The Arts in New York City

Top of the morning ladies and gents! Unless of course you are reading this in the evening in which case bottom of the evening! In the next few paragraphs I will unravel the true meaning and magic of the opera and formulate opinions on whether it appeals to the youth of NYC and most importantly, if it represents NY as a nightmare/fantasy.

Critic Checklist

Wacky/gripping intro

Review of the plot and story

Review of the costume, set, and music

Does it appeal to the younger generation?

NY nightmare/fantasy

 There is always something special about your first _____. It always resonates in your mind, you know? Like the first time I ate a peach, my first day in college, the first time I called 911 by accident, the first time I prank called someone, the first time I got attacked by a squirrel, etc. Now, I was really excited to attend the opera because I wanted to see what all the fuss was about. Unfortunately, my first opera wasn’t as magical as I imagined in my head (I hate it when that happens).

Like Natasha, I believed the plot of the opera just seemed like a really bad soap opera. To be fair the story was quite interesting. As A-Lo (Alyssa) stated, there really is something eye-catching about a story of a man-whore. There were also a lot of moments where I giggled at the lines or the scenes. I will say the translator machine was a lifesaver as well as a distraction. There were times where I was bored and decided let’s read this in German! It was quite entertaining. Anyways, I feel the opera was unnecessarily too long; some of the songs could have been taken out. Honestly, how many times do we have to hear these woman singing, “oh my wretched heart…. I want vengeance.” -__-

I LOVED the set; it was incredibly intricate and just awesome. The fact that they were able to move those big block things to match so many different scenes and situations can only be explained by magic. The music was beautiful, hands-down the best part of the performance. It really complimented the story and set. The best part of the set was the FIRE! It was the greatest thing ever and I don’t think anyone expected it. Who would expect flamethrowers in an opera?!

For freshmen to the opera I don’t think Don Giovanni appealed to that many younglings. I can speak to myself and say it didn’t do a great job for me personally. It didn’t ruin the opera for me in general however, I didn’t find it that appealing…except for the fire of course. Also, I feel like the youth would have found the circus outside the MET much more appealing. ^_^

Lastly, it’s really hard for me to say because we haven’t been able to discuss this theme as much however, I would say the opera represents NYC as fantasy (despite the nightmarish hell-fire on the stage). Honestly, I had such a grand vision in my head of how the opera would be. You always see such high-class individuals attending operas. In movies and shows there is always such grandeur when it comes to the opera. I myself envisioned attending the opera with a top hat, monocle, and cane, if that doesn’t say dream I don’t know what does.

I’m kind of torn about my experience with Don Giovanni.  Even in the weeks leading up to it I was of two different minds—up until about last Friday or so, I was completely dreading it and I was sure I would loathe it.  To be fair to the opera, though, that was partially because my roommate is an opera singer and is Always.  Playing.  Opera.  Music.  But I digress; I’m not here to talk about my roommate problems!  I’m here to talk about opera problems!

My main complaint about opera is that it’s just not accessible to everyday people, and not just because it’s the strange combination of a poorly told story with beautiful music.  I mean, Mamma Mia is a story poorly told through Abba songs, but you don’t need to know Abba to at least like what you’re seeing (not that I think Abba music is beautiful in any way, but you know what I mean).  We actually needed to prepare to see Don Giovanni—I kind of think that theater shouldn’t require you to read the summary of the performance beforehand in order to understand what’s going on.  If you could go on Wikipedia and read the summary for free and understand more than someone who read no summary and paid over $100 to see the actual performance, I would say that we have a problem.

Now, that’s not to say I didn’t enjoy the performance—for the most part, I did.  I definitely enjoyed the first act and invested a lot of energy in reading all the subtitles and watching the performers, but I was kind of burned out by the time the second act rolled around.  I found myself studying the shading on the doors of the set rather than paying attention to what was going on with the story.  I thought the singers were all very good, particularly the young lady who played the peasant girl whose name started with a Z…but that brings me to another problem—the characters themselves!  Their names are barely mentioned more than three times throughout the entire opera!  Sure, Giovanni and Anna are easy enough to remember, but I found myself forgetting the more complicated names almost as soon as they were sung (or flashed across my little screen).  I also found it impossible to tell Giovanni and Leporello apart from where we were sitting, because you couldn’t tell who was singing and their costumes were too similar.  One of them should have had a more distinct costume, for the sake of the people sitting where we were.  I didn’t have a problem with any of the other costumes, though; in fact, I really, really liked the peasants’ costumes.  Their earth tones coordinated beautifully with the set, which used the same palette of colors (even though, as I think Alyssa pointed out, they might have been a bit too fancy for peasants).  While I’m mentioning the set, I also thought that was beautiful and creative.  Whoever designed it had a great idea to make it be able to move and easily create different scenes.

Now comes the answer to the big question—was Don Giovanni successful in appealing to a younger generation of operagoers?  Honestly, I’ve been thinking about this for a while, and I would have to say that the answer is no.  Even though I enjoyed the whole experience of doing something only rich people do (Kayde and I had a discussion on that monstrous line to the bathroom about how we had never seen so much velvet), and I also enjoyed the beautiful singing and exquisite score, I honestly don’t think I would ever pay to see another opera on my own just for the heck of it.  It’s just too expensive and too lengthy for me to become a frequent operagoer.  Even my roommate, who lives and dies by opera, told me it’s impossible for her to go as often as she would like because she just can’t afford it.

To answer the final question, I would say that the Metropolitan Opera definitely represents that fantasy side of New York (although I get the feeling that Eric would classify it as a nightmare).  I completely agree with Sylvia’s comparison of the New York of the opera to the New York of Manhattan—I could definitely see Woody Allen and Diane Keaton having a pseudointellectual conversation about Don Giovanni.  I kind of feel like right now would be a good moment to make a pun about fantasy/nightmare and Giovanni getting sucked into hell, but I think I’ve finally run out of steam.  Kind of like Don Giovanni itself.

But wait– BOOM! FIRE! SMOKE! I’M GETTING SUCKED INTO OPERA HELLLLLLL!

…sorry, did I just wake you up from your nap?