The problem with baddies

More sexism last night. Couldn't have been more sexistic. Mozart's Don Giovanni transmitted from the Royal (May my left hand strike my right.) Opera House, Covent Garden to wind-and-rain girt Hereford. We've seen half a dozen other versions; this was modified beneficially (cutting out the anticlimactic "survivors" scene) and malignantly (failing to match the words to the actions).

But this isn’t about opera technicalities. What should we make of the Don? He emerges from  Donna Anna's bedroom after she raises the alarm; in most versions he is coitus interruptus but fulfilled in this case. He stabs to death DA's dad, sneers at Donna Elvira whom he bedded after getting engaged to her for just that purpose. Tries to seduce peasant girl Zerlina on her wedding eve. Puts his servant Leporello at death's risk. But here's where it gets difficult.

He meets the ghost of DA's dad and invites him to supper. Dad turns up and returns the invitation - ie, for a final supper in Hell. The Don refuses to recant his life, accepts Hell, suffers.

There is a modern-day parallel. Most of the condemned Nazis died well on the gallows at Nuremberg. Yet none has a soft spot for them. With the Don we're equivocal. Some (All men?) have a sneaking admiration. Quite unjustified. This wasn't roguishness; the Don was a hoodlum. Go figure.

WIP Second Hand (57,251 words)
That last occasion in his bed with the black sheets. “Diabolical,” she had said, and he’d laughed uncertainly even though there’d been nothing uncertain about what followed. The sex had been simultaneously rewarding and disturbing. Prolonged and invasive.  To the point where his desire to please had obliterated her sense of self.
Note: If I've posted this extract before the reason's forgetfulness, not obsession.

Getting ready for Easter

Elder daughter (Professional Bleeder) is visiting. Grateful for her pop recommendations (The Smiths, Bowie) we force-feed her opera, not necessarily the easy stuff. Last time Britten’s Turn Of The Screw, this time Mozart’s penultimate La Clemenza Di Tito. A grey, bone-chilling day dawns and more opera beckons that evening. PB’s amenable but demands Don Giovanni because she “knows the story”. I have it on CD but not DVD. The phone-up radius gradually widens (Worcester to the north, Bristol to the south) and all I get is “Nah. Haven’t got that mate. We’ll order.”

Finally a treasure trove. Abergavenny Music offers a choice of four which I boil down to two. One has much beloved Thomas Allen as the libertine but Don Ottavio is Mark Padmore, a passionate tenor in St Matthew Passion but generally conceded to be the worst operatic actor in Britain. I opt for the 2008 Royal Opera House (Covent Garden) version with Simon Keenlyside in the title role, the slightly comical looking but creamy Ramon Vargos as Don O, Marina Poplavskaya and Joyce DiDonato as the two wronged ladies and a superbly mobile Kyle Ketelson as Leporello.

The last time we attended Covent Garden in person our two seats cost £176. The two DVDs cost £29, to which I must add fifty miles’ worth of diesel, an irritating expense since the previous day we gave in to another middle-class impulse and shopped at Waitrose – also in Abergavenny.

To drink there was a Wither Hills sauvignon blanc from NZ, once the most powerful form of that grape, now somewhat more polite. Plus a gran reserva rioja which was beginning to fade.

In the pic, the Commendatore is sending the unrepentant Don G down to Hell – an interesting moment of contemplation for all atheist opera lovers.