Playful killer
Amal Choucri Catta finds Cairo Opera House's new production of Don Giovanni at least two weeks premature
Don Giovanni; Cairo Opera Company, orchestra and choir, cond. Ivan Filev, dir. Walid Aouni, Choir Master Aldo Magnato, Arabic translation Ali Sadek, dramaturgist Mohamed Abou El-Kheir. Main Hall, Cairo Opera House, 7 to 11 May, 9pm
Mozart's two-act opera Don Giovanni is technically a "dramma giocoso". It oscillates between high comedy and tragedy in a manner strongly tinged with irony. Mozart rose above his contemporaries not only because of his mastery of musical craft: he possessed the supreme skill of being able to transform stock stage events into reflections of human life, mocking the vanity and folly of the proud and ignorant and commiserating with the unfortunate and wronged. A shrewd observer of human life, like Shakespeare he reshaped familiar themes of love, loyalty, revenge and hatred in a manner which deepened and enriched the experience of audiences.
Don Giovanni has lent itself to any number of interpretations over the years as emphasis has been placed on one or the other of its diverse elements, according to the director in charge of the production. In the case of Cairo Opera's Don Giovanni, performed at the Main Hall from 7 to 11 May and directed by Walid Aouni, visionary symbols have clearly been stressed, and curtains and panels are lifted and lowered on stage according to the requirements of the plot. Two panels were covered with a total of 60 pieces of colourful ladies' underwear, while others were a distillation of mood, visibly influenced by the painter Wassily Kandinsky whose insistence on the purity of the pictorial vocabulary and fusion of occidental and oriental elements have resurged in Aouni's sets. Thus, the garden is one single treetop seen behind a green fence, accompanying the lovers as they walk back and forth. The palace, rooms and other places are signaled by panels, while chairs and tables appear only towards the end of the show.
In Aouni's version the Don's death is not in hell or burning flames but high on metal scaffolding where the dead Don Pedro, in warrior's attire, asks Giovanni to repent before sending him to his doom. At the very end an extra large table is pushed onto the stage with some difficulty, while chairs are brought in to seat the performers of the ultimate scene: Donna Anna and Elvira, Don Ottavio, Zerlini, Mazetto and Leporello.
It must be said that Aouni's well intended modernisation of Mozart's Don Giovanni in Arabic would have benefitted from more rehearsal time. His ideas were good, but they had not sufficiently matured.
The choice of bass-baritone Reda El-Wakil for the part of Don Giovanni was unfortunate. El-Wakil can be an excellent high priest, a perfect count and a noble prince but never a sinful Don Giovanni. He has a lovely voice, but seems beyond evil and his performance as a seducer and a woman-chaser is not convincing. He overacts, making fun of himself and of everyone around him while underestimating the wickedness of his character. The same goes for many of the other singers whose acting is often superficial. The entire opera badly needed another fortnight of rehearsals on stage in order to become a mature, well-balanced and well-conceived production in which as much attention is paid to the characters as the sets, lights and general impact on audiences.
When Don Giovanni and the commendatore were executing their duel, which ends in the death of old Don Pedro, El Wakil's performance was joyful, though it should have been filled with a savage irony. The scene on stage lacked power and drama: a better distribution of colour and lights and a more expressive performance would have saved the situation.
The extraordinary costumes were among the most interesting elements of the production. Soprano Iman Mustafa was a brilliant Donna Elvira and strong-voiced bass Abdel-Wahab El-Sayed a magnificent Don Pedro, soprano Taheya Shams El-Din was in good voice as Donna Anna, and second cast baritone Mustafa Mohamed as Don Giovanni and soprani Mona Rafla as Donna Anna and Jehane Fayed as Donna Elvira, were as ravishing as the first. The singers did their best, though they needed more coaching with regard to their acting and their movement on stage.
Don Giovanni opened with filmed rehearsals projected on the stage's backdrop as the performers were slowly walking onto the stage. In the meantime, the audience was taking its seats in the hall. Though the idea was interesting it lasted a little too long. Finally the hall-lights dimmed while Maestro Ivan Filev appeared in the orchestra-pit, opening the opera with the long overture, with Greig Martin at the harpsichord for the singers' secco-recitatives.
On opening night the audience numbered no more than a hundred while on subsequent nights numbers of invitations were distributed due to the lack of adequate ticket sales. Once again the opera had not undertaken any kind of promotion or publicity and once again one must ask why the opera stages new productions if they cannot allocate them the necessary funds. They could have celebrated Mozart's 250th birthday with a performance of one their existing productions of The Marriage of Figaro or The Magic Flute, leaving Don Giovanni for better days.
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