Don Giovanni, English National Opera, ENO, London Coliseum, October 2012

The revival of this production by Rufus Norris has a cast very similar to its opening run in 2010 and works rather well this time. Paul Anderson’s excellent lighting helps create a sense of dark forces at work, and is particularly effective in Act II for the scene featuring Donna Elvira, and again towards the end when multiple Commendatores remove their head coverings and the flames of hell flicker round the side of the set.

Giovanni in action with Zerlina, all images ENO/ Richard Hubert Smith

The cheap picnic for the Commendatore at the end and Ian MacNeil’s simple sets, pushed around by masked men, lend an air of improvisation symptomatic of the Don’s horribly loose lifestyle, and this time Iain Paterson sang the title role with a far sharper cutting edge. Here was no longer a libidinously engaging academic but an assertive and ruthless womaniser, driven by a lust for power and new experiences. As his sidekick Leporello, Darren Jeffery was almost as unsympathetic as his master, and though unable to match Paterson’s strong bass-baritone, he became more engaging towards the end.

Anna, Zerlina, Masetto and Ottavio catch Leporello disguised as the Don

Don and Commendatore

Sarah Tynan and John Molloy reprised their delightful portrayal of the peasant couple Zerlina and Masetto, singing and acting with gusto, and Katherine Broderick gave another fine performance of Donna Anna, her recognition of Giovanni as the murderer of her father the Commendatore being delivered with fine vocal power, superbly backed up by the orchestra. As her fiancé Don Ottavio, Ben Johnson joined the cast to great effect, singing heroically, and his Dalla sua pace (referring to his fiancée’s peace of mind) in Act I was superbly delivered, in translation of course. Matthew Best sang a fine Commendatore, coming over very strongly after his return from the grave, and Sarah Redgwick reprised her performance as an attractive Donna Elvira in dark stockings and red dress.

The cast worked beautifully together and music director Edward Gardner conducted with great power and sensitivity, his curtain call appearance in white tie and tails adding a nice touch. These are performances of great musical strength, leavened by Jeremy Sams’ vernacular translation with its slightly coarse but witty moments.

Performances of the present production end on November 17 — for details click here.

Don Giovanni with Erwin Schrott, Royal Opera, Covent Garden, February 2012

Erwin Schrott was a remarkable Don, good looking, devilishly charming, but with a nasty streak hidden by an insouciant devil-may-care attitude. And his singing was equally remarkable, with an easy casualness as if he were simply talking. As his counterpoint and servant, Alex Esposito as Leporello sang and acted the part with utter conviction. His Madamina aria, where he recounts to the lovesick Elvira all Giovanni’s conquests had a wonderful leering quality, and his stage actions were always expressive but never over the top.

The party at Giovanni's/ ROH image by Mike Hoban

Yet this was more than just Schrott and Esposito, and the rest of the cast was excellent. Ruxandra Donose came over beautifully in her Covent Garden debut as Donna Elvira, as did Kate Lindsey as Zerlina, who really fell for the Don at first meeting, smartly interposing herself between him and her betrothed Masetto, very well portrayed by Matthew Rose. In her first Donna Anna at Covent Garden, Carmela Remigio brought charm and power to the role. Her sudden realisation in Act I that Don Giovanni is her father’s murderer was very powerful, and her late Act II aria Non mi dir was charmingly delivered to her betrothed Don Ottavio. He was nobly sung and portrayed by Pavol Breslik, also making his role debut at the Royal Opera, and Reinhard Hagen sang the Commendatore with the presence he has shown before in this and other roles.

Zerlina and the Don/ Hoban

The singers were very well served by this Francesca Zambello production, superbly revived by Barbara Lluch with attention to detail everywhere. The dialogue between Giovanni and Leporello at the start of Act II was enlivened by the Don almost fainting as his servant says they have to leave the women alone, and it was then really played for laughs as he temporarily left the stage. After he had brutally shoved Leporello into a wall, and later beaten up Masetto leaving him lying on the ground, Zerlina came along to her betrothed and started slapping him, to great amusement from the audience. The joke about Leporello’s wife came off beautifully too, giving just the right degree of lightness before the statue made its ominous pronouncement. Then at the end, after Giovanni has been consumed by the flames of hell, Masetto offers his hand to Leporello and gives him a hug. A nice touch. The flames were so bright they lit up the whole auditorium, and Paul Pyant’s lighting was particularly good in showing the darkness at appropriate times.

Fires of hell, the Statue and the Don

Finally, the orchestra was very well paced under the direction of Constantinos Carydis, and the dramatic moment just before the statue appears at the banquet came over very strongly. One cannot easily find Don Giovanni better performed than this, and Erwin Schrott is unmissable.

Performances with this new cast continue until February 29 and seats are still available, though not in the Amphi — for details click here.

Don Giovanni, Metropolitan Opera live relay from New York, October 2011

For Don Giovanni lovers it doesn’t get much better than this.

Leporello and the Don, all photos MetOpera/ Marty Sohl

The Met’s new music director Fabio Luisi gave a sparkling account of the overture, and the performance never looked back. Mariusz Kwiecien combined noble aplomb with demi-world charm as the Don, and Luca Pisaroni was the perfect foil as his sidekick Leporello. Their early dialogue was superbly done, and Barbara Frittoli as the Don’s erstwhile lover Donna Elvira showed huge vulnerability in her portrayal. Later in Act I when Donna Anna suddenly realises Giovanni was the man who seduced her and killed her father she recalls going outside to stop him and her disingenuous, arditamente il seguo … remains curiously unquestioned by her would-be husband Don Ottavio. Marina Rebeka as Anna makes it sound as if she really is lying about her feelings, but Ramón Vargas continues to sing in loving adoration and concern, and his voice and breath control are remarkable.

Ottavio, Anna and her father

The peasant dancing at the party that Giovanni puts on for the wedding couple Zerlina and Masetto, was delightfully done, so far as one could see from the cinema screen, and Mojca Erdmann’s lyrical Zerlina was prettily flirtatious with the Don, and cleverly seductive with her husband-to-be. With Joshua Bloom as a red-blooded and anxious Masetto they made a superb couple, and her vedrai, carino … in Act II, after he has been beaten up, was beautifully delivered.

Wedding dancing at the Don's

As the Commendatore, Štefan Kocán gave a fine performance before his death in Act I, and then made a dramatic entrance at the end, with his bluish make-up helped by Paule Constable’s lighting. The flames are real and Kwiecien’s insouciant Don goes down like the captain of his ship, bowing to no-one, not even the powers of the afterworld. It’s always difficult to tell on the cinema screen, but this production by Michael Grandage looks very good indeed, and with Fabio Luisi keeping everything on track musically it was a wonderful Giovanni.

Don Giovanni, Soho Theatre, August/ September 2011

This is Robin Norton-Hale’s reduced form of Mozart’s Don Giovanni, updated to the turn of the 21^st century with Giovanni as a city trader named Johnny.

Maciek O'Shea as Johnny

A simple set, occasional video projections, a piano and live electronic music, but it’s still essentially Mozart, and among the three different casts, Maciek O’Shea was superb in the main role of Johnny. An insouciant city slicker with bundles of charm and a devil may care attitude, he has made quite enough money already and is now glad to pile one experience on top of another. The challenge and novelty is the thrill, as his faithful intern explains to Elvira in an updated version of Leporello’s Madamina aria, “So regardless of your feelings/ I’ve recorded all his dealings/ But the thing he finds most thrilling/ is a woman who’s not willing”. Using a hand-held digital recorder he summarises Johnny’s amorous conquests, and the Don’s 1003 lovers in Spain alone become the same number for Johnny in London. The long-suffering intern, named Alexander rather than Leporello, was excellently sung and portrayed by Richard Immerglück.

Christina Gill as Elvira, and Richard Immerglück as Alexander

The Soho Theatre’s small space brings us close to the action, and we clearly see Johnny’s callous knifing of the Commendatore before he smashes a window to give the pretence of a break-in. But in this reduced space I found one or two of the female voices came over too strongly at times, though O’Shea and Immerglück were a delight to listen to, and the diction of the whole cast was excellent. It’s always a pleasure to abandon surtitles yet understand every word that’s sung, and there was an engaging immediacy about the duet between Johnny and Alexander at the start of Act II when Johnny decides he’d best make himself scarce and leave his clients to Alexander.

Some loud electronic music at the start of this production came as a shock, and I was ready to walk, but fortunately it didn’t last and the musical support turned out to be excellent. OperaUpClose has done a great job of adapting this longish opera to a shorter and smaller scale, and the scene at the end when Johnny invites the Commendatore to dinner made complete sense. Johnny, who gets his thrills from new experiences, relishes the prospect of having a dead man at his table, and Gerard Delrez gave a strong account of the Commendatore’s demand that Johnny seek forgiveness, which of course he refuses. After the presence has left, Johnny sees his life flash past him, and rushes out through the door. At the end we see an image of a man hanging by a rope — Johnny’s final experience, his own death.

Performances continue until September 17 — for details click here.

Don Giovanni, English National Opera, ENO at the London Coliseum, November 2010

In an interesting and informative essay in the programme, Richard Wigmore discusses this Mozart opera, and writes, “Don Giovanni revolves around the tensions of class, sex and aristocratic abuse of power”. I agree, but this production takes a different tack. The Don appears more as a bumbling academic, and the supper to which the Commendatore is invited at the end is a picnic of bread rolls served from a couple of small plastic shopping bags. Giovanni and Leporello have no table and chair, but sit on the stage and bread rolls are thrown.

Leporello and the Don, all photos by Donald Cooper

During the overture men in strange masks prowl the stage while a circular and dramatically lit metal contraption is lowered from above, and an electric storm rages in the background. But despite the electricity this Don lacked magnetism. Iain Paterson, whom I recall singing a sympathetic and powerful Amonasro in the  ENO’s  Aida two years ago, and a strong Mr. Redburn in Glyndebourne’s Billy Budd this past summer, sang with warmth and strength, but lacked the cutting edge for the Don. And while his stage actions showed suitable nastiness, he gave the appearance of being too nice a guy to release his amoral testosterone-inspired aggression on the world. As the Don’s long-suffering servant Leporello, Brindley Sherratt sang very strongly and gave a fine depth to the evening, just as he did as Sparafucile in Rigoletto last year, and as the monk Pimen in Boris Godunov the year before. He also gave an excellent comic sense to the role, and while he is equally at home singing the murdered Commendatore — which he did at Glyndebourne this year — that small but important role went to Matthew Best who sang it superbly.

The Don with Zerlina

As the pretty Zerlina, whose wedding to Masetto attracts the Don’s amorously intrusive attentions, Sarah Tynan did a wonderful job. This is the same singer who was so good as Adina in The Elixir of Love earlier this year, and Ilia in Idomeneo this summer. She is a delight to watch, and I loved the Irish brogue of John Molloy as Masetto. The role of Donna Elvira, an ex-lover who won’t let Giovanni go, was to have been sung by Rebecca Evans, but she was suffering a bad throat, so Sarah Redgwick stepped in and made a fine substitute. As Donna Anna, whose rape by the Don starts during the overture, Katherine Broderick sang strongly but with a vibrato edge that I did not care for, and it affected her diction. Robert Murray sang her fiancé Don Ottavio, a rather thankless role that was not helped by his costume as the only man on stage wearing a business suit.

The Don meets his nemesis, the Commendatore

This production by Rufus Norris with sets by Ian MacNeil had some nice aspects — I liked the dripping water on the murdered Commendatore as he lies slumped in a drinking trough, I liked the Don’s wooing of Zerlina, and I thought the projected images that Leporello produces when he recounts his master’s conquests, warning Donna Elvira what a cad he is, were a clever innovation — but the plethora of good ideas was all a bit too much for me. The director, Rufus Norris is new to the opera world, though well-known as a theatre producer, and I think the ENO is reaching out to theatre-goers who are relatively unfamiliar with opera. This staging may appeal to younger audiences, though not so much perhaps to those familiar with other Don Giovanni productions.

In the orchestra pit, Kirill Karabits gave an enjoyable and well-nuanced performance of Mozart’s music. Singing in English demands good diction, and the singers did so well here that the surtitles became superfluous.

Further performances are scheduled for November 6, 11, 13, 17, 19, 23, 27, 29, and December 1, 3 — for more details click here.

Don Giovanni, Glyndebourne, July 2010

This production starts with a bang. The audience, seated in a lighted auditorium, is suddenly plunged into blackness as the first chord comes thundering from the orchestra. Then as the stage gradually lights up during the overture we see a cubical building of stone slowly rotating, showing different facets, and I thought of Dr. Who’s tardis. This turned out to be right on the mark, as the building later opens out to reveal various sets, the last of which shows a long table adorned for dining in a raked and dissolute room. The Commendatore appears from beneath, and drags the Don to hell at the front of the stage. This Jonathan Kent production is cleverly lit by Mark Henderson, and the designs by Paul Brown suggest a spooked version of La Dolce Vita in late 1950s Italy.

The End of the Party in Act I, Glyndebourne photo by Bill Cooper

Within this context, Gerald Finley is the perfect Don, suave and brutal. His killing of the Commendatore is done by dragging him to ground and clobbering him with a brick. After that, both he and Luca Pisaroni as Leporello performed with an insouciance that gave the impression either one would happily shop the other if push came to shove. Their singing had a clarity and attack that made them seem a nasty pair of scoundrels, and with such performances the rest of the cast could be almost passengers, yet there was some excellent support.

The Don with Zerlina, photo by Bill Cooper

Guido Loconsolo performed well as an unusually assertive Masetto, with his two-tone shoes and youthful physicality, and Anna Virovlansky as Zerlina was prettily seductive and absolutely infuriating in her flippant responses to him. Kate Royal sang well as a mousey Donna Elvira, still in love with the Don but clearly incapable of attracting his attentions, apart from her angry assertions of his callous inconstancy, and William Burden was a very fine Don Ottavio, restrained yet powerful. Brindley Sherratt sang well as the Commendatore, and Anna Samuil did her own thing as Donna Anna, singing out strongly for her fans in the audience, yet never quite integrating with the rest of the cast.

The Commendatore crushes the Don, photo by Bill Cooper

This was, at least for me, a super production, and the first orchestral bang at the start was followed by another when the wedding party suddenly poured forth from the cubical structure, and a third at the start of Act II. My only complaint was that the Act II fight where the Don beats up Masetto was poorly done — the blow knocking Masetto to the ground was very wide of the mark — but this is something that should be rehearsed by fight director Alison de Burgh before every performance. However, Vladimir Jurowski did a superb job with the orchestra, which played with immense feeling for the light and shade of Mozart’s score.

Performances continue until 27th August.

Don Giovanni, Holland Park Opera, July 2010

This production by Stephen Barlow gives a clear and convincing take on the story, with pre-First World War costumes by Yannis Thavonis rather than elaborate wigs and clothing from the eighteenth century. Nicholas Garrett sang a powerfully aggressive and hyperactive Don of short stature — looking rather like Nicholas Sarkozy — and Matthew Hargreaves was an engaging and sympathetic Leporello. Money in the form of large bank notes exchanged hands between them several times, and it was as if Zerlina and Masetto were watching from the wings, as they purloined the remaining money from the Don’s corpse at the end.

Nicholas Garrett as the Don with Laura Mitchell as Donna Elvira

Zerlina was a prim and bespectacled girl, very well sung by Claire Wild, whom the Don turned into a sexy charmer when he removed her glasses and let down her hair — a clever touch. Her fiancé Masetto was played by Robert Winslade Anderson as angry but ineptly assertive, and his swift sharp beating by the Don was horribly convincing. Laura Mitchell was a strikingly beautiful Donna Elvira with a lovely voice, only spoiled by straining to fill the auditorium. Her acting was superb, and she was utterly convincing in her desire for the ruthless Don. Ana James sang well as Donna Anna, with Thomas Walker looking suitably ineffective as her fiancé Don Ottavio, and Simon Wilding came over very strongly as her father the Commendatore, singing an excellent bass.

Ana James as Donna Anna

The ego-centricity of the Don in this production is well indicated by nearly twenty portraits of him, hanging on the wall and propped up on the floor — all exactly the same — and it’s through one of these that the Commendatore arrives to dine with him. There is no statue of this dead potentate, but a large coffin is brought on and the Don and Leporello see him inside it while a vision appears in a mirror over the fireplace. Stephen Barlow, who created the production — not to be confused with his namesake the opera conductor — is clearly a man to watch, and I had already been delighted by his direction of the Tosca revival in 2009 at Covent Garden. This is an excellent staging in which to understand Mozart’s Don Giovanni, and Robert Dean did a very fine job conducting the City of London Sinfonia.