An Immoralist Black Comedy in Music and Vision 12 December

An Immoralist Black Comedy
GIUSEPPE PENNISI reports on a controversial
new production of Mozart's 'Don Giovanni'
which opened La Scala's 2011-12 season in Milan

Even during an 'austerity program' such as that Italy is now undergoing, 7 December is a glittering night in Milan. It is the holiday to celebrate Saint Ambrose, the city patron since the Middle Ages. The apex of the celebration is the inauguration of La Scala's season. This year, the head of state, the prime minister, the presidents of the regional and the provincial councils, the mayor (and their spouses) were in the royal box. There was an elegant but sober decoration of white flowers hanging from the boxes. The ladies wore long dresses but did not show off their jewels. The gentlemen were in dinner jackets. Top prices (for orchestra stalls and central boxes) were 2,400 euros per ticket. The free tickets for the 'authorities' were auctioned off for the benefit of charities. There were, of course, a few protesters (against capitalism, dressing up and even opera as a decadent form of artistic expression), but at 6.15pm they had left the square in front of the theatre. A maxi screen showed the performance in the nearby Vittorio Emanuele Gallery. Also, the inaugural opera was cast live in nearly five hundred movie theatres and on two television channels. About half a million people (only in Italy) followed the RAI 5 telecast. The telecast was not up to the standards of the 'Met' in HD. The opera started at 6pm, instead of 8pm (as it is customary at La Scala) to allow for private after-theatre dinners in hotels, restaurants and private palaces and villas near the city center.

Teatro alla Scala during the performance of 'Don Giovanni' on 7 December. Photo © 2011 Brescia/Amisano. Click on the image for higher resolution
The opera selected for the inaugural evening was Mozart's Don Giovanni in a new production with dramaturgical direction by Robert Carsen and musical direction by Daniel Barenboim. The Carsen-Barenboim mixture could not avoid being as highly inflammable as pure fuel. Thus, it stirred up controversy. It received twelve minutes of applause by the audience (and as many as twenty minutes on 4 December 2011, the preview performance for the 'under thirties' -- at 10 euros a seat -- and a few selected music reviewers, hidden in the boxes so that the TV cameras could show a theatre full of youngsters) but ruffled quite a few feathers of more traditional and conservative opera critics. This report is based on the 4 December preview.

From left to right: Anna Netrebko as Donna Anna, Giuseppe Filianoti as Don Ottavio and Barbara Frittoli as Donna Elvira in the finale of Act I of 'Don Giovanni' at Teatro alla Scala. Photo © 2011 Brescia/Amisano. Click on the image for higher resolution
Don Giovanni is labeled a 'dramma giocoso' where tragic elements mix with pure comedy and even farce. For decades, the tragic element prevailed. In the nineteenth century, for instance, it became general practice to end the opera with Don Giovanni's descent into hell and simply omit the final sextet. Thus, the tragic element was molded with a hymn to moral virtues: the sinner was punished. But both Da Ponte and Mozart were 'immoralists' in their own private lives. Thus they let their hero sink into hell-fire in the sense of a puppet show. Indeed many situations of the opera seem drawn from the puppet-show tradition, as when Don Giovanni leads the silly Masetto astray and then beats him, and when Donna Elvira is deceived by the crude trick of the disguise of Leporello and taken in by the servant's exaggerated caresses. Leporello would be a direct descendant of Harlequin in the commedia dell'arte, but Mozart gives him a strong individuality as one of the protagonists of a 'dramma giocoso' where laughter is mingled with tears and serious-mindedness underlies all the boisterous exuberance. In Mozart's opera, Don Giovanni is brilliantly portrayed in his passionate love of life and ebullient vitality. All the themes which characterize him, from the allegro in the overture to his bold retorts in his dialogue with the statue of the Commendatore, exude a demonic urge mounting toward the final catastrophe. Indeed, both Don Giovanni and the Commendatore are anticipation of German romantic opera (eg Marschner and Weber), whereas the other characters belong to Italian opera conventions, with their cavatina, arias, duettini and sextets. Two different worlds, indeed universes. The 'others' move around Don Giovanni and nearly depend on him, in spite of their well-focused personalities. The two dramatic and musical worlds converge in the party at Don Giovanni's palace. Three orchestras play simultaneously on stage; the solemn minuet is followed by a fast waltz and by a gentle quadrille -- each in a different time but blended in an harmonic whole. They are followed by the gallant duet Là ci darem la mano, a simple melody with several little variations.

Peter Mattei in the title role of Mozart's 'Don Giovanni' (Act I) at Teatro alla Scala. Photo © 2011 Brescia/Amisano. Click on the image for higher resolution
Most likely this delicate balance between comedy and tragedy has been one of the elements of the success of Don Giovanni which, in the last ten years, has surpassed Bizet's Carmen as the most performed opera in the world, excluding the two daily performances in a puppet theatre, with recorded music, in Prague.

Anna Netrebko as Donna Anna and Peter Mattei in the title role of 'Don Giovanni' (Act I) at Teatro alla Scala. Photo © 2011 Brescia/Amisano. Click on the image for higher resolution
In more recent interpretations, Don Giovanni has had a different slant; for instance, in the production by Dmitri Tcherniakov, Elena Zaitseva and Alexei Parin premiered in 2010 in Aix en Provence but then seen in Toronto, Moscow and various other European stages [see Nearly a Male Lulu in Music & Vision, 10 July 2010], the opera acquires the tint of a tragedy, not a nineteenth century moralist drama but a sad reflection on twenty first century helpless and hopeless humanity.

The finale of Act II of Mozart's 'Don Giovanni' at Teatro alla Scala. Photo © 2011 Brescia/Amisano. Click on the image for higher resolution
The Carsen-Barenboim production is on this line. I call it a 'Carsen-Barenboim' production because of the close integration between the stage and the pit as well as a number of technical choices clearly taken together by the director and the conductor. Most fundamentally, like Verdi's Macbeth which I recently saw in Rome, the director and the conductor have not opted for one of the three versions (Prague 1787; Vienna, 1788, Warsaw 1789) Mozart composed (or oversaw in the adaptation), but for a combination of the Prague and Vienna versions. Also, they use a modern (ie mid-nineteenth century) orchestra, not the very few elements (only seven violins in the Prague premiere) with their original sound. Thus, the orchestra has a harmonic richness that, in Mozart's times, was heard only in the Warsaw production.

Bryn Terfel as Leporello in Act II of 'Don Giovanni' at Teatro alla Scala. Photo © 2011 Brescia/Amisano. Click on the image for higher resolution
The integrity of the dramatic and musical aspects is the key feature of this production. An operagoer may like or dislike it but he or she has to appreciate that it is impossible to separate action from music and singing. The basic concept is that Don Giovanni, the Commendatore and the world around them are a desolate but at the same time grueling and yet engrossing humanity. The staging is timeless: costumes are mostly modern, except in the palace party scene, where they are based on eighteenth century fashion. Some of the singers act in the orchestra stalls. The Commendatore (Kwangchul Youn), sings from the royal box during the cemetery scene. During the overture, Peter Mattei (Don Giovanni) takes his dinner jacket off to make love to Anna Netrebko (Donna Anna); as the curtain opens, a huge mirror shows Mattei walking to the La Scala auditorium and then to a bed where he is under Netrebko in a wild sex affair. Then the action follows mostly on the bare stage with props to indicate the different locations. In the first part, for most of the time, the sides of the stage are open (from box 9 row 1 I had an excellent view of the stagehands). This creates voice dispersion problems, to be made good during the other performance (at La Scala, this production of Don Giovanni continues until 14 January 2012 but it is likely to travel to several other theatres and countries). In the second part, painted scenes reproducing La Scala's auditorium are the key elements, with 'theatre-within-the-theatre' moments (eg Leporello's masquerade). Back to a mostly bare scene with a few props (including an enormous dinner table), after Don Giovanni's challenge to the Commendatore. Then, a final surprise: Don Giovanni returns from hell, smoking a cigarette, whilst all the others end in the abyss. They are all as sinners as the 'burlador'. Indeed, the three women -- Donna Anna, Donna Elvira (Barbara Frittoli), and even Zerlina (Anna Prohaska) -- attempt to have sex with Don Giovanni more than he tries to seduce them. Don Ottavio (Giuseppe Filianoti) and Masetto (Stefan Kocan) are fully aware of it -- they are almost their women's accomplices in sinning. The only positive character appears to be Leporello (a magnificent Bryn Terfel). In this amoral 'black comedy', acting is very accurate.

Curtain calls at the end of 'Don Giovanni' at Teatro alla Scala. Photo © 2011 Brescia/Amisano. Click on the image for higher resolution
Let us now come to the musical aspects. As we are in black comedy, Barenboim has a different approach than that of its well-known 1973 recording with the (much lighter) English Chamber Orchestra. The tempi are much slower; as compared with the 1973 recording, the opera is nearly twenty minutes longer. There is no concession to the 'buffo' approach with only a salient exception: Leporello's catalogue aria. Even Don Giovanni has a tragic tint in the very aria Fin ch'han del vino where he ought to be most exuberant. I remember Peter Mattei in his Aix-en-Provence international debut; he has the physique du role and the perfect baritone voice for a Don Giovanni increasingly more lonesome as the performance goes on. Anna Netrebko (as Donna Anna) is highly dramatic from her Fuggi crudel!. Her Don Ottavio (Giuseppe Filianoti) is a perfect actor and sang his two arias quite well, but La Scala's acoustic is tricky and, as noticed, is made more so by the sets; thus his volume left a lot to be desired. Kwangchul Youn is an imposing Commendatore. Vocally Anna Prohaska seemed a very light Zerlina, and Stefan Kocan too dark a Masetto. These shortcomings can be corrected as the performances continue.
Copyright © 12 December 2011 Giuseppe Pennisi,
Rome, Italy

WOLFGANG AMADEUS MOZART
DON GIOVANNI
LA SCALA
MILAN
ITALY
DANIEL BARENBOIM
ANNA NETREBKO
BRYN TERFEL
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