Mozart Summer: The Magic Flute and Don Giovanni
This has been Mozart Summer in San Francisco, with film-inspired productions of The Magic Flute (Die Zauberflöte) by San Francisco Opera and Don Giovanni by the Merola Opera Program.
The Magic Flute
Pamina (Christina Gansch, left) is terrorized by Monostatos (Zhengyi Bai, right) in Mozart's The Magic Flute at SF Opera. Photo credit: Cory Weaver. Image source: SF Opera
Performers: Amitai Pati (Tamino), Lauri Vasar (Papageno), Anna Siminska (The Queen of Night), Zhengyi Bai (Monostatos), Christina Gansch (Pamina), Kwangchul Youn (Sarastro), Arianna Rodriguez (Papagena), with the SF Opera Orchestra conducted by Eun Sun Kim.
Production: Barrie Kosky and Suzanne Andrade; animation design: Paul Barritt; stage and costume design: Esther Bialas; company: San Francisco Opera; venue: War Memorial Opera House. Seen June 30.
In an earlier post I outlined the problems with Emanuel Schikaneder's libretto for Mozart's The Magic Flute: I find it racist, sexist, misogynistic, hypocritical, and dislike its use of spoken rather than sung dialogue. Barrie Kosky and Suzanne Andrade's clever production solves some of these problems by turning the opera into a Weimar-era expressionist film. That takes care of the problematic stretches of dialogue, which in a very clever and effective idea are replaced by intertitles. The bird-catcher Papageno (Lauri Vasar) is dressed like Buster Keaton, the captive princess Pamina (Christina Gansch) wears a Louise Brooks bob, and the villainous Monostatos (Zhengyi Bai) is made up and costumed to look like Max Schreck's Nosferatu.
Max Schreck as the vampiric title character in F.W. Murnau's Nosferatu, eine Symphonie des Grauens (Nosferatu, A Symphony of Horror (1922)).
That last alteration significantly reduces the racism; in the original libretto, the impulsive, lustful and treacherous Monostatos is characterized as "ein Mohr"—a Moor.
All the singers wear the heavy whiteface makeup worn by actors in the silent era. Projected animations referencing Lotte Reiniger's "silhouette-film" The Adventures of Prince Achmed (1926)—as well as Disney's Dumbo (1941) and Peter Pan (1953)—create the spaces in which the characters enact the story. [1]
The Queen of Night (Anna Siminska) is turned into a giant black spider:
The Queen of Night (So Young Park) and Prince Tamino (Bogdan Volkov) in LA Opera’s 2019 production of the Kosky/Andrade/Barritt/Bialas Magic Flute. Photo credit: Cory Weaver. Image source: San Francisco Classical Voice
After her Three Ladies (Olivia Smith, Ashley Dixon and Maire Therese Carmack) rescue Prince Tamino (Amitai Pati) from a giant serpent, the Queen of Night demands that he free her daughter Pamina, who is being held captive by the evil mage Sarastro (Kwangchul Youn). But Tamino will discover—no surprise, perhaps, considering the source of the information—that all is not what it seems. The Queen of Night's appearance as a menacing maternal arachnid seemed to refer to Louise Bourgeois's huge sculpture Maman (Mother, 1999):
Louise Bourgeois's Maman in Bürkliplatz, Zürich, Switzerland. Photo credit: Roland zh. Image source: Wikimedia Commons
As the images and descriptions above may suggest, the staging is visually astonishing and brilliantly allusive, as you can also see in the trailer below:
However, the production concept creates two issues which work against its effectiveness. The first is the mismatch between the visual allusions and the opera's characters. Papageno is not a stone-faced stoic like Keaton—on the contrary, he always wears his heart on his sleeve. (The Harold Lloyd of Safety Last! (1923) or Chaplin's Little Tramp might have been a better parallels.)
Esther Bialas' costume design for Papageno. Image source: SF Opera
And Pamina is neither a femme fatale like Lulu in Pandora's Box (1929) nor a "lost girl" (that is, prostitute) like Thymian Henning in Diary of a Lost Girl (1929), Louise Brooks' two most iconic roles.
Pamina (Zuzana Marková) in LA Opera’s 2019 production of The Magic Flute. Photo credit: Cory Weaver. Image source: San Francisco Classical Voice
The second issue is that the animations and film references function as distancing effects: the characters, their relationships and dilemmas get a bit lost in the constant flow of clever images and staging. Also, some of the character transformations are themselves problematic: the Queen of Night's characterization as a venomous spider makes her monstrous. That choice reinforces, rather than calls into question, the libretto's misogyny, and rather than complicating our understanding of the opposition between the Queen of Night and Sarastro, renders it more starkly, well, black & white.
The voices were all very good, although Gansch's delivery of Pamina's sorrowful "Ach, ich fühl's" perhaps lacked ideal warmth of tone. But for this viewer that was generally true of the production: amid the spectacle, emotion largely went missing. I would definitely see this staging again to try to take in more of the amazing imagery. But when I want to be moved by Mozart's music, Otto Klemperer's 60-year-old recording remains unsurpassed.
Don Giovanni
The servant Leporello (Donghoon Kang) clings to his master Don Giovanni (Hyungjin Son) in the Merola Opera Program's production of Don Giovanni. Photo credit: Kristen Loken; image source: SF Classical Voice
Performers: Hyungjin Son (Don Giovanni), Donghoon Kang (Leporello), Lydia Grindatto (Donna Anna), Viviana Aurelia Goodwin (Donna Elvira), Moriah Berry (Zerlina), Justice Yates (Masetto), Benjamin R. Sokol (Commendatore), and Michael John Butler (Don Ottavio) with the San Francisco Opera Center Orchestra conducted by Stefano Sarzani.
Production: Patricia Racette; scenic design: Andrew Boyce; lighting design: Davida Tkach; projection design: Ian Winters; costume design: Annie Smart; company: Merola Opera Program; venue: Caroline H. Hume Concert Hall, SF Conservatory of Music. Seen August 3.
From Weimar 1927 to Rome 1950: the inspiration for director Patricia Racette's production of Don Giovanni was the neorealist film movement in postwar Italy. During the overture we see a cameraman setting up on location and singers arriving pre-performance and trying on costumes. Projections (by Ian Winters) on the single set provided the backdrops for every scene, and sometimes looked "scratchy" like old celluloid.
But this conceit wasn't developed much further, and it didn't need to be. Racette is a highly regarded soprano with a long career at many American and European opera companies and a mantelpiece-full of awards. Based on this production, her stage experience really shows in her direction (she herself sang Donna Elvira at the Opera Theatre of St. Louis in 1998).
Her focus was less on the concept and more on helping the performers create fully fleshed-out characterizations. Interactions among the characters were also carefully thought through. As a result, this seemed more like a true ensemble work than merely a showcase for Hyungjin Son's excellently-sung Don Giovanni. The Rome 1950 concept wasn't entirely incidental, though: it did allow the women characters to wear some fabulous 1950s frocks, an opportunity not wasted by costume designer Annie Smart.
The aftermath: Masetto (Justice Yates) and Zerlina (Moriah Berry), Leporello (Donghoon Kang) and Donna Elvira (Viviana Aurelia Goodwin), and Donna Anna (Lydia Grindatto) and Don Ottavio (Michael John Butler) survey the wreckage and formulate plans after Don Giovanni's hellish demise. Photo credit: Kristen Loken; image source: SF Classical Voice
In addition to the Don Juan stories, Mozart's librettist Lorenzo Da Ponte is rumored to have based the character and exploits of Don Giovanni on his friend Giacomo Casanova. Let's hope not: over the course of the opera Don Giovanni, supposedly a great seducer, sexually assaults two women. [2]
The first is Donna Anna (the superb Lydia Grindatto, a singer clearly ready for major stages), daughter of the Commendatore (an impressively sonorous Benjamin R. Sokol) and the fiancée of Don Ottavio (sung lyrically and with more than usual ardency by Michael Jean Butler). Don Giovanni enters the Commendatore's house in disguise and surprises Donna Anna in her bedroom; in Racette's version there is no question that his rape attempt is strongly resisted. When Donna Anna raises the alarm, her father pursues and challenges the fleeing attacker. In the ensuing clash, the Commendatore is killed (Racette's direction brought out the brutality of this moment) and the unrecognized Don Giovanni flees. Donna Anna then demands a pledge from Don Ottavio to find her father's killer and avenge his death.
Don Ottavio (Michael Jean Butler) attempts to comfort Donna Anna (Lydia Grindatto) for the death of her father the Commendatore (Benjamin R. Sokol). Photo credit: Kristen Loken; image source: SF Classical Voice
The escaping Don Giovanni and his servant Leporello (well sung by a wonderfully hangdog Donghoon Kang) encounter Don Giovanni's former lover Donna Elvira (portrayed with beautifully mixed emotions by Viviana Aurelia Goodwin). Donna Elvira vows to try to thwart Don Giovanni's attempts to seduce other women, and joins forces with Donna Anna and Don Ottavio.
Don Giovanni and Leporello happen across the country wedding of Masetto (a firm-voiced Justice Yates) and Zerlina (sung beautifully and with an appropriate hint of vulnerability by Moriah Berry). He invites the whole party back to his palazzo and, with Leporello's aid, separates wife and husband. At he first seems to be making some headway with Zerlina, who is tempted by his wealth, status, and suavity. But swiftly losing patience with his lack of continued progress, he pounces. Her screams disrupt the party, which Donna Anna, Donna Elvira, and Don Ottavio are attending in masquerade. As Don Giovanni accuses Leporello of being the culprit, Donna Anna recognizes his voice as that of her attacker. Don Giovanni will escape all human retribution, though. . .
The score was crisply played by the authentically-sized SF Opera Center Orchestra under the assured baton of Stefano Sarzani. In short, this was a superior performance of this opera vocally, musically, and in its thoughtful and detailed staging by Racette. Many a major opera company would love to be able to produce a Don Giovanni so well-performed and -directed.
For another review, please see Lisa Hirsch, "Don Giovanni Gets a Powerful Production From Merola Opera Program," SF Classical Voice, 5 August 2024, which was the source of the images in this part of the post.
- Regarding the elements of this Magic Flute production that aren't consistent with the silent film era, such as Dumbo and Tinkerbell, in an interview included in the program Paul Barritt says that "we take our visual inspiration from many eras. . .the actual year isn't important as long as everything comes together visually."
- We learn that Don Giovanni has also coerced a third, Donna Elvira, with false promises of marriage. The multiplication of these "seduction" techniques by the 2,065 women he has slept with (according to Leporello's "Madamina, il catalogo è questo") is left as an exercise for the reader.
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