So, as some of you may know, I attended a rehearsal of Don Giovanni earlier this week, courtesy of the Portland Opera. The company runs this great outreach program where cartoonists come and live sketch rehearsals in the days leading up to the show. I’m no opera buff, but the experience was fantastic. Stellar cast, dramatic staging, and no shortage of saucy thrills. If you’ve been wanting more bang for your operatic buck, this is the show for you.
Unfortunately, these sketches fail to capture the pathos and emotional torment of the show itself. I have, instead, chosen to focus mainly on the boning. There’s a lot of that.
Don Giovanni, his peasant rival, Masetto, and Masetto’s ridiculous hat.Leporello, unwilling servant to Don Giovanni. This was the happiest I saw him in the entire production.Most of the time he looked like this.With good reason.Giovanni spends a fair amount of time attempting to blame Leporello for his own sexual dalliances.Masetto is rarely pleased with Giovanni’s party tactics.Frustrated by his master’s shenanigans, Leporello threatens to leave Giovanni’s service.Giovanni, however, convinces him to stay and switch clothes with his master, in order to go seduce some more babes. The disguise is somewhat lacking.Meanwhile, Giovanni completely fails to impersonate Leporello.Leporello learns that being Don Giovanni has its upsides.Meanwhile, the grisly evidence of Giovanni’s murderous tendencies (displayed to their fullest at the very top of the show), continues to slide down the set.Don Ottavio, fiance to the ravishing Donna Anna, is shocked when his beloved expresses her attraction to Don Giovanni.At Giovanni’s party, he tries a new tactic.Donna Anna, however, is too busy belting it like a rockstar to notice her fiancé’s change of attire. (Seriously. The women in this show fucking KILLED IT.)In the process of lamenting her father’s murder at the hands of Don Giovanni, she makes an alarming discovery.The Commendatore sings accusingly at Don Giovanni from beyond the grave! (Or does he?)Leporello fears the Commendatore’s fiery gaze, but Giovanni knows the truth.Don Ottavio makes a last ditch effort to grab the attentions of his beloved.The Commendatore rises from the grave to deliver a striking revelation! (Also Giovanni gets whisked away to eternal damnation and there’s a big moralistic finale or something I wasn’t really paying attention to anything but the Merkin Mystery at this point.)
And they all lived happily every after!
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Seriously, folks, with the flippancy of my goofy sketches aside, I suggest you all go check out this show. I had a wonderful time. To sweeten the deal, those of you in the know (i.e. everyone reading this blog) can get your tickets for the Thursday (11/8) show at 50% off! Head over here and enter the password MOZART to get in on the action.
If you enjoyed this you can find other excellent commentary, artwork, and cheap gags from the evening’s cartoonists and live bloggers on Twitter under the hashtag #pdxgiovanni.
If you’ve been out there itching to show your friends the magic of Baggywrinkles without having to buy tangible copies of the comic, then boy howdy is this the post for you! I’ve just made both issues available online in their entirety because I love you all and really, it’s about time.
Furthermore, the amazing Joe Follansbee (author of the Fyddeye Guide to America’s Maritime History) recently put up an interview with yours truly on his site! To learn more about how I got involved in all this sailing and comics stuff in the first place, check it out over here.
I had a wonderful (but brief) trip out to see the Lady Washington and Hawaiian Chieftain this past weekend in Oxnard, CA. We had a lovely breeze for our three-hour sail, and it was a huge treat to be aloft and out on the water after so much time away.
Finally, I’ll be returning to Portland this weekend to reprint both issues of Baggywrinkles and make a bundle of new buttons. If you’d like to buy buttons on their own to distribute to nautical friends or decorate your own peacoat/ditty bag/fisherman’s hat, they’ll be available in the store next week in packs of three for two bucks (plus shipping).
Exciting news, dudes! The first 12 pages of Wherefore, the graphic novel I embarked on over the summer, will be in a show opening this Thursday at Reed College!
The shindig goes down at 4:30 pm in the Art Building (for those of you not from the Reed Community, enter in the East Parking Lot (SE 36thish and Woodstock) and head for the blue-roofed building in the NE corner of the lot), and the work will stay up another week or two. The exhibition will include pages from the original script, sketches, studies, penciled pages, and the final inked product, offering a complete overview of my process. I’ll be giving a brief presentation about the creation of the work around 4:45 and it would be excellent to see your smiling faces there. I haven’t yet decided how to go about posting the pages on the web (if at all), so this might be your only chance to see them for a while.
The project was made possible by the Kaspar T. Locher Summer Creative Scholarship, which goes out to four Reed students every Spring. The other three recipients will also be presenting work, so if you make it you can also look forward to awesome paintings, poetry, and a documentary shot in Peru. Cool stuff all around.
That’s all from me for now. Hope to see you all this Thursday!
