TribLIVE: To some degree, masterpieces stand on their own. Few performances of them achieve their full potential. Few are so bad they completely ruin the experience.
Pittsburgh Opera unveiled a new production of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s “Don Giovanni” on Friday night at the Benedum Center. It was problematic, both dramatically and musically. As a result, the opera’s greatness was only partially achieved.
2 comments:
Working in theatre we are not always going to please everybody, nor should we aim for that. But it never is great when you get torn apart in a review. One could say 'to each his own' maybe it just wasn't the critic's style. But calling out the scenery is rough. If the audience can see it shake under the movement of the actors, thats a little scary. But I have to wonder if the critic was seeing things he wanted to see, because if it shook enough for the audience to see, I don't know if the singers could have continued.
It was a nice to hear him give good reviews to Jennifer Holloway. I had worked with her in the past and it does not surprise me at all that she was the most impressive.
It's nice to read reviews every now and then that call attention to how awful something was. Too often we as artists look to reviews to get patted on the back, reaffirmations of our own greatness presented onstage and when it comes to the work of our peers to see what sort of greatness they produced. But sometimes things suck. It is the job the critic to let the public know that. This is important for two reasons. The first is that it sets standards and expectations for performance. If eveything is good it waters down the live experience. Audiences can't decipher what they like and what they don't like because critics are saying they should like it all. This should not be the case. The second reason why the critic should be honest, even if this means bashing a production, is to restate their role as a critic. A critic should be not only be an expert, a legitimate judge of the production but also an admirer of the arts, someone who loves and looks to art to be inspired. Critics write bad reviews not to be mean, spiteful, or malicious towards a production (though I'm sure this does and will happen) they write bad reviews because they are disappointed. Don't forget that art is a two-way relationship: the artist presents something for an audience and the audience responds. Repeat endlessly. When there is something wrong with this relationship the critic needs to remind both parties involved: the artistic organization is doing a disservice to the public and the audience needs to be alerted before they become involved in something they won't like. Isn't that why we go to the theater? For enjoyment and entertainment?
Did Don Giovanni suck? Was this a bad review? I don't think so. Rather a good review of a bad production.
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