Teddy Tahu Rhodes in an Australian Don Giovanni.
by Paul J. Pelkonen
This DVD of Mozart's Don Giovanni, shot at the Sydney Opera House in October of 2011, preserves a 20-year old production by Opera Australia that is most noteworthy for the leading character's fashion sense--or lack thereof.
That's baritone Teddy Tahu Rhodes camping it up in a black domino mask, hot leather boots, Chelsea boy-shorts, and little else in the opening scene, as the Don goes prowling the rooftops of Seville dressed like Zorro on his way to a fetish night. All this beefcake hides the fact that Göran Järvefelt's well-worn production is, at its heart a thoroughly conventional re-telling of the Mozart-DaPonte collaboration, which captures the brilliance of Mozart's writing without breaking any major new ground.
Watching this performance, I noticed a "tunnel" effect on all the voices, most clearly heard in "Dalla su pace," Don Ottavio's aria in the first act. This is probably caused by Carl Friedrich Oberle's dull set, a series of wood-and-faux-plaster chambers that look left over from an old Jean-Pierre Ponelle seem to swallow up the voices instead of allowing them to project out into the house. Some of the singers (notably Rachelle Durkin, the Donna Anna) have the vocal fortitude to get their voices out into the house, but many suffer from this effect.
by Paul J. Pelkonen
 |
| "Does this mask make me look fat?" Teddy Tahu Rhodes as Don Giovanni. Photo by Branco Gaica © 2011 Opera Australia. |
This DVD of Mozart's Don Giovanni, shot at the Sydney Opera House in October of 2011, preserves a 20-year old production by Opera Australia that is most noteworthy for the leading character's fashion sense--or lack thereof.
That's baritone Teddy Tahu Rhodes camping it up in a black domino mask, hot leather boots, Chelsea boy-shorts, and little else in the opening scene, as the Don goes prowling the rooftops of Seville dressed like Zorro on his way to a fetish night. All this beefcake hides the fact that Göran Järvefelt's well-worn production is, at its heart a thoroughly conventional re-telling of the Mozart-DaPonte collaboration, which captures the brilliance of Mozart's writing without breaking any major new ground.
Watching this performance, I noticed a "tunnel" effect on all the voices, most clearly heard in "Dalla su pace," Don Ottavio's aria in the first act. This is probably caused by Carl Friedrich Oberle's dull set, a series of wood-and-faux-plaster chambers that look left over from an old Jean-Pierre Ponelle seem to swallow up the voices instead of allowing them to project out into the house. Some of the singers (notably Rachelle Durkin, the Donna Anna) have the vocal fortitude to get their voices out into the house, but many suffer from this effect.
