You can’t go far nowadays without coming across another attempt to bring opera to the masses. But I still didn’t expect to see Mozart packing them in at Heaven.
The reason for the success of his 1787 opera, Don Giovanni, at “London’s gay night-spot” was clear to see. This was proper opera, beautifully and thrillingly sung, but made accessible to a non-Covent Garden crowd in a heavily cut, gay version (with a new English libretto by distinguished writer Ranjit Bolt) set in the Soho club scene of the 1980s. After the event I found myself wondering why Don Giovanni hadn’t been given a makeover before. It’s Mozart’s most popular opera, with hit tunes (you’ll almost certainly know the duet, ‘There We Will Entwine Our Hands’, and Don’s toe-tapping ‘Champagne’ aria), and it’s about serial Spanish shagger Don Juan.
What delighted the Heaven audience, who roared their approval, was that nobleman Don (strongly sung by the muscular and sometimes shirtless Duncan Rock – yes, he admitted on GaydarRadio, he does work out) was now a gay club owner, who picks up his male partners on Hampstead Heath and Clapham Common. Apart from Don, men sang the female parts and vice versa. Don’s servant Leporello became his P.A. Leo, sung by Zoë Bonner. It all worked perfectly well, in fact it worked to such an extent that, under the right circumstances (read on), I think I’d see this version again rather than the original.
Although known as a lover, the Don in Don Giovanni is a nasty piece of work. He commits murder in the first scene and throughout the show it looks as though he’s going to get away with it. I won’t reveal his ridiculous come-uppance because, if you don’t know the opera, you won’t be expecting it. It was one of several great set-pieces in director Dominic Gray’s cheeky re-interpretation. When the good guys came in disguise to Don’s club, to collect evidence, they dressed as the Village People. Everyone then went into Mozart’s Minuet, adapted by Vince Clarke. (Yes, Vince Clarke of Erasure). The lyrics, when they could be heard, were outrageous. “Fruits are for plucking/Boys are for fucking”, sang Don. At the party scene, where superbly sculpted stripper Damola Onadeko served drugs on a silver salver, a guest sang, “You’re looking exhausted. Try some speed.” Then again, nothing was that far removed from the original scenario with its non-stop boozing and bonking.
My only gripe is that the production was a victim of its own success. It was done as a promenade performance and in theory the audience could travel with the players from peep show to nightclub to Wimpy bar. But we were in fact packed shoulder-to-shoulder on to Heaven’s main floor making any movement pretty much impossible. If the singers were on the opposite side of the room with their backs to us, we couldn’t see or hear them. Don Giovanni began as a short entertainment performed in Trafalgar Square for the 2009 Pride and there are plans for another Pride show this year. But wouldn’t it be a good idea to place it in a theatre setting? Then we could all sit down and watch the whole thing on stage. But I don’t want to appear old-fashioned.
• Heaven, Villiers Street, WC2. 4/5
