Don Giovanni at the Berkeley Opera

Finally, I had a chance to do something different. After a long time, three of my best friends from high school have reconnected. Actually, there were five of us, but Nancy, the youngest, died last year after a long battle with Pict's Disease, which is something like Alzheimer's. Four of us still live in California, in fact, none of us now lives more than 100 miles from Modesto, where we grew up and where none of us could wait to get away from. Carol has lived in southern California for about 25 years, but recently moved back here, and it's been fun for all of us to reconnect.

Anyway, Bonnie is a professional musician and plays flute with the Berkeley Opera Company. She and Phyllis got together and Phyllis invited us to come over for dinner after the opera. It's no big secret that I'm not much of an opera fan, which, since I claim to be a musician, is pretty embarrassing to admit, but I'm just not into it. However, I wanted to be with the gang so I went.

Well, this opera was wonderful. The orchestra was great (when we remembered to listen to them) the singers were all excellent, the staging was interesting, though a little bit dark and sometimes hard to see, and the acting was wonderful as well. Don Giovanni is the story of Don Juan, the famous rake, and he was played with great arrogance by Eugene Brancoveanu. I liked all the singers, especially the one who played Trevina, but I can't remember her name.

They did the opera in modern dress, (read that as casual) and made use of a video screen overhead. This allowed them to do things like substitute Don Giovanni's "little black book" with an i-pod, and show us graphics of his conquests on the screen. In another part, they went to find the girl by going to a yoga class. And in another place, Don Giovanni wanted his servant to stay, and said, (according to the supertitles) "here are four pieces of gold," but clearly said, "Mastercard" and threw a credit card in front of him. Amusing touches that made the audience laugh.

Bonnie's husband Steve was singing in the chorus, and he is quite a good actor -- his enthusiasm shows through even though he's just a part of the chorus and has no lines.

After the opera we went to Phyllis' house where we had a wonderful dinner of squash soup, salad, various kinds of cheese and great bread followed by a wonderful spice cake. It was such a nice evening. Even the drive to and from Berkeley with Carol was fun.

Here are a couple of links to Youtube videos of the performance.