Don Giovanni

This evening I saw Don Giovanni at the Semperoper. 

The 1878 opera house was reduced to a burned-out shell in the 1945 firebombing but was rebuilt in the early 1980s. Disaster struck again with the 2002 floods, during which thousands of gallons of Elbe river water flowed into the machinery under the stage. Almost all the electrical systems and most of the heating, ventilation and plumbing systems were wrecked. Thankfully, that damage has since been repaired.

The inside of the theater is beautiful, but is a fairly obvious reconstruction. It's much smaller than the Met -- more of a "jewel-box" house.

One especially charming touch is the baroque "digital clock" surmounted by cupids in the proscenium arch. It displays the hours in Roman numerals and minutes in Arabic ones, in five-minute intervals (the numbers are painted onto revolving wheels and are visible through two square openings). I had an excellent view of the stage from the 15th row center of the Parkett.

As for the production, the cast included:

Don Giovanni (Andreas Schmidt)

Don Ottavio (Woo-Kyung Kim)

Donna Anna (Tamar Iveri)

Donna Elvira (Ute Selbig)

Leporello (Markus Marquardt)

Zerlina (understudy)

Masetto (André Eckert)

I was a bit surprised with Andreas Schmidt as he was the most well-known cast member. He looked ridiculous, decked out in a long white coat and white boots like half of Siegfried & Roy (complete with frizzy mullet). I found his singing wobbly and unattractive and his interpretation coarse. The women were generally better. But the real problem was Wolfgang Gussman's production: crude, distracting and often bizarre sets, and ugly costumes. "La ci darem la mano" was sung amid enormous colored blocks (red triangle, blue cube, green column, yellow brick etc.) that the chorus had assembled and then knocked down after the aria. Also, Donna Elvira's flaming red silk gown and matching fright-wig made her look like an 18th-century hooker. It's amazing how an ill-conceived production can overwhelm even Mozart's glorious work. I am seeing L'Italiana in Algeri a week from Monday and am hoping for a less gimmicky approach.

Tomorrow I am off to Thuringia for the weekend, with stops planned for Erfurt, Saalfeld and Eisenach. It looks like my weather luck may be running out, but we shall see.