Friday, August 16

I spent the day going through the marks I gave the Media Masters course last Spring, before putting them into ASTA. I wanted to reread the assignments in detail to make certain that I had been fair. I think I have. I finished by posting the marks to ASTA and emailing Mats to ask how public I should make the critiques.

Arcada has been doing the television production for a new version Of Don Giovanni by the New Generation Opera company. Tonight is the dress rehearsal and we have tickets. We are sitting in a box of our own and Auo in particular is very excited.

The production will be three and a half hours long, with all the actors filming each other as they perform, and the results being projected onto two screens above the stage. The effect is striking.

The opera is too long but that is Mozart’s fault. The story disappears in the last third which becomes a repetitive lament of “he’s a bastard”, “oh yes he is, he’s broken my heart”, by various characters in various combinations until finally he is sent to hell. It is not a story in any sense at all and it reminded me, as it did thirty years ago when I first saw it, of Punch and Judy.

The character neither changes nor develops, nor learns any lessons or suffers any consequences, except at the very end when he is sent to hell.

Afterwards we will go home and all go straight to bed.