Don Giovanni

[poliphilo]

Classical opera speaks a strange language.

If the soprano is doing lots of trill-embellished vocal gymnastics it doesn't mean she's a shallow drama-queen but that she's in the grip of some deep and disturbing emotion and I should be paying her close attention and not waiting for her to shut up so something more interesting can happen.

And if the baritone sings something simple and pretty, it doesn't mean that he's Mother Nature's Son; it means he's a heartless cheat.

Complexity = sincerity: simplicity = duplicity. It's a formulation that goes clean against my mid-20th century instincts.

We watched the Joe Losey film of Don Giovanni yesterday. This is Mozart made easy. If the piggy little romantic hero spends too long over his aria I can tune him out and enjoy the Palladian architecture instead.

This is Don Octavio I'm talking about. I don't know who the singer was, but he looked like Ernie Wise.

Otherwise the casting is splendid. Raimondo Ruggieri has eyes that shine in the dark. Kiri ti Kanawa is wonderfully demented as the madwoman in the attic.

My favourite character is the hermaphroditic page who acts as Don Giovanni's shadow. Yes, I know, s/he's not in the script. Dare I say that what I liked best about her/him is that s/he keeps her mouth shut?

Gorgeous music. Gorgeous and mostly over my head.

Like being confronted with a wall-full of hieroglyphics.

Comments

[strange-complex.livejournal.com]

I entirely agree. In fact, the rules in baroque opera seem to be that the higher the male voice is, the more heroic and admirable he is, and the lower, the more villainous. Rodelinda is a fabulous example, where the romantic hero is a countertenor (or, originally, a castrato, of course), the villain a bass, and the greedy but ultimately weak intermediary between the two of them a tenor. I find it does work quite well for me if the hero is a male counter-tenor, but even then you need to be acclimatised to that style of singing, I think.

Baroque opera does tend to offer more in the way of simple but emotionally arresting melodies, though. It certainly does by comparison with Romantic opera, which (with one or two exceptions) I frankly can't stand. While I consider myself an opera nut, what I really mean whenI say that is that I'm a baroque opera nut. And I'm more than ready to forgive people who say they don't like opera, because I know that in most cases, all they've ever heard is the tuneless wailing and warbling which seems to constitute Romantic opera.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

I wonder if the human brain is wired to find high-pitched noises more thrilling- and disturbing.

Something to do with the noises predators and their victims make-

Only a thought.....

[strange-complex.livejournal.com]

Hmm, yes - they certainly demand attention in a way that lower pitches don't. Which I suppose is why victims in particular make high-pitched noises, to attract attention and help.

My interpretation of the high=good, low=bad arrangements in baroque opera has always been that it is to do with 'heavenliness'. I suspect that a high voice would have been seen by contemporaries as being loftier, and closer to God, while a low one was devilish and demonic. After all, children have high voices, and they are pure and innocent.

[arielstarshadow.livejournal.com]

Not all children...

http://www.skary.net/

[strange-complex.livejournal.com]

Hehehe! Oh, thanks for the link! That was great. :)

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

I think your interpretation is almost certainly the right one.

It still holds true, I think, that we like our heroes to have light voices. I can't think, off-hand, of any deep-voiced male movie star.