Word: giovanni
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...whorehouse. The walls were covered with 17th century dwarfs and musketeers, puffing on pipes and goggling at pudenda. They were painted coarse and quick, with what seemed to be a kind of narcissistic perfunctoriness, as though the old man had become so obsessed with filling out his Don Giovanni catalogue that he could not stop long enough to finish the last entries. The paintings seemed, in the art jargon of the '70s, more process than product, but none the more palatable for that. Nor did the market like them much; collectors who saw the late work as much more...
...likes Don Giovanni, not even his dedicated servant Leporella. And the entire opera involves a number of characters who have an axe to grind with the infamous seducer, who nonchalantly displays his talents while the others hatch their plans. But in the end Don Giovanni meets his deserving demise, not from the living characters, but from the ghost of a man whom the protagonist killed in a fit of rage at the beginning of the story. It is not easy to play a character whom everyone hates and whose mysterious--subtly sexual--personality attracts women regardless of their social background...
WARREN'S WEAKNESS, HOWEVER, does not hamper the rest of the performers, who, with their loud resounding voices and melodramatic characterizations convey Don Giovanni's licentiousness. Their hatred, and not Giovanni himself, provides the momentum for the three-hour production. As Donna Anna, whose father Giovanni killed after failing to seduce the daughter, Anita Ashur conveys brilliantly her character's maniacal desire for revenge through her vibrantly loud voice. Ashur's clearly enunciated voice has a spectacular range, and even during songs with the ensemble, her voice stands...
...other female singers give superb performances. As Donna Elvira--one of Giovanni's past conquests--Margery Hellmold '83 captures woman's confused love-hate feelings toward Giovanni with her emotional outbursts through her buoyant arias and desperate recitative interplay with the seducer himself. Junior Jeanine Bowman's Zerlina complements the other two women with her performance as an innocent country maiden, who almost falls into Giovanni's web Less emotional and more straightforward than Anna or Elvira. bowman's Zerlina is delightful with her quieter yet charming voice that reveals her character's naivete and dedication to her country bumpkin...
Sophomore Jeffrey Korn is lively and hysterically funny as Zerlina's rather slow-witted betrothed, Masetto Along with junior Dominic A. A. Randolph, who plays Giovanni's faithful yet knowing servant Leporella. Korn provides the comic relief for the melodramatic intricacy of the opera. Randolph's Leporella never fails to entertain the audience, whether he is describing his master's terrible ways or whether he is cavorting about the stage, helping his master escape from the other characters. Randolph's stage presence is superb and he becomes the show's most endearing character, as he provides most of the opera...