Category: 19 October: Don Giovanni

We went to watch Don Giovanni at the Metropolitan Opera House last week. It was my first time actually going inside the Metropolitan Opera House and I was a little excited from either how I dressed or the fact it was my first time. I passed by it every day on my way to school back when I was in high school, but I never actually went. The opera was not bad either. However, I had trouble keeping myself awake because of what time the opera was at. I usually sleep around that time so I kept on dozing off throughout the show. It was a shame I missed a few parts because of that.

Because we read about Don Giovanni before attending the opera, the storyline was easy to follow. Something that I didn’t expect from just reading about the opera, however, was Leoporello’s character. Actually seeing everything I read about in real life action was surprisingly nice. After each of the character’s introductory scene, I would be either surprised at how different the character was from how I interpreted it or have a strange sense of satisfaction because the character was exactly how I imagined it to be. Leoporello ended up being my favorite character because of all the comic relief he was in charge of. The scenes with Leoporello in it usually made me laugh, which was something I unknowingly looked forward to. However, his loyalty to Giovanni was a little weird. One would think, with the treatment he has received from his master, he would have quit being his servant already and tried to find a new master ages ago, but he stuck with Giovanni all the way to the end. I could not really understand why.

My favorite scene from the opera was the part where Giovanni got dragged down to hell. However, I actually wanted Don Giovanni’s victims to be the ones to kill him instead. Although, being dragged down to hell is more severe punishment than being killed, I felt like he deserved it, especially if he was killed by Donna Anna, whose father was murdered by him.

The pit orchestra was also very skilled. I applaud them for being able to sit and play their instruments for so long. Every time I see a show with a pit orchestra playing along with the performance, I am always amazed from the synchronization. Overall, Thursday night was filled with new experiences and I did enjoy most of the opera.

Over this past week, we saw the opera Don Giovanni and I absolutely loved it. I loved being able to read what was going on in front of me, and the fact that they had many different languages, but I’m surprised they didn’t have Russian. I like the plot of the opera and the scenes that were active, but contrary to popular opinion I did not enjoy the arias. I disliked the lack of movement and that really made those parts of the opera somewhat boring, but everything else was great. I especially loved the fire and the floor opening from below. Seeing this opera has influenced me to want to see another some day.  After the first act, I realized that operas are not as fast paced as plays.  The first act was about two hours long and it was hard to sit through it so I needed to buy a five dollar coffee which was ridiculous but it got me through the next act.  In the next act I moved up to a closer seat and I have to say it caused to have a worse time than before.  When I was sitting in my original seat, I was in the last row in the family circle and I was able to sit far back enough to be able to see the words and the stage at the same time.  When I moved up I had to continuously move my head up and down to be able to pay attention to both the words and the action.  Before I saw the opera, I watched a 3 minute summary of the opera on youtube so that I could read the words at points and not worry too much about the action on the stage and I think that was a good decision because I was able to really understand what was going on.  I also did not realize how popular this opera was, but the woman who sat next to me told me that this was almost her twentieth time seeing this opera and that although she didn’t know Italian, she was watching the opera without subtitles because she wanted it to enjoy.  I hope to get to the point where I can watch an opera comfortably without subtitles.

I originally thought I was not going to like “Don Giovanni.”  I am a huge fan of the arts at Lincoln Center, especially ballets, but I was not too excited to see a three hour show on a Wednesday night.   I was very skeptical of the opera because of the plot.  Don Giovanni is a “Don Juan” character who seduces women, is very irrational, and amoral.  This did not sound appealing because sexual violence is one of my biggest fears.  I was pleasantly surprised with how much I enjoyed the performance.  I do not speak or understand Italian, so I was very happy to see the translator on the back of the chair.  If I did not understand what the characters were singing I do not think I would have enjoyed the performance as much as I did because I found the opera to be a drama with comedy.  My favorite character was Don Giovanni’s servant because of the hilarious remarks he made throughout the scenes.  I think the funniest moments were when Don Giovanni’s servant would narrate the true intentions or facts about his master when he was trying to seduce the women.  My favorite scene with Don Giovanni’s servant was when he proclaimed that he quit being a servant, but Don Giovanni put coins in a row to lead him back.  His servant came back crawling and picked up every coin that was placed down.  It reminded me of when someone is trying to lead an animal to their cage or to a room, which was why I found it funny.

I enjoyed the first act because I felt that the story was building and building until the last scene.  It was comical to see how Don Giovanni was “digging his own grave” through all of his actions and wrongdoings to the wrong group of people.  The second act was slow at certain times.  The arias were beautiful, but very long.  My favorite scenes were the last few of the second act.  Throughout the whole performance I was extremely curious with how the opera was going to end.  I was expecting one of the women or men in the show to die, not Don Giovanni himself.  During the scene where the towns people were looking for Don Giovanni at the time his servant was dressed in his clothes, I expected them to kill his servant and then he was going to make an escape.  I was not expected the ghost to come to Don Giovanni’s house and drag him to Hell.  The ending was very satisfying because it conveyed the message that all wrongdoing will be punished in the afterlife.

Don Giovanni Blog

   Last week my classmates and I took a trip to the Metropolitan Opera at Lincoln Center to see Mozart’s Don Giovanni. The experience was interesting to say the least. The thing that struck me when I first arrived at the Met were the people dressed up so nicely. Although I did expect people to be dresses half-way decent, I did not expect to see people in suites and other clothing items that are deemed fancy. Another thing that stood out to me at the Met was the red carpeted stairs, they seemed so elegant and almost felt out of place in New York City. We think of New York as such a rough and tumble, hardnosed town that something as simple as stairs help to transport us to a more elegant time. The show started pretty much how I expected with the rape of Anna and the killing of her father by Don Giovanni. The way the show progressed was a surprise to me, I didn’t believe that all the people Don Giovanni wronged would meet and try to collectively bring him down. The scene that confused me the most in the opera was when Leporello disguised himself as Don Giovanni, and vice versa. I know this may sound stupid, but the entire time it was bugging me how nobody noticed that the two had just switched clothes. Also their voices are completely different. I found the translators on the seats very helpful, but at some points kind of awkward. Since the opera is sung in Italian and I read it translated into English the lyrics sometimes don’t seem to match up sometimes. What I mean is the words in Italian sound good together, but in English they don’t rhyme. Here in America in modern times we are so used to hearing songs with lyrics that rhyme that any deviation from this just doesn’t make any sense. One last thing that stuck me a bit about this opera was the emphasis put on the singing in the opera. Although obviously a main part of the show is the singing, it isn’t necessarily the only proponent of the show. There is also a component of the show that entails the singers act too. Not only did I find the acting rather subpar, but I also felt the writing wasn’t very good. Again this is probably the fact this opera was written over 215 years ago and tastes were different then.

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.

The experience overall of the opera wasn’t what I was expecting. I thought that I would be asleep most of the time, wake up three and a half hours later, and be on my way home. But instead, I was pleasantly surprised that I stayed awake through the whole opera and actually enjoyed seeing the actors and listening to their super-human voices. Part of the reason why it was so entertaining is because I can’t imagine how much practice and hard work it must have taken to get to the level of singing that the actors are at. Not only do they have to sing and memorize lines in a different language, but to hold that voice for three hours is astounding. These people have more talent than I could ever dream of having.

I was actually entertained by the plot. Even though the plot was about a man who raped thousands of women, I still enjoyed it. I was also surprised that some parts actually made me laugh. It’s very impressive that even in an opera in a foreign language, actors still were able to make the audience laugh. My favorite part of the play was when the ghost of the Commendatore came at the very end to send Don Giovanni to Hell. It was entertaining to finally see justice be brought to this man after hours of watching him escape people.

So after the first Act Gil and I decided that we would move down to lower levels. At first, we didn’t want to risk it because we didn’t want to be kicked out of the theater. So at first we attempted to move down to the orchestra seats because we were very greedy to get the best possible view of the show. We made our decision to move down relatively late in intermission so we were rushing to get a seat. Sadly, we accidentally went to a section that exclusively had suit seats only and there was a man who stopped us and asked for our seat numbers and since we didn’t know what to say we had to move up. So we moved up to the second row of seats and we sat down in two seats that had nobody in them. Another minuet of wandering around and we wouldn’t have been able to see the second act because we would have been locked out. These seats had head rests and more leg room so the performance was a lot more enjoyable.

I’m looking forward to watching a Bronx Tale with the class.

This week after class we went to the Metropolitan Opera House to see Don Giovanni. To my surprise, I found Don Giovanni to be more interesting than I anticipated. The opera is written by child prodigy, Mozart and Lorenzo Da Ponte was the librettist. Although the opera still felt somewhat long, those 3 hours went by quicker than I thought they would. I still don’t know if going to an opera is something I would do again on my own leisure, but I have to give all of the actors props. Boy, do they have amazing voices. Their voices filled all of Lincoln Center and they were able to sing and act simultaneously. I also really enjoyed the orchestra. This was my first time having seen a live orchestra and it was so amazing to watch. It was so interesting to see the orchestra playing throughout the entire opera and hearing the music to highlight certain notes being sung. For example, as Leporello was describing all the different women from his little book of names that his master has seduced, the music changed with each description, really adding to the effect of him describing all the many types.

Don Giovanni is an opera about a young man who has sex and pulls in every woman he sees. He discriminated no one, and everyone should get a sample of the amazing man he apparently is. This is because there are numerous women, but just one of him to go around. Most of the men he meets rightly don’t like him, and he even has a large set of women with whom he isn’t on good terms. I didn’t originally like that the opera was going to be sung in Italian because I thought it would be impossible to understand, but the screens on the chairs certainly helped.

Leporellos character was one I was somewhat intrigued by. He’s the first person we meet and his first remarks have to do with how much his master doesn’t appreciate him. Throughout the opera, he continues making subtle remarks about, or making fun of Don Giovanni. If he hated his job so much and so strongly disliked Don Giovanni, he would have quit or at least not helped him accomplish all his mischief. I think him and Dona Elvira are somewhat similar because they both seem to have that little faith in Don Giovanni becoming a better person, which he clearly doesn’t.

I liked the first half much better than the second. Maybe it was because it was getting so late, but I enjoyed the more livelihood of the first half. There was more movement, less arias, and more little jokes here and there. Regardless, I’m grateful for having been able to experience such a moment, and it was definitely a new experience.

This past Thursday the whole class attended a performance of Don Giovanni at the Metropolitan Opera House at Lincoln Center.  In the beginning of the night I was not happy about attending the opera because the next day I had a chemistry lab final, but the opera did turn out to be enjoyable.  The plot of the opera was extremely interesting and complex.  Don Giovanni enjoys women whether they are willing or not then moves on.  He rationalizes his actions by claiming that if he settled on one woman it would be a disservice to every other woman in the world because he would be depriving them of him.  Don Giovanni’s past catches up with him when Donna Elvira catches up with him and vows to make him pay for abandoning her after making her fall for him.  This is all after Don Giovanni kills the father of a woman that he had been attempting to sexually assault, Donna Anna, in a duel.  Donna Elvira ends up helping Donna Anna and her fiance Don Ottavio expose Don Giovanni before he can corrupt the engaged to marry Donna Zerlina.

As I watched the opera I became extremely involved within the story and began looking under the surface for deeper meanings within the plot.  Leporello is extremely loyal to Don Giovanni even though he acknowledges the error in Don Giovanni’s ways.  Leporello begs him more than once to change his ways yet it is to no avail.  I think that this in addition to Leporello’s side remarks mean that Leporello secretly wants to be Don Giovanni.  In Shakespearean times there was no social mobility.  Leporello could be twice the ladies’ man that Don Giovanni is but due to his standing as a servant will never allow this to occur.  Another thing that I thought about near the end of the opera was the manner in which Don Giovanni was punished.  Don Giovanni was very literally was dragged down to hell.  Don Giovanni spent his entire existence doing whatever he wanted with virtually no consequences.  The basis of many different religions is that actions have consequences, so Don Giovanni was basically spent a lifetime spitting in their faces.  The death of Don Giovanni not only serves as a message to others not to follow Don Giovanni’s path, but is extremely violent and painful as if years of punishments were saved up and released into one painful, agonizing moment.

While watching, I understood why it is still an extremely popular opera.  A peice of art or literature survives hundreds of years because it has a specific quality.  Art or literature that can apply to any time period survives for many years because people can relate to it.  Don Giovanni could be updated to take place in modern times and still make complete sense.

Last Wednesday our trip to the opera was actually surprisingly enjoyable. The opera, Don Giovanni focused on a man  who went all around Europe seducing and forcing himself upon women. I found it interesting that an opera from so long ago managed to keep itself relevant for so long. Oddly enough I found that the opera could almost some what be related to the modern day if the characters were merely given different roles. I managed to compare this to the modern day when my friend who asked about the experience asked for a twenty first century explanation of the plot of the opera. The way I explained it to him was basically there was what people would call a f**k boy today, going around hooking up with a bunch of women and playing with their emotions and when he attempted to rape this one lady, he and her father fought and he killed him. In my English class, I also saw this relation to the modern day. For a while we had  been discussing the hookup culture and one person in the class mentioned that we had the trip to the opera last week.  We then began to discuss how classical music differs from popular music today. As an example figure for popular music we looked at Miley Cyrus and compared Don Giovanni to her music. Someone brought up the point that music now a days seems to be focused more on the idea of sex and people being sexualized and someone who had not seen the opera thought that this opera would be way more reserved and conservative. I disagreed with this point because Don Giovanni went around literally having sex and raping everyone.  I found it odd that even though I was expecting for this to be conservative the poor woman who was getting married to Massetto was clearly trying to seduce Massetto after he had been injured and also Donna Elvira was basically throwing herself at Don Giovanni. Donna Elvira even had intercourse with Leporello disguised as Don Giovanni outside in the street, which is something I would not have imagined. Don Giovanni made it basically seem as if though the idea of rape was something that was in fact tolerable. The reason the idea of rape was something that one can almost laugh about in this opera is because of the very lighthearted and whimsical music that played when Leporello was talking to Donna Elvira about Don Giovanni’s conquests. During the intermission I heard someone talking about the rape culture that exist in the opera and how this is something that people tend to view lightheartedly. Overall, I did manage to enjoy myself in the opera it was enjoying to listen to such nice voices. Thank goodness there were screens infant of our chairs. What I enjoyed the most about the opera was that often lines were being repeated so one did not have to necessarily watch the screen and could enjoy the theatrical performance side of it as well. The ambiance of the entire place was filled with elegance which was something I also enjoyed.

On October 19th, we took a trip as a class to go see the classic opera, Don Giovanni. I was not really looking forward to going because I knew I would get home very late, and would be tired for a midterm the next day.

Having said that, it was definitely an experience to remember. The atmosphere outside and inside the Lincoln Center was very high class. Many people were dressed splendidly for the occasion, in elegant gowns for the ladies and suits for the men.  Our seats were pretty high up but it was still enjoyable. Anthony and I decided to go down to the second level for the second act and that made it even better.

The plot of the opera centralizes around a young cavalier, Don Giovanni, who goes around Western Europe getting as many women as he can to sleep with him. However, he does this by gaining their trust and telling them that he’ll marry them, and then leaving them in the dead of night, breaking many hearts along his journey. Several of his former lovers seek justice for his wrongdoings, and he spends the opera deceiving and fooling them out of catching him using his servant, Leporello. The entire opera is written very well, able to change moods from happy to frightened to anxious very quickly. A large part of this versatility was the orchestra.

Throughout the opera, the orchestra plays a huge role. The music always matched the current mood of the action transpiring on stage; whether it was a more upbeat section, such as Massetto and Zerlina’s wedding, or during the very dramatic parts like Don Giovanni’s murder of Donna Elvira’s father, or his own death. All of the singers were amazing. Just the fact that they could project their voice up to where we were sitting over the orchestra astounded me. The contrasts between their voices, and their scopes showed how truly talented these people are.

I personally enjoyed the orchestra even over the singers’ voices, just because the singers kept repeating the same words over and over. I realize that may be contradictory, because the musicians played the same notes over and over, but I digress.

All in all, i’m very happy I got to see one of the most famous operas of all time. It was very long for my taste, and i’m not sure whether i’m going to see another one anytime soon. I am, however, looking forward to seeing A Bronx Tale in a few weeks, as I really like plays.