What do I know about opera? “The Phaaaaaaaaaaaaatom of the Opera is inside my mind….” That is all I know about opera. I have absolutely no idea where I heard this from nor do I know what it is talking about but I do know that it has the word “Opera” in it. As you can see, I have no knowledge of opera whatsoever but that’s ok… now let’s get to Don Giovanni
Every time I go into a performance, I am always excited and ready to experience something new, something that I’ve never seen before, especially this time because I have never been to an opera before and I’ve heard so much about this specific opera. I would be able to dress nice and finally immerse myself into the wonderful world of opera! With all this excitement about viewing my first ever opera, came utter disappointment.
Don Giovanni simply was not appealing at all to me. First, let me start off by talking about the set, one of the few parts of the opera that I did appreciate. I thought that the idea of the set being accommodated to be transformed into multiple different settings was clever and that it added another dimension to the play. In the opening scene, where we saw Leporello sitting down on the front steps next to Donna Anna’s house, I thought, “Wow, this set is really small,” but later on, the set opened up into a party scene with everybody dancing which showed its versatility.
The only other part of the play that I appreciated of the opera was the music. There was a constant flow of music playing throughout the whole opera which did make it more enjoyable and did add to the overall experience. It was actually soothing to hear the music and did really help me almost go to sleep during the second act until the fire ignited out of nowhere. The singing of the people were also fantastic even though I didn’t really understand a word they were saying. I actually thought that the singing was actually pre-recorded and that the actors were just acting to the music. It wasn’t until intermission was I told that the actors are really singing as they are acting which made me appreciate their efforts a lot more.
Next up on the list, the costumes. Since we were sitting sooo far away, I couldn’t really tell who was talking at any given time, what the actors looked like, and who wearing what, but it seemed to me that some of them were wearing ragged old clothing which befuddled me.
So what did I think of the actual Opera? This is where it all goes downhill… I thought that the opera was really, really, really boring. The plot lacked substance, as it was just about this one guy who goes around fiddling with many different women from many different counties–especially the ones from Spain. One major downfall of the opera, for me would be the fact that it was in Italian, a language which I have no proficiency in and is completely foreign to me. I was in a three-way battle, the battle between reading the words, having the time to look at the opera while reading the translations, and falling asleep. In the end, it was a draw between reading and watching while reading, as I did not completely fall asleep. I didn’t really come out with anything after viewing Don Giovanni, other than “The flames were cool.”
Do I think the performance was successful in appealing to a younger audience? Absolutely not. I mean, which teenager really wants to go to the opera to watch a bunch of people singing in a foreign language repeating their lines multiple times… definitely not me. That wasn’t the only turnoff, it was also the plot which made it boring because it simply wasn’t relevant to us. The opera took place in the 1700’s with people who have completely different problems to us.
Pertaining to the question of the experience of Don Giovanni, as a fantasy or nightmare, I’m a little ambivalent. I would say that it was a nightmare in a sense that I direly wanted to get out of the opera as soon as it ended and a fantasy in the sense that I got to see all these rich people in there natural habitats, the metropolitan opera house. During intermission, is when all these people came out and I saw the fantasy side of New York.
All in all, even though I despised the opera, I would say that it was a positive experience for me since I got to experience what opera is like. If there was a record for the most amount of performances, events, or exhibitions disliked, I probably would have broken that record but hopefully, the next event is better.
