Germany Mozart, Don Giovanni: Soloists, Motion Choir, Refrain (refrain director: Thomas Richter), and Orchestra of the Deutsche Oper / Daniel Cohen (conductor). Deutsche Oper Berlin, 26.6.2024. (MB)
Manufacturing:
Director – Roland Schwab
Set designs – Piero Vinciguerra
Costumes – Renée Listerdal
Assistant Choreographer and Revival director – Silke Sense
Forged:
Don Giovanni – Andrzej Filończyk
Donna Anna – Flurina Stuckl
Don Ottavio – Kieran Carrel
Commendatore – Patrick Guetti
Donna Elvira – Maria Motolygina
Leporello – Joel Allison
Masetto – Artur Garbas
Zerlina – Arianna Manganello
Artist – Ellen City
We now discover ourselves within the twilight zone through which home and corridor seasons are drawing to a detailed, however festivals have already begun. I shall flit backwards and forwards for the subsequent few weeks, albeit with larger emphasis on the latter, however right here returned to the previous, to Roland Schwab’s manufacturing of Don Giovanni for the Deutsche Oper Berlin. I noticed it when it was new in 2010 and have intentionally not seemed again, although I’ve a way that my response was considerably comparable: some good concepts however missing in coherence. That, at any charge, gives a snapshot of my response final night time. (I shall look again after posting.)
The opening impression is of some kind of crime boss within the title position. His tightly drilled (well-choreographed, although to what finish?) entourage options all through, although I can not say I discovered that added a lot, particularly within the unusual (drug-induced?) shaking to which lots of them typically fall prey. A way of menace is imparted, although maybe on the price not solely of distraction from the true motion, but additionally and extra critically underlining a way that, for essentially the most half, particularly earlier on, each manufacturing and performances appear a bit of misplaced on a stage and in a home of this measurement. Different goings on, whether or not the dark-suited mob, or an admittedly arresting carnival of demise that accompanies fairly than drives the primary act’s ultimate scene, generally tend to return throughout as being put there to fill the area. The well-worn Dantean ‘Lasciate ogni speranza, voi ch’entrate’ is inscribed on a transportable door by way of which the friends arrive (which haphazardly returns briefly, and never when one may anticipate, within the second act) in a welcome recognition, not the one one, of the work’s non secular nature, however in the end goes for little.
All through, a lot is finished with golf golf equipment, once more I suppose supposed to underline the masculinity of 1 facet (and sure, I do know girls play golf too, although it’s not clear the manufacturing does). Different enterprise, akin to fixed wielding of whips and a great deal of different noise-making actions, present a tin ear for the truth that that is an opera, through which not solely music however a few of Mozart’s very biggest music performs a hallowed position. Clearing up mess, actually with bin luggage, appears to be Leporello’s enterprise: honest sufficient, I suppose. At one level, although, the boys are in dustbins, which can sound intriguingly Beckettian, but finally ends up being one other brief part in a manufacturing that by no means appears to know the place it’s heading. What Don Giovanni’s rating card system denotes, I used to be by no means fairly certain: is a excessive rating good or dangerous? I assumed the previous, however then his ultimate ‘1’ for the Stone Visitor scene would make little sense in any respect.
The viewers definitely didn’t assist, laughing, chattering, and so forth, seemingly in utter disconnection from what was seen, not to mention heard. What ought to have been a very highly effective second and marked considered one of Schwab’s most imaginative concepts, Don Giovanni seating his ‘disciples’ for his final supper, the second frozen within the painterly method one may anticipate, for him to interrupt bread, elicited widespread vigorous laughter. The Eucharist and/or darkish inversion thereof at the moment are apparently merely amusing. To be honest, I suppose it might clarify a superb deal, and if that’s the response an try to deal with the profoundly non secular nature of the work elicits, then, God or Nietzsche assist us, maybe it’s extra comprehensible why administrators usually and, most often, disastrously keep away from it.
Why such unusual choices proceed to be made regarding the ‘model’ I have no idea. It’s all very properly accountable singers’ wishes to provide ‘their’ arias, however it’s not their choice they usually typically discover themselves oddly disadvantaged too; one can not think about them having reached this settlement in any case. Nevertheless troublesome it might be to face the loss, the Prague model is sort of at all times preferable. Should you should, and if in case you have a efficiency of such calibre that it and the manufacturing can override the issues, essentially the most acquainted of the Prague-Vienna conflations, justly maligned, can work. (He stated by way of gritted enamel, considering what would in any other case at all times be misplaced.) ‘Vienna’, insofar as we all know what it was, has latterly, unaccountably had a bizarre renaissance; it’s time for that fad to be put to mattress. Goodness is aware of what the reasoning for the mix heard on this event was. We heard Mi tradì and Dalla sua tempo, although neither Il mio tesoro (odd, given such a nice efficiency of Don Ottavio’s first aria) nor the Zerlina-Leporello duet. Recitatives have been minimize and typically paused, while different issues, not often if ever well worth the wait, occurred. It made little intrinsic sense, although then given the dramatic looseness of each staging and conducting, it was not notably an issue both. Paradoxically, I believe manufacturing and efficiency would each have wanted to be higher or worse for it to matter extra.
For Daniel Cohen’s conducting of a Deutsche Oper orchestra that usually sounded out of kinds – what a change from its current magnificent Wagner and Richard Strauss – appeared oddly to reflect the non-committal confusion of Schwab’s staging. It started poorly, balances in a mercilessly hard-driven, tales-of-rasping-brass Overture so awry that one might barely hear the strings. Not a lot the conductor’s fault, although nonetheless dispiriting, the duet between Donna Anna and Don Ottavio within the first scene just about fell aside. Cohen was glorious right here in selecting this up and shifting issues on, and while there have been fairly a couple of subsequent discrepancies between pit and stage, they’d be on a smaller scale. When he and the orchestra actually clicked, there was some nice taking part in. The issue was extra that not often, if ever, within the first act and solely sporadically within the second was a basic pulse established. At greatest, we heard a string of disconnected arias, recitative typically too ‘edited’ to be of a lot use, the impression being given of ‘accompanying’ a assorted recital fairly than musically main the motion.
Vocally, there was a superb deal to admire. The occasional mishap akin to that talked about above, there was nothing actually to disappoint, though the usual of singing was not at all times so constant because it might need been. The second Maria Motolygina stepped on stage as Donna Elvira, performing voltage shot up; hers was an impressive efficiency by any requirements, boasting cleanness of line, finely modulated tone, and dramatic dedication: one I used to be delighted to listen to. Within the title position, Andrzej Filończyk was glorious, rising in stature and defiance, to boast an enthralling efficiency in his ultimate scene, helped by new-found proximity to the viewers however in the end based on charisma and artistry. Joel Allison’s livewire Leporello adopted eagerly in his footsteps, not less than till then. Patrick Guetti’s Commendatore made a robust impression too. lurina Stucki’s Donna Anna typically appeared underpowered, however she recovered and made a superb job of her second-act aria. Kieran Carrel’s Dalla sua tempo was as sweet-toned and mellifluous as one might want, although I by no means sensed that he was fairly contained in the position (a troublesome job, admittedly). I’m not certain both of those was actually her or his position. Likewise within the case of Zerlina and Masetto. Arianna Manganello and Artur Garbas sang properly sufficient, although they may have made extra of what they needed to do; in that, they weren’t essentially helped by the manufacturing.
The worst, I’m afraid, got here on the finish, within the complete excision of the ultimate scene. All the pieces within the work and tonal expectations, particular and basic, pull it ahead; so too, nonetheless extra bafflingly, did the manufacturing appear to take action. There was, nevertheless, nowhere for it to go; it merely stopped and people who, a lot to my chagrin, have been wildly applauding have been in a way proper. Sure, Mahler did it; sure, maybe, on condition that he was Gustav Mahler, he managed to make it work; no, by any cheap requirements, he was nonetheless misguided, partial in his view of the work, surprisingly uncomprehending of its dramaturgy, to have finished so. That such an ultra-Romantic route needs to be taken made no sense in anyway in context. If the goal have been to impress dissatisfaction, that was definitely achieved; I virtually hope it was, for the reason that different, sheer cluelessness, is extra miserable. Maybe it was a metaphor, in any case, for our age’s unusual incapacity even to try to grasp this towering opera.
Mark Berry
