#edit: wait apparently ant did ask. i missed that in my notes somehow. anyway. hi ant here u go lol

[supercantaloupe]

no one asked but here are my thoughts on the new met don giovanni from today. tl;dr: a couple of weird choices made but overall Quite good i liked it

elaine douvas jumpscare at the top lol

federica lombardi and ben bliss as anna and ottavio were the standouts to me. lombardi came out the gate STRONG with fuggi crudele and she keeps it up. and kudos to bliss as ottavio; i often find that he can be a pretty uninteresting character if not played carefully and bliss did a really great job making ottavio Interesting. face journey of the year award goes to his dalla sua pace (il mio tesoro honorable mention).

peter mattei sounds great obviously but is it just me or is he starting to get a leetle bit old for the role. not vocally but physically. like him next to ying fang is like. sure man yeah

alfred walker in the same camp honestly. like he did a great job singing masetto but i'll always laugh when like. giovinette che fate all'amore kicks up and they're like "here's the happy young couple :)" and the bass is obviously in his late forties at the youngest lmao

anyone else think adam plachetka looks. kind of like ted cruz. hello?

anyway i liked plachetka a lot largely because he seemed to actually remember that don giovanni is nominally a dramma giocoso and a lot of his little acting choices brought back some of the humor that i thought was a bit lacking in the production as a whole. also christ they bowl that fucking man across the stage a few times don't they

ying fang did a great job too. the lingering terror in her expression during la ci darem so juicy. also that bit in act ii when they're threatening leporello and she balls his shirt up in her fist even though he's like a foot taller than her. love her so much. also woman pretty

i liked stutzmann's conducting for the most part although nothing much Stood Out to me about it. except like two or three tempi i disagreed with and a couple of spots here or there that felt like the orchestra and singers weren't 100% together right away. but idk i'm not a conductor i assume doing a debut performance at the met with a new opera you haven't conducted before is A Challenge so.

a few scenes felt...strangely placid energy wise to me. notably the opening scene but a few other places too including elvira's arias for some reason? in some cases it's like i think more just could've been done with the blocking while nothing much else was going on but in other places there Was plenty of movement it just felt...low energy. idk. where's the hustle i thought this was life or death here

cool use of the fog rising out of the floor of the stage's incline

although the steep rake to the stage led to a few unintentionally awkward/funny (to me.) camera angles. like they were obviously shooting from stage level and it would normally be a straight medium/wide shot but because of the rake it ends up being a slightly weird low angle (especially funny to me when in terms of cinematography language this kind of undercuts the vibe of the character that's being shown onstage at the moment lol but what can ya do. i'm being very nitpicky anyway)

actually the set design in general surprised me. mostly because for like 90% of the show i'm like "it looks kind of interesting i guess but Why So Brutalist And Plain" although i like that having multiple levels lets there be some creative use of vertical space in the blocking. i was so ready to write it off as disappointing/underutilized to me until the very last chorus of the show they actually Do Something with it and it totally surprised me and i really liked it. made me wait for it! surprised me! credit where credit is due i liked that a lot in the end.

i do wonder though if this production would be completely undone with a little more color in it tho. like i Get what they were going for with all the grey and i do appreciate the roses and blood but i feel like you can still do More with a broader but still limited color palette without compromising the vision. at least you could be more creative with the lighting i feel like the met pretty consistently disappoints me with its lighting (which is usually "serviceable" to "attractive" but not really creative or adding all that much to the scene. sorry but musicals are still beating you at this particular game)

although what was with the ball scene. with the mannequins and random period dress for ottavio anna and elvira but no one else. i liked the costumes but what was the point

also that said re: lighting. a cenar teco FINALLY did something interesting with the lighting and projections. cool and i liked it. except for the fact that the projection was up for too long and you couldn't fucking see what was happening on the stage and don giovanni effectively just Disappeared. i realize this was intentional but either make the disappearance much more sudden/short or show me what happens to that little freak otherwise it just feels lazy

great cello in batti batti o bel masetto. liked.

FANTASTIC orchestra in la ci darem and especially its preceding recit. the combo of the theorbo + cello + harpsichord was so atmospheric, somehow adding both to the romantic atmosphere AND the "psychological horror" thing going on in that scene. which i love honestly that scene SHOULD look gorgeous and feel like a lead weight in your stomach and i love that they went there with it.

also sorry but the champagne aria could be blocked way more interestingly. try harder

mixed feelings on the blocking of the ball scene. i thought the choice to have the whole chorus there but be so still and stiff when dancing was interesting, it definitely conveyed the sort of control through fear that the don has on everybody, but at the same time the scene felt like it was missing life. as well as missing some of the chaotic energy i think is necessary to build up over the course of the scene to lead into the climax. plus what is that act finale? kind of a cop out imo not actually showing us a clever escape of any kind. i will give them points however for having the onstage musicians because i am a sucker for that. i could see one of those oboists onstage was playing a cocobolo instrument...preddy.

okay what the fuck was up with gia la mensa e preparata. i get that it can be a weird/tricky scene to block if you're doing a more Serious And Grounded (and/or Edgy) production (and this production i do think leans more towards that and further away from the comedy potential throughout, with some exception here or there) but dude the tonal whiplash. they go like full on farce for like a solid six minutes there it's kind of bizarre. like it's funny yeah but it feels like it comes out of nowhere and doesn't totally fit...like peter mattei didn't anyone ever tell you not to play with your food. although it was funny when he accidentally beaned plachetka in the face with a dinner roll. literally once elvira shows up the rest of the scene is Fine and i actually really like the way it's blocked and acted from that point on but What Was Up With That

also this is going to sound so weird both coming from me and speaking about this opera in particular but. it felt. weirdly not horny enough? also weird to say cause there was an above average amount of people lying on top of each other on the floor going on too but. like. idk. vedrai carino...a lot of elvira's acting...even some of mattei's i felt like there could've been More done in this respect without it pushing into the realm of excessive or distasteful. they really play up the He's A Sexual Predator angle of the character here but with more emphasis on the predator part and less on the sexual part i think. but idk maybe part of this has to do with me thinking walker and mattei look a little bit old and/or me not being generally as into men. ah well

anyway not to be really annoying all the time but if you liked this production (especially a lot of its aesthetic choices) i am once again recommending the 2017 aix production it's on youtube and it's soooo good. and has a Lot of similarities with this one stylistically. and also i love it