After class this past week we all went to see the play Don Giovanni at the Met Opera House in New York City. Going into it I had expected a three hour event where I would sit down and go to sleep until it was over. But rather, I stayed awake for the whole thing and actually enjoyed.
This was the first opera I have ever been to so I wasn’t sure what to expect. From all I had heard about it before, I always expected it to just be the performers outdoing each other with their singing; singing that holds on to each long note and even “breaks glass cups” like on TV. But rather, it seemed more like a play to me, which I think allowed me to enjoy it more. It wasn’t as “painful” because it didn’t feel like the performance stopped for one solo act and then continued. Rather the performers still sang but it was in a fashion that allowed the performance to still keep moving without slowing down to much. As a result it made the story line easier to follow, and for me easier to watch. I think if it was more drawn out I wouldn’t be able to tolerate it, but due to the play like feel it allowed me to follow along much better.
What caught me by surprise about the play was it’s ability to “translate” across to the audience. What I mean by this is two things. One being that the whole play was done in Italian, and even though I wasn’t able to translate what they were saying, the fact that me (who only speaks English) was able to tell when a joke was made just based off of actions, and sound (and a little bit from the text translator) was quite amazing; the fact that a performance like Don Giovanni can cross language barriers. What also amazed me was the fact that given the type of world that we live in when it comes to domestic violence and assault it also surprised me that a performance like Don Giovanni (which is all about woman getting raped) is so openly accepted by people even today. I would think that the type of things we look down on today would prevent people from going to see performances like this, but the crowd size at the show we went to proved quite the contrary.
Overall, I am glad to say that I very much enjoyed the show more than I thought I would and I definitely would recommend it to anybody who had never seen the opera before, or had and was looking for another show to see. It was time that I learned a lot from and will never forget.