Thursday 3 July 2014

FREE Glyndebourne Don Giovanni

FREE Glyndebourne Don Giovanni on Sunday 6th July from 3pmENTER BY CLICKING THIS LINK HERE.

With this glorious weather you can picnic in the comfort of your own garden, if you can rig things up. I don't know if it's international, but it's worth a try. The link will stay live for a week. Wonderful, vivid production with a better cast than the current year - Luca Pisaroni practically steals the show.

HERE is what I wrote about the premiere in 2010  (the one we'll be seeing)
 
".......instead of a conventional set, there’s a giant rotating cube, a square globe, so to speak, which contains “the world”. It unfolds, reshaping and reinventing itself: a box of tricks, like Don Giovanni himself. Because it’s meticulously designed the cube moves quickly and silently. it’s much less intrusive than conventional set changes. Major transformations take place during the interludes, so they don’t get in the way. This amazing set frees the action from technical limitations. allowing the drama to unfold, rapid-fire and free.At first the cube reveals its secrets slowly. A crack appears. It’s a narrow alleyway. Don Giovanni is trapped like a rat, so he lashes out and kills the Commendatore..The cube closes again, its outer walls like a stone building. Later, the cube opens to reveal a sunlit garden, complete with trees. It’s the peasant wedding. So many shifts of focus. Garden transforms to ballroom, Zerlina’s loyalties shift, the masked visitors move in on Don Giovanni."


"Conflagration ends the First Act. While the crowd converge on Don Giovanni, Don Ottavio points at objects, just like the Commendatore will later point at Don Giovanni. For now, it’s just the furniture that goes up in flames. Real flames, you can smell the gas. It feels dangerous, even though you know Glyndebourne (and its insurers) have checked it all out thoroughly. We know Don Giovanni will end up in hell, but seeing him circled by fire is dramatic. It’s entirely consistent with the turbulent music with which Mozart marks the beginning of Don Giovanni’s end"

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