Popular Culture Review Vol. 13, No. 1, January 2002 | Page 85
Petter Sellars’ D on G iovan n i
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minor characters snort cocaine and shoot heroine. Don Giovanni even distributes
parcels of goodies to his party guests. Although the audience never sees donna
Elvira herself using drugs during the opera, she forms part of the cast of thousands
who look to the Faith Mission Church for guidance. In their weakened emotional,
physical, and economic state, the characters are the perfect target for a quick religious
overhaul. The long-term efficacy of their conversion, however, is questionable.
Sellars suggests that none of the characters escape from their depressin g realities.
After don Giovanni is drawn into hell, the other characters rejoice the end of the
evildoer. Despite the Joyous lyrics, visual elements suggest that the characters’
lives remain unchanged. An entire chorus, including donna Anna, donna Elvira,
and Zerlina, is trapped from the waist down in a huge wooden platform with holes
that are spaced so that the characters can barely touch one another. Their characters’
physical immobility and isolation may reflect a spiritual stagnation and confinement.
Although Don Giovanni no longer poses a threat to their survival, the characters
remain caught in their respective purgatories.
In these final scenes, Sellars examines the way American society has taken
two of humankind’s basic needs, food and religion, and turned them into pure
simulacra. High-fat, fast food and hard-sell evangelism have replaced healthy
sustenance for the body and soul. Given their unbalanced diet, the characters will
always be physically and religiously undernourished. Furthermore, these spiritual
and physical hungers parallel a sexual inanition.
Spectators familiar with the don Juan legend usually anticipate, with some
relish, the arrival of the statue in the final scene of the play. Such expectation is
due, in part, to curiosity about how the fantastical event will be staged. This is,
after all, the thematic and visual climax of the play. The handshakes between the
protagonist and the statue can send shivers down the spine of even the most jaded
viewer. The academic may use this exchange to point out structural parallels in the
play. The handshake clearly resonates with occasions in which don Juan falsely
gave his hand in marriage or as a sign of trust. Furthermore, don Juan’s meeting
with the statue condenses three layers of confrontation into one. In sociological
terms, the killer faces his victim. In the psychological terrain, yet another Oedipal
confrontation occurs between rebellious son and father. On a religious level, the
sinner meets his maker. By the end of the opera, the protagonist has transgressed
most social, psychological, and moral boundaries.^
As might be expected, Sellars alters the fantasy elements of Don Giovanni.
He minimizes the presence of the statue by focusing on the presence of a very
young girl. First of all, due to the constant play with shadow and light, the audience
has a hard time determining whether or not the statue is really there. Perched on
top of the roof of the Faith Mission Church, the statue speaks but never touches
don Giovanni. By obscuring the physical presence of the statue and by eliminating