Performance Workshop's Stan Lai (賴聲川) has become so entranced by Mozart's opera Don Giovanni that, after being initially uncertain whether or not to take it on, he's now agreed to direct two more Mozart operas with Chien Wen-pin (簡文彬) and the National Symphony Orchestra (NSO) before the end of 2006.
The name "Don Giovanni" is simply Italian for "Don Juan," and this is the old story of the aristocratic serial one-night-stander with 91 women under his belt in Turkey, 100 in France, 231 in Germany, 640 in Italy, and in Spain, where the action of the opera takes place, 1,003.
In any production of this opera one major decision always has to be made -- how sympathetic is it going to be to the character of the title role?
On the surface it's straightforward. In the work's first five minutes Giovanni kills the protesting father of one of his conquests, the Commendatore(commander), and in the last five minutes he's dragged down to hell by devils. In addition, he attracts many of his women by means of his aristocratic status. Mozart's previous opera, The Marriage of Figaro, was a protest against the ancient right of lords to take the virginity of any girl married on their estates. So both works, first staged in the years immediately prior to the French Revolution, appear to be dramatic assaults on the abuses of the nobility from the point of view of the rising middle class.
In reality, though, it's far from being this simple. Between the start and finish of the opera lies a plot full of comic situations where Giovanni and his servant, Leporello, combine to outwit prospective husbands, outraged former lovers and -- in effect the entire structure of conventional society. And Giovanni never rests. He is ceaselessly sweeping up new conquests, but he's also, at least in Stan Lai's opinion, sowing the seeds of doubt in the minds of the very women themselves. Once they've encountered Giovanni's extraordinarily contagious lust for sexual pleasure, they're never quite the same people ever again.
"This opera is incredible theater," said Lai at rehearsals last week. "I usually change a script, but not this time. At the moments when I feel I manage to touch Mozart I feel so wonderful -- because he's so wonderful!
"I see Giovanni as larger than life, and essentially a Dionysian figure. He's an object of desire -- or even desire itself. And he stimulates desire in the women he encounters. Maybe he's a monster, but he brings out the longing to be a similar sort of monster in all of us!"
The production in Taipei's National Concert Hall this weekend, theoretically semi-staged, will in fact take over almost the entire available space for the dramatic action, banishing the orchestra to a pit at the back. "I consider this as fully-staged," said Lai, who is presenting the story as happening in the living-room of a couple of modern Taipei citizens (actors co-opted from Performance Workshop) who themselves get swept up into the stage
business.
Both the beginning and the end of the opera will contain unexpected elements. The first music we hear, for instance, won't be Mozart at all, and in fact will be distinctly un-Mozartean. The production will contain eight young dancers, with the chorus singing at the back of the stage.
Maestro Chien Wen-pin said that his plan is to mount the two other operas Mozart wrote in collaboration with librettist Lorenzo Da Ponte, Figaro and Cosi fan Tutte, with essentially the same cast as this Giovanni, thereby following 18th century practice. He also confirmed that Stan Lai will direct both these new productions.
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