The show of Don Giovanni which takes the stage on Saturday, May 14 at the Opéra de Québec was imagined by Bertrand Alain, actor and director, whose life plunged into the Dom Juan of Molière before tackling Mozart’s masterpiece.
“In Molière, Don Juan’s motivations are quite clear; a monologue explains his approach. We understand how it goes in his head and how much his need to seduce all women matters to him. This monologue is a strangely luminous moment, as the Opera sets off on two crimes: the assault on Donna Anna and the murder of the commander. This is not in Molière’s play. So right from the start the question arises: what should I do with the character of Don Giovanni? »
Bertrand Alain, actor, theater and opera director, teacher at the lyric workshop of the Quebec Conservatory of Music and Dramatic Arts, recognizes that the fact of having participated, in the past, in a production of the Dom Juan of Molière at the Théâtre du Trident influences his perception of the opera, “even if Da Ponte’s libretto is considerably different”.
Guided by his impulses
“With Molière, it is more a question of religion, philosophy, morality. With Da Ponte, librettist of the Don Giovanni of Mozart, we are in the action, in the adventure. You can also make a connection with your own adventurous life,” Bertrand Alain tells us. The end, the supreme punishment, unites the two works.
From the first rehearsal, the questions came from [interprètes]. It got me hot
in the heart to feel so much openness. I obviously had to have arguments, my coherence, my logic on the characters and their motivation, while being coherent. They embarked on the project.
With the attempted rape and the murder at the beginning, Don Giovanni could well be “a serial killer, a bandit of the worst kind, a bastard with whom, from the outset, one could absolutely not identify”. We feel that Bertrand Alain does not want to force the line. “If, for me, fundamentally, there is a message, it is that these impulses that there are perhaps in each human being, when they accumulate, can lead us to a destiny that was not the one we wanted. »
The director does not go so far as to say that what is happening there could “happen to everyone”, but he sees Don Giovanni as an “eternal adolescent, incapable of controlling his impulses and who says to himself: if fatality exists and if what I am doing is wrong, then stop me”. In the eyes of Bertrand Alain, this dimension is even “much more present in Molière”.
Would Don Giovanni then be a Don Juan without inhibitions? “Don Juan thinks more. Da Ponte-Mozart’s Don Giovanni is caught in the action. Nothing can stop it. He does not explain to us why and he goes for it. He goes from one conquest to another solely guided by his impulses. »
Double or observer?
Bertrand Alain applies his personal barriers to his shows. “What I don’t like going to a show is being lectured. I am able to lecture myself as a spectator. Practical application: “We could have done an ecological show. Everything related to the environment is very trendy. Don Giovanni could be someone who consumes excessively and should stop, because it would lead to his downfall. At the limit, we could make it a subject of the end of the world! But I prefer to stay with the idea of a man pushed towards his destiny, who does not stop and taunts this destiny. »
Faced with his master, Leporello is often seen as a double of Don Giovanni. “It all depends on the cast. Here, physically and by the type of actor, we are very close to the Sganarelle, and not at all to the double of Don Giovanni”, specifies the director to us. He had nothing to do with the choice of Doug MacNaughton who will be opposed to Philippe Sly, but he is delighted with the choice: “Sganarelle/Leporello has an admiration for his master, then develops judgment since he sees the abuses and comments. Finally, all this frightens him. I’m very happy with Doug’s choice: it gave me the opportunity to stage the show in this way with these values where, as in Molière’s play, Leporello becomes our view of Don Giovanni. »
And we come back to the interest of not caricaturing Don Giovanni as a vile thug when Bertrand Alain evokes our strange admiration for seducers. “If it weren’t for our fascination with these people, we wouldn’t be fooled and they would quickly be outwitted. »
Another male character, the turkey of the stuffing, Don Ottavio, who will be treated with attention, in general. “The problem, in the tradition, is to make it a one-dimensional and ethereal character who represents only righteousness. My attempt will be to bring back the flesh, because Ottavio is also desire, but a desire with “good values”. Bringing flesh back to Ottavio will be the challenge of Quebec director and tenor Jonathan Boyd.
Empower women
It is also close to Bertrand Alain’s heart to “give a more important place to women around Don Giovanni”. “The three female characters have a lot of substance. They can take very different colors, and the music gives them multiple emotions. They are sometimes victims, sometimes combatants. »
As with the productions that make Leporello an aspiring Don Giovanni, there are many that maintain some confusion in the profiles of Donna Anna and Donna Elvira. In Quebec, they could not be more distinct, since the voices of the soprano Anaïs Constans and the mezzo Julie Boulianne are very dissimilar.
“We have to go back to the difference in their stories. What happened with Elvira? For me, the union was consummated, but even if there was no marriage in front of a celebrant, Elvira really believes that she is Don Giovanni’s wife. With Donna Anna, we can think that her cries repelled Don Giovanni [lors de la tentative de viol]. We can also think that she is lying and that her cries did not repel him. I like the idea that she pushed him away before the irreparable was committed. »
There remains Zerlina, the young peasant, a very different profile. “Here is a young woman fascinated by a man like she has never seen. She was going to consent to something happening. However, Elvira arrives and that does not happen. This creates three different situations. For Bertrand Alain, this must be kept in mind when constructing the characters.
Bertrand Alain was captivated by his meeting with the singers of the distribution. “What differs from theater is that most performers have already played and sung those roles. But he was surprised: “From the first rehearsal, the questions came from them. It warmed my heart to feel so open. I obviously had to have arguments, my coherence, my logic on the characters and their motivation, while being coherent. They embarked on the project”, rejoices the director, “very admiring of their flexibility and the pleasure they take in doing things differently”.
In the implementation of his “precise wishes”, Bertrand Alain sees himself as a craftsman. Because setting up an opera in Quebec means planning all the trips the first week, tweaking during the second, and moving around the sets during the last before the start of the performances. “Yes, there is reflection, the intellectual. But, it becomes concrete very quickly. I want the work in the rehearsal room to be pleasant and motivating for the performers and, together with the designers, I want a beautiful playground for everyone. »
The frame of the Don Giovanni of the nation’s capital will be Victorian. “I chose a foggy atmosphere and Victorian cemetery decor, a period still very present today in cinema and in literature. I wanted accessible clothing and décor codes. There is not much in the work that situates it in a place [l’Espagne n’est que vaguement évoquée]. Our choices do no harm and ensure that we are in a mysterious world that opens up to an excessively important sensuality. If we transposed this to our time, we would create, for example, a problem for weapons, whereas in the Victorian era, a soldier could have a ceremonial sword and there were pistols. »
This Don Giovanni will be the first performance in front of a full house at the Opéra de Québec since Jean-François Lapointe took office as general and artistic director. The impressive top-flight cast is to his credit and bodes well for what’s to come.