Goodman’s treasured director Robert Falls directs the Lyric Opera’s new production of Don Giovanni, the tale of that lustful, destructive Spanish sexual predator, Don Juan. Falls has wisely exercised restraint in this production, letting the sumptuous music of Mozart prevail. The musical high points will be familiar to anyone who has seen the movie or listened to the soundtrack Amadeus.
The story is another matter – in contemporary #MeToo society Don Giovanni does not quite fit the Weinstein-Epstein model of using leverage and power in his conquest of women. The dramaturgs struggle to find some way to explain Don Giovanni’s behavior to us. But there is none; he is not exactly a realistic character, but an exaggerated fiction who lays waste not to the objects of his desire, but to his posse of servants and friends as well. But there is a contemporary realism to Don Giovanni's destructive force and his entitlement to forcing himself on women. He doesn't accept that no means no, and we are still trying to change that heritage of patriarchy in the 21st century.
In his day, Don Juan was a libertine. He also seems to be a sociopath and sex addict, cataloging the hundreds of women he has seduced, country by country. Like Epstein he seems to inspire profligacy and among his cohorts, but he takes advantage of them a few too many time. He is stalked by one double-crossed lover - - who makes it her mission to warn other women away from him. All this builds up to generating an enmity that finds an angry crowd of vigilante’s out to kill him.
Mozart’s formal full title of Don Giovanni is “The Rake punished, or Don Giovanni.” This indicates the story was conceived as a moral fable (the libretto in Italian is by Lorenzo da Ponte). Fall’s key touch, aside from a perfect closing scene (more on that later) was to reset the time frame from the 1600’s to the 1920s. This allows the women to reasonably be a bit more empowered, pursuing their own sexual destiny. But the original libretto clashes with this revisionist approach, since loss of reputation and fall from respectability is among their chief complaints against Don Giovanni. The 1920s setting is almost laughable during a ball in which the deco-inspired gowns (knockout costumes here and overall) when the flappers do minuettes rather than Charlestons. But it's opera.
The music redeems it largely, though the garden bacchanal and Don Giovanni’s machinations are frankly, boring and drag on. Mozart’s music carries on a masterful counterpoint, with the characters given complexity expressed through this most lush score. The Lyric Opera Orchestra is reliably excellent, and this production is no exception. They just know how to play in support of the opera– a full, rich, underpinning for the great singers.
Finally comes the climactic scene in Don Giovanni is his retribution for all this bad behavior – he is dragged down to hell. Falls did this so powerfully, opening a smoking pit on the stage and upending the banquet table, with Don Giovanni struggling against his fate as he slides into oblivion. It is one of the most satisfying final scenes I have witnessed, and helps cap the story of Don Giovanni, The Rake Punished. It runs at the Lyric Opera in Chicago through December 8.
*Ryan McKinney will portray Don Giovannio December 3rd through 8th
