The first reviews of Don
Giovanni at Glyndebourne are in: critics seem generally underwhelmed still
by Jonathan Kent’s staging. The most mystifying comment comes from the FT’sFairman who reckons it is the most ‘intellectually-challenging’ of operas. I
really cannot fathom this remark. To me the music follows the plot perfectly,
so much that it would be entirely clearly without any singing – perish the
thought! Perhaps bankers reading the FT cannot get their heads around someone
punished for wrongdoing.
But then critics are a funny bunch – the reviews of the Rosenkavalier for example, about the
appearance of Tara Erraught caused quite a storm – perhaps in a teacup.
Cross-dressing on stage always will be apparent and therefore suspension of
disbelief imperfect. But isn’t that part of the fun? The LA Times blamed
British newspapers: ‘Then again, we can thank one of those Fleet Street
institutions for sponsoring the webcast on Sunday’. The cinema relay was
delightful but I remain ambivalent on Strauss when it comes to opera. I watched
the Rosenkavalier suite from the Berliner Philharmoniker afterwards and found
the compressed score – with which Strauss
apparently had little to do, other than having written the large version
from which it was extracted- much more
satisfactory. The trio at the end of the Rosenkavalier
is worth the admission to some of the cheaper seats alone.
Can it possibly be only three years since Opera North began
its Ring? It seems to have thundered
along as quickly as the third act of Siegfried.
The first three instalments have been positively monumental; if the same pace,
power and pluck are maintained, Gotterdammerung
promises to be positively towering. For Siegfried
they had finally fathomed how to use the projections effectively (or perhaps we
are just getting used to them?). For the complete rings, I wonder if there
might not be some tweaking of these projections.
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