Do Not Spare Me....

What do I know about Opera? If you have been reading me a while you will know that I am a bit of a virginette as far as opera is concerned.  I think I am a probably a pleb with lofty aspirations who, left to her own devices, would most likely have gravitated towards "Kinky Boots" rather than Don Giovanni at The Coliseum in London last Friday. However, my personal Cultural attache is determined to expand my vistas, and so who am I to protest?
I resolutely avoided reading reviews before I went. This was on the basis tickets were already bought months ago, and I thought I might be influenced.
Shades of Grey. What does that make you conjure up ? A Farrow and Ball colour chart or that book? Well, I tell you that the opening of Richard Jones' Don Giovanni was a study in both F&B and S&M. Modern setting, corridors of featureless grey doors, and lots of robotic sex. I suppose every director seeks to provide a new unique vision but, if I am honest, this is fundamentally at odds with my preconception of opera being grand, colourful and joyful. I emerged sadly underwelmed by it all.
I read two reviews:

Richard Morrison in The Times called it "Sexy, surreal and shocking" ; while he only needed to see it once, it had been the most gripping Giovanni staged by ENO in years. A view shared by Hugh Canning in The Sunday Times. He said that Don Giovanni was the sex addict he had been waiting for.
It made me re-evaluate. Why had  I been looking for grand, colourful and joyful when the subject was the darker side of murky? What was I thinking of?

Christopher Purves as Giovanni and Caitlin Lynch as Anna
Picture by Robert Workman