When reading the libretto, I thought of Don Giovanni as being more tragic than comedic. There were some comedic moments that seemed to be sprinkled throughout the libretto; for example, Leporello’s aria where he sings about the different women that Don Giovanni has been with. Don Giovanni as a whole (the libretto and the opera) is a mix of both comedy and tragedy, but to me, the libretto highlights the tragedies and the opera highlights the comedic moments. While watching the opera, I felt myself laughing more than I felt myself feeling sad for the characters. There were a lot more moments in the opera that when acted out, was funnier than read in the libretto. For example, I didn’t think that interactions between Don Giovanni and Leporello when they were alone were as funny as the opera made it seem. When I was reading it in the libretto, I thought it had a more serious tone, rather than Don Giovanni joking and playing around with Leporello. Everything though, did happen because of Don Giovanni’s tragic flaw, which is his womanizing ways. He didn’t even repent at the end, which ultimately caused his death. Even with such a tragic ending (or what was supposed to be tragic), the rest of the characters like Zerlina, Don Octavio, Donna Anna, Masseto, Donna Elvira and Leporello made everything light-hearted as they each told the audience what they were going to do. For example, one of the two couples said they were just going to go back home to eat dinner, and Leporello only said that he was going to find a new master. With each tragic scene, the next scene seems to offset the tragic atmosphere with comedy. To me, it seems like the live version of Don Giovanni was more comedic than tragic.

There were clear differences in class that were reflected in the libretto and the opera. Clothes, for instance, were strikingly different between the nobility and the peasants. Even the names give off the clear differences in social class; the nobility had Don/Donna in front of their names whereas the peasants were just referred to as their first names. Mere actions in the opera defined the differences in social class. For example, Leporello practically tends to everything Don Giovanni does, because Don Giovanni is his master and therefore is of higher status than him. When Don Giovanni drops down Leporello’s jacket (after they switched clothes) Leporello rushed to pick up the jacket and puts it back on Don Giovanni. Don Giovanni exudes an air of nobility when dealing with women, like Zerlina and Donna Elvira.

The music did enhance the story. There were certain parts where the music became thunderous, which was almost like a warning to the audience that there was something bad happening. This anticipation creates a mood, and that enhanced the story. The music were like cues to the different scenes and set up the transitions between the different scenes. The music definitely reflecte the type of relationships between the characters, therefore reflecting the mood at the particular scene. For example, most of the scenes where Leporello and Don Giovanni interact had light-hearted music, when it was more comedic than tragic. The music enhances the story and gives you expectations.

Opera differs from the contemporary performances in the way that it incorporates dancing, singing and acting. It is more structured in the sense that the actors have to become someone else and express emotions that the character is feeling, whereas in contemporary performances it seems like the dancers are able to express themselves to a certain extent given the choreography. They don’t have to pretend to be someone else, but instead can be themselves. To me, operas are more enjoyable since it is more clear in its story line, whereas contemporary performances can be interpreted in so many different ways.

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart was a composer who changed the world of music dramatically. One of his most famous operas, Don Giovanni was a pleasure to see, even though it was very long. After reading the libretto, and after viewing the opera in real life, I can say that I feel that Don Giovanni was a perfect blend of a tragedy and a comedy. A tragedy in literature is defined as a a “literary and particularly a dramatic presentation of serious actions in which the chief character has a disastrous fate.” This means that a protagonist will have a characteristic that causes his/her downfall. Don Giovanni is a tragedy in a sense that Don Giovanni’s womanizing ways caused his downfall.
Don Giovanni can also be considered a comedy because of Leporello. He was the main comedic character and I found it extremely funny during his song about all the women Don Giovanni played.

As said during class, there was a class difference shown in the libretto. It was pointed out that all the higher class characters contained “Don/Donna” in front of their name, such as Don Giovanni, Donna Anna, Dona Elvira, and Don Octavio. All the lower class characters did not contain anything, such as Leporello, Zerlina and Masseto. We also talked about how the nobility had a right over their slaves and that could have represented a class difference as well.

I felt that the music really enhanced the  story. I believe Mozart created something that did not become the story, but helped guide the story. During the “funny” parts, the music was extremely light and melodious and for me, it helped create an atmosphere that enhanced the way the story moved. The scene with the Commendatore at the end was extremely dramatic and dark, and the music reflected that as well. There was never a time where I felt that the music told the story; to me the music helped create an atmosphere which guided the plot.

Don  Giovanni was the first opera I saw in my life. Although the opera was long and there were times when I wanted to just close my eyes, I thought it was extremely interesting. I also believe that reading the libretto before viewing the opera really helped. I was able to anticipate what was going to happen and I was able to fully understand the story. Don Giovanni was different from the other performances we watched, which mostly revolved around dance. In dance, the movement to the music told a story and in the opera, the music helped to enhance the story.  The other performances were also very contemporary and unique and a classic like Don Giovanni was a great contrast to that. My two favorite shows we’ve seen this semester were Don Giovanni and Fall for Dance. In comparing all the performances I’ve seen, I think that I enjoy watching shows that are less contemporary and more classic and standard even though I enjoyed having the experience of viewing all of them.

Don Giovanni is Mozart’s masterpiece opera. It is simultaneously tragic and comedic, transitioning seamlessly between the two. Don Giovanni is a tale of a reckless womanizer who will stop at nothing to make as many conquests as possible. Through a series of encounters with past lovers, his act is unravelled and he is ultimately sent to hell for his crimes. Though two people die in this opera, there are moments of profound wit and comedic relief from Leporello and Giovanni. After reading the libretto, I had classified the opera as a comedy. However, the operatic rendition took me by surprise; the set was large and overbearing, the costumes drab and dark. It seemed that, for the director, the tragic dimension of the opera overpowered the comedic dimension in the performances. Seeing the opera on the stage and not just reading it gave it a different dimension. Despite the themes of betrayal, jealousy, and revenge that pervaded the opera, the content seemed light and comedic. The performances were comedic: Don Giovanni’s plots and conquests were funny and ridiculous, often throwing Leporello into the craziness with a result of Leporello’s comedic remarks about his master. Don Giovanni himself never seems to take anything seriously, and the other characters look overly dramatic as a result. These instances of comedic relief from Leporello and Don Giovanni keep the opera light, despite the deaths of both the Commendatore and Don Giovanni, and the continual grief of Donna Anna. Ultimately, it seems that Don Giovanni can be interpreted as either a tragedy or a comedy, depending on the audience.

Class differences in Don Giovanni were quite apparent. Don Giovanni feels entitled to his womanizing with peasants and noblewomen alike due to his noble status. Though Leporello is his only true friend, he treats him badly and makes fun of him, often making him an accomplice in his plots. Donna Anna and Don Ottavio are stunned to see this type of behavior from a nobleman, as if his high status is meant to represent his high moral standing. Don Giovanni’s plots revealed the difference in the strength of the romantic relationships in the opera. Don Ottavio holds a strong allegiance to Donna Anna throughout the opera, pledging to catch the villain who seduced her and who killed her father. Even when it seems she has been seduced by Don Giovanni, he believes her when she says it went no further once she found out it wasn’t him. On the other hand, Masetto isn’t so trusting of Zerlina. At the first signs of infidelity, he seems to want to leave her, unable to believe that there is nothing going on between her and Don Giovanni. Mozart portrays the nobles’ love as stronger and less susceptible to jealousy than the peasants’ love. The only two instances of equality between the peasants and the nobles are when Leporello states that Don Giovanni will go after any woman regardless of her class, and when the peasants and nobles stand together at the end of the opera, united by Don Giovanni’s death and their justice.

Don Giovanni, like any opera, is driven by its music. Operas are reliant on their music because it is the only form of communication; it drives the plot forward and reveals the tone of the scene as well as the character’s feelings. When reading the libretto, one can only imagine the feelings of the characters. Yet the instrumentals and vocals of the opera truly revealed the tone of the opera. In light scenes, such as Leporello’s listing of all of Don Giovanni’s conquests, there was light and lilting music, meant to convey the comedy and hilarity of the content. Yet in darker scenes such as the scene when the Commendatore asks Don Giovanni to ‘dine’ with him, there was deeper, slower music that conveyed the dramatic and ominous content. The music alternated between light and heavy, comedic and tragic; this helped represent the duality in the tone of the opera.

I am a huge fan of opera and have now seen twelve operatic performances at the Metropolitan Opera House. This experience was not a new one for me, yet I appreciated it all the same because of its antiquity. There was something nice about dressing up and going to a performance at an old opera house. The costumes, music, and acting all added to the spectacle of the night. Opera itself is large and grand, as reflected in the opera house itself. As opposed to the modern performances we saw, there was something more respected and traditional about opera, rather than new and experimental such as Roseann Spradlin’s “beginning of something”. Because I had a lot of previous experience with operas, it was the modern performances that truly put the opera in perspective. I saw its enormity and grandeur in a new light. Though this wasn’t my favorite rendition of Don Giovanni, I appreciated the operatic skill of the performers and the stylistic efforts of the costume makers and set designers to create such an all-encompassing world for the opera. After all the modern dance performances, I saw this opera with new eyes.

“House Divided”, directed by Mirianne Weemes was a theatre performance which incorporated ideas from John Steinbecks famous novel “The Grapes of Wrath” and applied them to the modern mortage crisis. It was performed at Brooklyn Academy of Music’s Harvey Theatre.

The performance included large digital displays, and a house structure that also acted as a digital display throughout. Performers would act within the house structure as well outside of it. The setting of the house was in Columbus, Ohio, where the Joad family had to travel from. As in “The Grapes of Wrath”, the Joad’s had to make a long journey to California, where most of the lower class were migrating to for work and land during the time of the Great Depression. They were kicked off of their own land, and suffered with poverty and sickness throughout their path across America. The worst form of sufferering was that of homelessness, and leaving behind land that had history and meaning to the family.

“House Divided” alternated between fictional scenes of the Joad families hardships and non-fictional scenes of modern day people dealing with Americas current mortgage crisis. The modern scenes include interviews with businessmen who make a profit from foreclosed homes or invest in them, a young woman acting as a foreclosing agent, and dialogue between two stockbrokers.

With watching this performance, I would have to agree with Phelans view on liveliness. Phelan believes that the human body is unique and that live performance cannot be shared with media. On the other hand, Auslander states that there is no clear cut distinction between human and technology in a production, and that the two can be morphed. In “House Divided”, the media overpowered the personal feel that a live performance usually leaves the audience with. Without the media, I usually find myself running through several emotions like when watching Pina Bausch’s piece last week. After “House Divided”, all that I left the theatre with was thoughts of the digitalized house and images, and the performances connection with “Grapes of Wrath”. I do not remember the performers faces or clothes. Although I do not wish to demean the value of the performers and their hard work, they were overshadowed by the media. Even when some of the characters were speaking, I found myself looking at their projected faces on one of the screens rather than their actual faces.

When listening to the directors talk after the show, I would have to side with the first older woman who seemed to be bashing on the piece. I was not left feeling wrath, or even any other emotion. I was simply left with a little more understanding of the foreclosure crisis in history and modern times of America. Rather than a performance, I would almost call this piece a type of documentary because of the lack of emotion that I felt. Overall, I would agree that in “House Divided”, media plus live performance amounted to simply media.