrageous number of women the Don has slept with. ‘A thousand and three just in Spain’ he brags. We soon learn that Giovanni is not only a womanizer, but also irreverent, a bully, and murderer as well. He is monster, but through his exuberance and the liveliness of the music we get caught up in his adventures as he gets into and then wiggles out of trouble. But, can he wiggle out of trouble forever?
Notes on the production
Composer………………………………. Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Don Giovanni…………………………… Luca Pisaroni
Leporello…………………………….…… Ilda Abdrazakov
Donna Anna…………………….………. Rachel Willis-Sorensen
The Commendatore…………………Stefan Kocan
Don Ottavio…………………………….. Stanislas de Barbeyrac
Donna Elvira……………………………. Federica Lombardi
Zerlina……………………………………… Aida Garifullina
Masetto………………………………..…. Brandon Cedel
Conductor………………………………. Cornelius Meister
Metropolitan Opera
2/2/19