Over the weekend I was at opening night of
SF Opera's new production of
Don Giovanni. Conductor
Nicola Luisotti began the overture forcefully, as if conducting a Beethoven symphony. The performance went at a brisk, non-stop pace, at the sacrifice of some precision. Maestro Luisotti accompanied some of the recitatives on the fortepiano & interpolated the heavenly opening of Mozart's A major piano concerto before the graveyard scene. I was totally disappointed that the final sextet has been cut from these performances, though.
The cast is youthful & lively. Bass
Marco Vinco as Leporello has a dark, weighty sound & acted with a comic looseness. I did not get the drift of
Lucas Meachem's Don Giovanni, who looked detached in his black circular sunglasses & seemed remorseful as he lay over the body of the dying Commendatore. I like Mr. Meachem's smooth, suave voice, & his serenade "Deh vieni alla finestra" was pretty. He sang it directly to the audience while the house lights went up.
Bass
Morris Robinson has a deep, solid voice & was a terrifying Commendatore. His vivid singing made me think I understood Italian perfectly. He was also impressively immobile in the graveyard scene. Mezzo
Kate Lindsey was a bright-voiced, intelligent & funny Zerlina. She made a startling entrance doing a cartwheel. Bass-baritone
Ryan Kuster as her Masetto has a deep, virile voice & was not completely oafish. Tenor
Shawn Mathey was a last-minute cast replacement & seemed nervous, though his voice sounded fine, & he made it through his 2 arias ably.
Ellie Dehn as Donna Anna &
Serena Farnocchia as Donna Elvira were both strong, hearty singers.
The stage was a vast empty space, with minimal sense of setting, besides a bunch of 18th century chairs. Much of the time the singers were directly under the proscenium. Tall mirrors suspended from the flys moved up & down with an eerie silence to indicate scene changes but otherwise did not contribute to the action. The Don & Donna Anna appear as lovers in the 1st scene, which makes Donna Anna into a nasty liar in her subsequent scenes with Don Ottavio. The masqueraders wore ridiculously over-sized wigs that could have come from Beach Blanket Babylon. The end of act 1, with the chorus as a group chasing the Don & Leporello, looked like a Benny Hill sketch.
As when I attended
Lucrezia, I started out in standing room but then received excellent orchestra seats from a patron leaving after act 1. However, my opera companion was clearly happier in standing room.
§ Don Giovanni
San Francisco Opera
Conductor: Nicola Luisotti
Director: Gabriele Lavia
Leporello: Marco Vinco
Donna Anna: Ellie Dehn
Don Giovanni: Lucas Meachem
The Commendatore: Morris Robinson
Don Ottavio: Topi Lehitpuu Shawn Mathey
Donna Elvira: Serena Farnocchia
Zerlina: Kate Lindsey
Masetto: Ryan Kuster
Sat 10/15/11 8:00pm
War Memorial Opera House
§ Production photo: Cory Weaver
On Sunday afternoon, New People Cinema was full for the showing of The Kid with a Bike, a film by Belgian brothers Jean-Pierre Dardenne & Dardenne. The film won a Grand Prize at Cannes & played here in the SF Film Society's French Cinema Now series. The film follows Cyril, a desperate young boy in foster care, usually dressed in red. He has a brush with juvenile delinquency & works out his anger at being abandoned by his father. In almost every scene Cyril runs away with a start or rides off furiously on his bicycle. The film has a dead-pan approach to story-telling. We witness events, but there is no delving into backstory or inner psychology. I felt impatient as episode followed episode without a sense of culmination, but there seems to be a moral tone to the plot. The film also reminds us how children love their parents, whether those parents deserve it or not. Programmer Rachel Rosen introduced the screening & thanked us for coming in on such a sunny day.
