Contrasting portraits of evil

For our third opera outing of the winter season, we invited our old friends Martin and Chris to join us, and they took us to lunch beforehand, at a brasserie on the other side of Roald Dahl Plas from the Millennium Centre. It's ages since we last got together, as I've been abroad so much, so it was good to catch up with their news.

Then, we went to the matinee performance of Mozart's 'Don Giovanni', a production we last saw with Eddy and Ann when they came over from Felixstowe to celebrate Clare's birthday in 2011. It's a morality play, set to the finest music. The portrayal of the wicked exploits and downfall of this manipulative sexual psychopath is presented, for the most part as a farce despite its dark undertones. The acting and singing of all taking part was, as we have come to expect from WNO, superb. It's fine to play most of the action for its comic content, but I would have liked to see more menace mixed in with Don Juan's charm, and more craven cowardice in his servant Leporello.

At the end, just before he can be brought to face human justice, supernatural retribution overtakes Don Juan. Heaven and earth in turn are appalled by his behaviour. It's a narrative cop-out really. A fairytale magical end to the bad guy implies human justice is incapable faced with such extreme wickedness. Over the last century, humankind has often believed that. Nevertheless, we've also seen that justice can eventually done, by persistent, patient application of due legal process, globally and locally. Perhaps things were that much worse in Mozart's time

Like the real Spanish 'Don Juan', the villain keeps a journal boasting of his seductions, narrating his own success as a serial sexual abuser. His reputation as a 'lover' makes him a source of fascination for some women, if not envy on the part of men. This is unusually relevant in the light of recent revelations of abusive sexual behaviour by movie and media men, and attitudes to this, disclosed or undisclosed. After the opera's final set piece madrigal reminding the audience of the moral of the story, Don Jan's journal is picked up and peered into by some of the singers, with fascination and curiosity written on their faces, rather than disgust or horror. It's a subtle final comment on attitudes despite the moralistic conclusion.

We arrived home by half past eight, in good time for supper followed by another double episode of 'Modus', the latest BBC Four Scandi-noir blockbuster about the kidnap of a female US President in Stockholm. The plot is complex, and a certain suspension of disbelief is required. What's interesting, however, is the role of a senior FBI officer, with a history as a serial abuser and rapist, who seems to be the orchestrator of the kidnap or may be a double agent with inside knowledge. A monstrous conspiracy is slowly being unveiled. The top G-man is the smoothest of operators, persuasive, calmly sinister at every turn. Nothing funny to see here.

On form again

Following an afternoon in the office yesterday, I drove to Penarth for another evening of Chi Gung followed by Tai Chi. In the second session an experienced group went through the full short form and I joined them. It's the first time I've attempted playing the form in full for about five years. I only managed about a third of it before my body memory for the patterns began to break up, and I was reduced to watching and try to copy familiar movements, but not adequately retained. I enjoyed doing it too much to feel frustrated by failure.

Christie our teacher always exhorts me not to let my mind get in the way. Of this I was guilty in times past, but I do believe that I'm more in tune with letting my body remember, and building on the recognition of when positions and moves feel right. This doesn't stop me wanting to think and write about the value and inner meaning of Tai Chi in a western context, but this will take time and a different context. First things first: re-engage fully in physical apprenticeship to form and movement. The more the body benefits, the more mental activity takes on a better quality, and the writing more worthwhile.

By the time I arrived home, Eddie and Ann had arrived after a long journey all the way from Felixstowe, for a long weekend including the opera. They arrived later than expected and the meal had only just started, so it was good we were all able to eat together and then talk until very late.

  

After a late breakfast, we all walked the Taff Trail, as far as the Melingriffith Water Pump. This visit, I was able to take photographs before the local shuttle bus arrived to take us into Whitchurch village for a bus into town. We stopped off at the Royal Welsh College both to show Eddie and Ann Cardiff's latest architectural triumph, and have a light lunch before a pre-operatic siesta. Not that I managed a snooze. I realised I'd forgotten to re-tax the car, and had to go back into the main Post Office to do this. Fortunately the queues were short and I was back within the hour.
  

The WNO's production of Mozart's 'Don Giovanni' was magnificent. Outstanding singing all round, and an amazing set, baroque bas-relief decoration, with all the scenery and backdrop painted black, made visible by changes in lighting colour. It was built from a series of movable modules, deployed to create the variety of scenes against which the action took place.

I was struck at the characterisation of Don Giovanni in the libretto as an amoral psychopath. It's the conquest of seduction that enthralls him rather than the acquisition of lascivious pleasure. It's the exercise of power without scruple or sensitivity. He faces his damnation with bold indifference, like dictator or a Balkan warlord on trial for crimes against humanity. The opera's commentators observe that it was written following a time of enlightenment liberalisation in the Hapsburg empire. Some perceived this as failing to achieve its humane goals. Mozart, despite his naughty youthful reputation was in this opera speaking up for a return to values and behavior based on traditional religious teaching. Quite an interesting perspective for our times, I think.