MOZART AND THE BAD BOYS

I was fortunate to attend the Kansas City Lyric Opera’s wonderful production of Mozart’s Don Giovanni last night thanks to my friends Tamara and Kirk. The work was first performed in Prague, Czechoslovakia in the 18th Century and was based on the legendary Don Juan of 17th Century Seville, Spain. The opera reports that Don G had so many lovers, the names were listed in books. The volume for Spain had 1003 names.


We just can’t seem to get enough of those bad boys…Don Juan of 17th Century Spain and Tiger Woods of the 21st Century golf course. If you think we will be celebrating Tiger’s escapades in the grand opera of the 24th Century, please let me know.

What we most enjoyed in the rather long musical telling of the tale (during the 2nd act I was able to have AAA come open my car so I could get the keys locked inside and hardly missed a thing,) was seeing the final downfall of Don G. There is nothing like a good damnation and descent into Hell to make one feel all is right with the world.

Something that always makes me feel right with world is knowledge. I want to know exactly what is going on… like knowing the synopsis and time frame of the opera before I go, reading the play before I attend Shakespeare or knowing that the restaurant serves fresh food rather than food cooked in a factory, shipped frozen and reheated. It might be thirst for knowledge. It may just be nosiness. Nosiness is Power. I think Francis Bacon first said this.

NOTE FOR NOSY PARKERS: There is a source for information in addition to Google. It is called a book. I like this one for all things related to music: The New College Encyclopedia of Music by J.A. Westrup and F. Ll. Harrison. (ISBN 0-393-00074-5)

This is a well-thumbed vintage book – copyrights 1959, 1960, 1976… three of my favorite decades. Along with Mozart’s 18th Century, of course.

Thank you for taking the time to visit my blog!
xx