From Don Giovanni
Opening Day. We have nothing on the docket except getting ready for the show this evening, which is a relief, I must say--yesterday we had a five hour tech, media appearances and a 3+ hour opera, which was gorgeous and extraordinarily environmental, but by the end we passed out like stones. Today will be spent focusing on the outline, reloading the show and getting focused for tonight--word is we have a full house, which is always a wonderful way to begin.
This is a repost from the Spoleto Buzz Blog about the production of Don Giovanni;
The opera itself was awesome. It’s very, very cool. Nmon Ford, who’s cut and has just a beautiful body, plays Don Giovanni. At one point he comes out while the supporting cast is frolicking in the water, and as he’s trying to seduce one of the women in the water, he completely takes his clothes off except for like a g-string. And the other people in the opera have on white cotton bloomers, so when they get wet you can pretty much see right through them. At one point, this guy whose wife is in love with Don Giovanni opens up a trunk full of polaroid pictures, hundreds of them, like proof that Don Giavanni’s a womanizer, and he shows her the pictures and then he just throws them all over the place. As intermission I picked up a couple of them and I saw they were rea photos of nudes, like girls on girl, guys on girls, that sort of thing. They were kind of blurry, but you could still tell what was going on. So as were were walking out, this guy comes out and he’s screaming about ‘pornography,’ about how they get these young actors who need the work and put them in thse ‘pornographic roles.’ He was just ranting and raving in the lobby, then he got on his cellphone, and he started very loudly about calling the police and chief Greenberg. He was going to write a letter or get in touch with the police and Spoleto. And this guy wasn’t old or anything — 50-ish, maybe even late 40s, just some conservative right-wing fool. He didn’t stay for the second half, obviously. So it’s a little racy. But it’s incredible, it really is.
I didn't find it all that racy, but I'm a jaded New York artiste. I did love the lighting, which is luscious and the best use of saturated color I've seen in years, and having the opera happen all around us improved the experience of the singing for me--I haven't ever enjoyed opera singing as singing itself, purely for sound and technique, as much as I did last night.
11:43 AM