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by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, libretto translated and adapted by Joel Ivany, directed by Joel Ivany

Against the Grain Theatre, The Black Box Theatre, Toronto

December 11, 13, 15, 17 & 19, 2014

Leporello: “But on Tinder, it’s over 13K”

Against the Grain Theatre has quickly gained renown for its productions of opera in intimate unconventional venues.  #UncleJohn is Mozart’s Don Giovanni with Lorenzo Da Ponte’s 1787 libretto translated and radically adapted by AtG’s Artistic Director Joel Ivany.  It’s wonderful to experience such a great opera performed in such a small venue as the Black Box Theatre for an audience of only 80.  Ivany’s transposition of the action to the present is quite clever but there are flaws in his reimagining and overall the opera is not performed with the same finesse as such previous AtG productions as The Turn of the Screw (2012) or Pelléas et Mélisande (2014).

When you enter the Black Box Theatre at 1087 Queen Street West (the former location of The Theatre Centre), you see that the hall has been set up with white tableclothed cocktail tables, an active bar at the southwest corner and a large dais at the north end for a wedding party and guests of honour.  Ivany’s conceit, executed with just the right mix of artificiality and reality by designer Patrick Du Wors, is that we the audience are the guests at the wedding reception of Zerlina (Sharleen Joynt) and Masetto (Aaron Durand).  As we take our seats prerecorded music of crooners and songbirds of the 1940s and 50s is playing. 

Ivany’s approach might work except that the singers do not treat us as present until Act 1, Scene 5, where the wedding reception is traditionally held at Don Giovanni’s castle.  Up to that point in Ivany’s version, when Zerlina and Masetto enter it is to inspect the empty reception hall they have hired to use for their wedding the following day.  Thus, despite all the pretence that we are there throughout the opera, we are, in fact, considered present only when lighting designer Jason Hand turns up the lights on us, just as in a conventional opera house.

In Ivany’s version, Anna (Betty Waynne Allison) is the daughter of Michael “The Commander” Bridge (John Avey), who is the caterer and event planner for Zerlina and Masetto.  The Commander does not force “Uncle John” (Cameron McPhail) to fight a duel.  Rather, while trying to attack John for seducing Anna, The Commander suffers a heart attack and John maliciously withholds his pills and cellphone from him so that he dies in agony.  Instead of a physical mask, John masks the truth by concealing his role in The Commander death claiming the old man simply died of a heart attack.  For help, Anna calls in Ottavio (Sean Clark), here recast as a policeman.  Only later does it dawn on Anna that John must have murdered her father.

Later in the action, Ivany cleverly obviates the need for masks by using recent everyday technology.  When John has his friend Leporello (Neil Craighead) “disguise himself as John, Ivany simply has Leporello send texts to Elvira (Miriam Khalil) from John’s cellphone.  Ivany also updates Leporello’s famous Catalogue Aria by substituting social media platforms for the countries in the original.  Thus he tells Elvira how many friends John has on Facebook, and followers he has on Twitter and LinkedIn, but, substituting for Spain, “On Tinder it’s over 13K”. 

To stage John’s death, Ivany creates a nice reverse parallel with The Commander’s death.  Throughout the action Ivany has had John pop pills from a little box he keeps.  It’s not clear if they are uppers or downers, except that at the end when he ingests fingerfuls at a time he says it is to calm himself down.  Indeed, John’s fright at seeing The Commander, whom in Ivany’s version Leporello does not see, causes him to overdose on his pills as The Commander watches.  Just as John keep pills from The Commander, now The Commander causes John to take too many. 

Dramatically, the first problem with Ivany’s adaptation is that his Uncle John is so obviously a predator.  Ivany does not suggest any charm or magnetism that would draw so many women to John, and neither does McPhail.  In fact, Ivany’s version is rather like the title character of Molière’s Dom Juan (1660), who has womanized for so long he now acts only out of habit, not desire, and does not notice that woman see through his ruses.  The second problem is that the modern day setting forces Ivany to make Leporello be John’s friend rather than his servant.  In the original Leporello has to put up with continual abuse from his master because his wages depend on it.  In the updated version there has to be some reason other than wages to explain why one man would remain friends with a libertine who continually insults him and puts him into dangerous situations.  Does the modern Leporello somehow live vicariously through John’s exploits?  Does John hold some secret power over Leporello that forces him to stay?  Ivany’s version supplies no answer to explain Leporello’s loyalty to John.  As a result we still experience Leporello as John’s servant to make sense of the situation even though Ivany’s libretto insists that that is not the case.

Musically, there is much to enjoy, even though the cast is uneven.  As Uncle John, Cameron McPhail produces a creamy baritone that is shown at it most beautiful in his serenade “Deh vieni alla finestra”.  McPhail tosses off the Champagne Aria with manic vigour.  Ivany’s libretto has John periodically mutter about “the darkness, the darkness”, perhaps to make John’s fear of death the motive for his pursuit of sex.  McPhail conveys this haunted quality to John, but Ivany misses the ideal time to establish this motive when The Commander dies.  Ivany has John show malice but not the fear or revulsion that would suit the fear of “darkness” his John suffers from.

As Leporello, Neil Craighead is quite amusing even if his motivation is totally unclear.  The highlight of his performance is Ivany’s updated Catalogue Aria that Craighead delivers with aplomb.

Overall, the most consistently outstanding performances come from Miriam Khalil as Elvira and Sharleen Joynt as Zerlina.  In both cases, the sheer beauty of vocal production – the lovely dark tones of Khalil and the shimmering brightness of Joynt – overcame the satirically colloquial nature of Ivany’s libretto.  Ivany shows special insight into Elvira that sets her up as a parallel character to John.  Both are obsessed, but in opposite ways.  John is obsessed with bedding as many women as possible, while Elvira is obsessed with keeping hold of her one true love.  In performance, Khalil shows that Elvira is as consumed by her fixation as John is by his.  Joynt’s Zerlina, meanwhile is not as naive as most Zerlinas and seems wary of John even as he believes he is seducing her.

Aaron Durand makes Masetto a much more well-rounded character than he usually is.  Not only does Durand possess a fine, agile baritone, but he is an excellent actor with the most expressive face of the entire cast.  Masetto is so often made out simply to be a dullard that it is good to see him played as a basically good guy and trustworthy mate for Zerlina.  His jealousy may be comic but Ivany has John give Masetto such a savage beating that it is John’s surprise attack rather than Masetto’s cowardice that causes John triumph over him.  

Even if Ivany demotes The Commander to a mere caterer, John Avey makes him a powerful force.  His ghostly appearance at John’s banquet is every bit as chilling as it is in a conventional production.  Ivany’s view that the ghost is only in John’s mind is a good one and helps get around all the fantastical issues of a the Commendatore’s statue coming to dinner.  This way Avey as The Commender becomes an externalization of John’s conscience, though it would have helped if Ivany had given us some clue beforehand that John actually had one.  Avey’s forceful bass-baritone provided a welcome note of depth to the opera, both aurally and metaphorically. 

Betty Waynne Allison sings Anna as if she were one of Wagner’s Valkyries rather than a Mozart character.  Her voice has impressive strength but she sings in an unvarying forte.  Yes, she is outraged, but some variation in dynamics or colour would help make sense of her words.  As for Ottavio, Ivany has made him out to be one of the least effective policemen you might ever encounter.  A position as a security guard or some rank with less authority would better suit his general uselessness.  Sean Clark is not quite up for the role.  He plays tag with the highest notes and needs to work towards a rounder tone.

The accompaniment is provided by the Cecilia String Quartet and pianist Miloš Repický.  When the five work together as a piano quintet, as in the overture, the effect is highly enjoyable and one can note how Mozart so often anticipates in this work harmonies later common in Romantic music.  Too often, however, Repický seems to be competing with the quartet rather than working with it, creating the sense of a loss of unity. 

#UncleJohn is rather a paradox in that it’s point is to make opera more accessible yet the people who will appreciate all of Ivany’s in-jokes in the libretto will only be those who already know the opera well.  The others at my table looked puzzled when, in the opera’s Finale Leporello had the orchestra play the Beatles song “Hey Jude” and then “Let It Go” from the Disney movie Frozen.  They seemed to forget that at that point in the original the orchestra plays tunes from older operas, so in the update it plays more recent songs.

Much of Ivany’s updating is quite clever, but the prime virtue of the staging is to see and hear the opera sung and acted at such close range.  You get a true quadrophonic effect when the singers are placed around the perimeter of the room, something you would never experience in a standard opera house.  Operatic voices in such a small venue help make the tutti concluding Act 1 extremely exciting.  Ivany has shown himself to be so inventive that I trust he will be able to work out the flaws in #UncleJohn before AtG presents it another time.    

©Christopher Hoile

Note: This review is a Stage Door exclusive.

Photo: (from top) Sean Clark, Miriam Khalil, Betty Waynne Allison, Neil Craighead, Aaron Durand and Sharleen Joynt; Neil Criaghead and Miram Khalil; Cameron McPhail and Neil Craighead. ©2014 Darryl Block.

For tickets, visit www.againstthegraintheatre.com.