Apart from the exam update, I haven't mentioned any of the stuff I've actually one over the last week and a half, and there was actually rather a lot. Mirva's last week in Vienna very conveniently coincided with the week before my Petrology exam, but we still fitted quite a few things in, so I think I will split this into a couple of posts.
First up was the Mozart opera, Don Giovanni. Due to Mirva's secret underground Finnish connections (an extremely nice man by the name of Ilkka), we got standing places for €1.60 each**! This did entail waiting from 5pm for an opera that started at 7, then standing up for most of the time until it ended at 10.30, but, seriously, €1.60! I thought Shakespeare's Globe was the peak of surprisingly cheap old fashioned popular entertainment! To be fair to the Globe though, although it sells out pretty quick, you can buy standing tickets way in advance, and not only are there 700 of them, they have the best view in the house. Standing in the Staatsoper meant the gallery, the bit that is right at the back at the top. Naturally, the sound is still very good, and I do like being able to see the orchestra and all the stage at once.
**The secret to getting tickets that cheap is to buy a book of 50 at once, which you then stand in line and redeem for proper tickets on the night. So only do this if you are opera crazy and/or have a reasonable number of willing people who want to accompany you throughout the year...
Don Giovanni is in Italian, but each place has a small screen that gives you subtitles in your language of choice, so this time I knew what was actually going on. This improved my enjoyment of the piece tremendously, I can tell you. The plot is a lot sillier than the mythological Zauberflote. Basically, Don Giovanni is an utter bastard who is addicted to women, and has seduced about 4000 or so (we know because there a song where his long suffering servant reads from the book he keeps of the conquests) to date using his wealth, and capacity to lie through his teeth repeatedly. Its level of sexism is somewhat on a par with a traditionalist performance of 'The Taming of the Shrew', I'd say. Don Giovanni wanders around trying to seduce women (he literally doesn't care what they look like or their age), getting into trouble and pursued by various wronged parties, including the daughter and fiance of a man he murders in the opening scene. He is slowly revealed to have been less than honest during many of his 'conquests' (pretty much rapes), and in the end falls foul of his arrogance when he invites the ghostly statue of the dead man to dinner. The statue arrives and drags him to hell(!).
This opera was truly enjoyable. The music was outstanding, as was the singing. The plot is stupid, but suitably mixes light heartedness and tragedy. I liked almost all of it, although it did lull about 3/4 of the way through (I think all operas may, tbh) the final climax with the statue condemning Don Giovanni to eternal damnation was rather impressive. If I had to compare this and the Magic Flute, I'd say this was better, but maybe partly because I could understand the plot. There were some stand out details in the Magic Flute that were genius (the famous arias, everything Papageno did ever) but there were also more boring bits.
I will never become a born again opera fan like I am a born again Shakespeare lover, but I certainly might be more disposed to opera in future. As with most things that people think are boring (classical music in general, operas in particular, shakespeare, long novels), if its boring the chances are you just need to find someone better at it and it won't be boring! I feel the fault is less often in the art form or piece as it is in the performance. Which makes separating the two rather hard for stuff as difficult to do well as Opera and live classical music...
To conclude, here is the Vorspiel/Ouverture/Intro to the opera, to give you a taste of the tasty Mozart skills on display:
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