Mozart’s anti-hero can be many things, just as his opera can be read on multiple levels. Ahead of a new production at Glyndebourne, director Mariame Clément considers truth, interpretation and legitimacy
It’s unusual for a director to write about her work, apart from texts for programme notes. What should I write about? I can start with what I don’t want to write about. Addressing the question of whether we can still perform Don Giovanni today? (Spoiler: we can). Not that the question isn’t relevant, but the production itself should be the answer. Explaining the meaning of the staging? Again, the production should speak for itself. Analysing the piece and exposing the various theories and interpretations of Da Ponte’s libretto and Mozart’s music? It would take more than a page in the Guardian, and it’s the job of academics. As a stage director, I’ve done my homework, but like the stitches in a dress, it shouldn’t be apparent. It’s the result that counts.
One definition of my job is telling the story. Sounds simple enough. What is the plot of Don Giovanni? Act one, scene one. Leporello is playing sentry for his master at night in front of Donna Anna’s house. Fighting is heard. Don Giovanni and Donna Anna storm out. He is masked, she is furious: he has attempted to rape her, and she intends to find out who he is. No, wait – in many productions I’ve seen, she’s following him because she loves him and doesn’t want to let him leave: the rape thing is a lie made up to protect her honour. We’re not five minutes into the story, and it isn’t clear what happened. Funny how on the opera stage just as in real life, it seems people have a hard time figuring out the truth when it comes to rape. How do we deal with this in real life? Inquiries, investigations, trials – we try to understand what happened. But what is the truth in a play? There are no facts beyond the words said on stage. There are some clues. The full title of the piece (Don Giovanni, ossia il dissoluto punito – “or the punishment of a dissolute man”); the context – historically, it is unlikely that the authors would have represented respectable Donna Anna as sexually turned on by a man to the point of following him on to the street; also literary tradition and history – the idea that a character has dark and subconscious desires would be anachronistic: in 1787, characters pretty much mean what they say. This is where the homework helps in understanding what the authors might have meant. You could call that historically informed reconstitution.
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