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Lom a star in the making
Don Giovanni Opera Warwick University of Warwick Arts Centre **** FOR the University of Warwick, which has
no undergraduate Music course, to assay any full length operatic staging
is bold in the extreme. To risk one of Mozart’s
Da Ponte trilogy, any of which can leave young singers seriously
exposed, is even bolder than last year’s foray into coloratura Rossini,
with La Cenerentola
(Cinderella), which was carried off with vast stage aplomb and
risqué wit,
and verged on a national-standard triumph. With Don Giovanni the whole concept was
reversed. Invention, in the sense of directorial intrusion, was kept to
a m Hence the opera was allowed to speak loud and
clear, simply and directly – no bad thing when the invention is all
there already in score and libretto. Kit (Kit and the Widow)
Hesketh-Harvey’s translation, here cheekily tweaked by the versatile
Leporello (Samuel Lom), works every bit as well as others – Jeremy Sams,
Amanda Holden – and brings different racy touches. What we got – and the external set, well tinted
like any backstreet of, say, Padua or Salamanca, while bare of graffiti,
stray dogs or washing, oddly well emphasised the Harlequinade feel – the
tradition in which sundry Don Juans, reaching back to Tirso de
Molina’s, are rooted.
But with a pretty strong cast all round – Donna
Anna’s intermittently refined coloratura (Imogen Faris, promising and
aptly strait-laced); a highly competent, fertile and feral Don from
Psychology student and choral scholar Rory Carver (last year’s quizzical
Dandini); delicious wit from a beautifully-voiced Zerlina (Giulia
Boggiano, whose northerly choir credits read like a vocal dream ticket)
and initially even the less-than-usually dour Elvira (Harriet
Fletcher) – the conquest invented (‘Elvire’) by Molière - what
was lacking in invention was made up for by sheer polish in delivery and
the actors’ native performing wit. The orchestra led by Daniel Simmonds, let it be
said, was pretty variable. One salutes an institution that can serve up
a large band as decent – potentially at least – as one of the ten-odd
big Conservatoires. But these players could have, and deserved to,
deliver much better. Conductor Benjamin Hamilton (though the continuo
player, Chethams alumnus and ex-Manchester Cathedral chorister Samuel
Foster, is credited as Music Director) got many of the pacings pretty
right, but neither managed to tighten things sufficiently in what
perhaps skimpy rehearsal time he had before a January premiere nor held
things tightly together on the night. The result was a good deal of fuzz and muddiness;
while the measly extent to which horn or woodwind achieved prominence
made one wonder whether their tone needed honing too – until near the
end, when suddenly clarinets shone through like a ray of joy.
Lom’s interplay with Carver’s bossy, flouncy as
often pretty funny Giovanni, worked a treat: in fact almost every comic
scene between them (the clothes/role change here was a classic) was a
joy. One kept willing choreographer Cletus Chan’s bevy of slightly
superfluous female dancers to come good, and indeed they did, in two
particularly finely-chiselled later black-clad ensembles. One willed Social Work student Matt Bond’s
suitably hefty Commendatore (Molière’s – and Dargomizhky’s - ‘Stone
Guest’) to come good, too. But though he had the portentousness, he was
weakly directed, deployed only a shaky modest baritone without the
needed profundo undertow to impact, and had little or no chance
when appallingly spotlit in the abysmal upstairs room (five set
designers are credited: is this the inevitable consequence of décor by
committee?) that added nothing and detracted much: heaven knows what
Director and Lights Designer (Tom Gillespy) thought they were doing.
Taken together it wrecked the final scene, which ended with a suicidal
shot – fair enough - but no meaningful attempt at an infernal doom.
Reemploying those black-clad harpies might have worked better. A decent-sized chorus sang well, but was given
precious little to do except periodic partying, which they managed OK
(indeed the underuse is Mozart’s or Da Ponte’s fault, not the
Director’s, though some – not I - lamented the absence of a final
triumph chorus (Questo è il fin), although Mahler thought the same as
Warwick: the villain’s demise should end it. Thank heavens for diversions. One such was
Masetto (Nicolas Rivard), whose gloomy face went on to furnish one of
the slickest comic turns of the evening: he, if anyone, seemed a
Harlequinade escapee, like the classic vecchio or cuckolded
Pantaloon. And mightily we chuckled. So, a mixed risotto, but hats off to a spirited
society that puts its head over the parapet and doesn’t duck mighty
challenges. Roderic Dunnett
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by Fraser Simpson - a newcomer as opera Director, who however has
already put musical verve into three Musicals - by playing things
relatively straight.
even
if his top needs a little more work. He either has or deserves some top
teachers - they will have so much to work with. What also beamed through
was the intelligence. Everything – well, nearly everything – was subtle
and finessed. This sharp-witted, winsome performer would make an impact
professionally tomorrow; or could take some music college by storm. He
has already done some self-honing, in Germany, and it’s clearly paid.