I went to see Don Giovanni last night with Emily at the Harris Theatre. She worked for the Chicago Opera Theatre over the summer and they comped her some tickets. After the overture, a bar of red light flashed on across the front of the stage and, as the curtain went up, it became apparent, even knowing very little about Don Giovanni, that a good deal of liberty was being taken with this particular production.

The next thing we knew, there were pole dancers on the stage. Seriously?

The production made an attempt to modernize Mozart, but in doing so also felt the need to make explicit everything that had been implicit in the original work. Why is it that we feel so compelled as a society to shove dysfunctional sex in the face of innocent bystanders? Really, much of what they did could have been accomplished, in my opinion more successfully, with a little more tact and a lot more respect for the women on the stage.

I felt strongly that in attempting to show the audience just how despicable and lewd Don Giovanni is the producer actually re-objectified the women in the cast. Emily mentioned at one point that she felt it all needed to be a little starker. I agree completely–I felt like I was watching some crude hip hop video in which prostitution and rape are the motifs of sex. Really, if one more girl had been slapped on the rear I would have walked out of the theatre. Thankfully that stopped after the first act so I could actually look at the stage again.

Why do we feel that it’s ok to act out and to watch as entertainment the very behavior generations of women have fought to eliminate? Is it worth it to make those girls stand on stage in skimpy underwear just to be ‘realistic.’ What purpose did it serve? By the end of the show, the production had pushed the audience so far over the edge that we were incapable of responding appropriately to the death of Don Giovanni and the downfall of the rest of the characters. We should have been struck by the sorrow of a life wasted in sin. We should have been provoked to contemplate how easily a life given over to hedonism leads to abuse. We should have despised Don Giovanni and yet deeply pitied him in his death.

Instead, the boys sitting next to us laughed nervously, Emily groaned, and I sighed, ready to be done with the whole thing.