Product Description
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Don Giovanni is one of the timeless classics of all opera.
Mozart's music, and the words of his great collaborator Da Ponte,
are brought to life in Francesca Zambello's engrossing production
from 2002 with its rich and colourful designs by Maria Bjornson.
The music is memorable, dramatic and enjoyable: from the
seductive solo voices of the famous 'La ci darem la mano' to the
fabulous ensemble as Don Giovanni's inuated conquests,
vengeful victims and their outraged relatives join forces for
justice. And retribution does finally come to Don Giovanni, a
serial womanizer and a murderer, with the searing flames of Hell
ready to engulf him. Simon Keenlyside heads the outstanding cast,
conducted by renowned Mozart expert Charles Mackerras.
Press Reviews
"If one of the cast it to be named above the rest, that should be
Joyce DiDonato, an outstandingly accomplished Elvira, brilliantly
projected, interestingly conceived, her singing concentrated in
tone. Miah Persson is an adorable Zerlina, and I liked what she
and others were encouraged to do by way of vocal ornamentation."
(Gramophone)
"Sir Charles Mackerras conducts an incandescent Overture which
kindles the brilliance, clarity and indeigable energy of his
music direction throughout. This film powerfully captures the
fiery essence of Francesco Zambello's production...Zambello makes
Simon Keenlyside's harsh and diabolical Don Giovanni and Kyle
Ketelsen's embittered Leporello a double-act of deadly
dependency." (BBC Music Magazine)
Cast
Simon Keenlyside (Don Giovanni)
Kyle Ketelsen (Leporello)
Eric Halfvarson (Commendatore)
Marina Poplavskaya (Donna Anna)
Joyce DiDonato (Donna Elvira)
Ramón Var (Don Ottavio)
The Orchestra of the Royal Opera House; Charles Mackerras
Production
Company: The Royal Opera
Stage Director: Francesca Zambello
Disc Information
Catalogue Number: OA1009D
Date of Performance: 2008
Running Time: 202 minutes
Sound: 5.1 DTS Surround; PCM Stereo
Aspect Ratio: 16:9 Anamorphic
Subtitles: EN, FR, DE, ES, IT
Label: Opus Arte
Review
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For this opera to succeed in all its moral, emotional,
and rhetorical complexity, it needs a Don Giovanni who's
sufficiently appealing that we feel at least some ambivalence
toward him. Otherwise, Zerlina's attraction to him, much less
Elvira's attempt to redeem him even at the end, makes no sense.
That need is especially pressing when we have an Elvira as strong
and spirited as Joyce DiDonato (no dided dishrag here) and
when Masetto is shorn of his bumptious goofiness (as he is when
portrayed by Robert Gleadow). The Don's fundamental charisma,
unfortunately, is singularly absent from this production,
especially when seen close up on video, where every grimace
registers more forcefully than it would from back in the hall.
Granted, Simon Keenlyside is an experienced exponent of the role;
but his approach seems to have changed over the years. Ralph V.
Lucano found him "a gentleman" on the Abbado (22: 3),
while Raymond Tuttle found him rather neutral in his 2006 Zurich
account (31:5). Here he's gone completely over to the dark side:
from his sadistic torment of the dying Commendatore (he glares
maliciously into his eyes, and then gives him a mocking kiss), we
know we are watching a sociopath, a man driven not by hedonistic
enthusiasm but by an undisguised and unquenchable desire to cause
pain. There's little fizz in "Fin ch'han dal vino," little
sensitivity to the serenade, and, more generally, no charm to
counterbalance the cruelty. When, at one point, he threatens to
castrate Leporello, you feel he might really do it. No surprise
that the production fails to cohere as a dramatic whole.
Still, as a series of operatic numbers, there's much to enjoy.
Yes, Halfvarson lacks heft as the Commendatore; and Poplavskaya,
a rather tight and unsympathetic Donna Anna, lacks the tonal
panache and virtuoso conviction to bring off the ending of "Non
mi dir" (in her defense, she was suffering from a throat
infection during at least one of the performances that were
coalesced into this video). But Ketelsen, who looks enough like
Keenlyside to make the identity-switch credible, is a perversely
sympathetic Leporello, and Ramón Var (vocally at least) makes
Don Ottavio a plausible suitor, strong-willed and passionate (his
awkward stage presence is another matter). Better still are the
sweet-toned, finely controlled, and musically flexible peasants,
Robert Gleadow and Miah Persson. Superbly matched singers, they
have the kind of relationship--and the kind of underlying
purity--that make you think Masetto and Zerlina could grow up to
become Figaro and Susanna (in fact, Persson has taken on the role
of Susanna with distinction; see 32:1). Best of all, though, is
the fiery DiDonato, who enters with in hand and who
continues to dominate whenever she's present: this, in the end,
is Elvira's story.
Mackerras conducts with his accustomed clarity, although I found
that the energy level tended to drop here and there, especially
in the first half of the second act. The orchestra, as we've come
to expect, plays magnificently. As for Francesca Zambello's
production: originally premiered in 2002, it has come in for
years of criticism, mainly from the British press. But in today's
climate, you have to give it a kind of negative credit, if only
for its lack of disrespect for the music and the libretto. It's
generally colorful, and it evokes the 18th century without
turning stiff or fussy; the pyrotechnical display in the final
scene is fairly impressive. Yes, the men are having a bad hair
day (never has a production so insistently called out for more
shampoo), and yes, there are some odd moments: why does Ottavio
walk off in the middle of "Non mi dir"? Then, too, the staging is
often ed. But unlike so many productions these days, it
doesn't go out of its way to spit on the ideas of the composer
and librettist. There's one major exception, though, and it's a
big one. After the final sextet, the curtain opens to show us Don
Giovanni in hell: there he is, in triumphant naked glory, holding
a glamorous (and also, of course, fully unclothed) woman in his
arms. So much for punishment.
The video quality is first-rate, especially, of course, on the
Blu-ray version; excellent sound, too. There's also a lengthy and
provocative essay by David Nice in the booklet. The only
complaint about the production is Opus Arte's decision to issue
the Blu-ray version on two discs: it would easily have fit on
one, which would have given the release an economic edge.
Recommendation? This DVD is a compilation of two performances in
September 2008, and readers with sharp eyes for details in
headnotes and a good memory for cultural trivia might have
noticed that the first of them is the notorious performance that
was reserved for readers of The Sun. Those who were present, or
those interested in the fascinating intersection between tabloids
and opera over the years, may well want this set in their
collections as a memento of the event. Others, though, should
turn elsewhere. Among recent performances, I've been most taken
with the Jacobs SACD (I've not yet seen his video account) and
Kreizberg's Glyndebourne DVD, although neither has entirely
alienated my affections from long term favorites presided over by
Walter, Rosbaud, Krips, and Giulini. -- Fanfare Archive, Peter J.
Rabinowitz, Nov/Dec 2009
Some scenes, like certain recipes, look so simple on the page yet
turn out to be next to impossible to stage credibly. Take, for
instance, the end of the first act of Don Giovanni. We all know
what has happened; the Don has accused Leporello of assaulting
Zerlina, but nobody is buying his story. Somehow or other the Don
gets away scot-free at Leporello's expense, as Leporello will
complain at the beginning of the next act. But how? (This being
the stretta of an opera buffa finale, there are no stage
directions to guide us.)
Usually the Don strikes some dashing pose or other center stage
while everyone else mills about lessly, which doesn't get us
from here to there. In the new DVD of Francesca Zambello's Covent
Garden production of Don Giovanni from Opus Arte, Simon
Keenlyside as Don Giovanni, having casually disarmed his enemies
of their s and pistols during the stretta, makes his escape
by climbing the wall on a red rope dangled by one of his red-clad
servants. It gets us from here to there, after a fashion, but
rather crudely; which kind of summed up my feelings about the
production.
Red is a very important color in this production (sets and
costumes, the latter fantastical late eighteenth-century, by
Maria Bjornson). Don Giovanni is dressed all in red and
reddish-brown, which flatters Keenlyside's complexion rather
nicely. The ballroom of the palace of the Act 1 finale is all in
red, with matching lackeys. This contrasts with the virginal
white of Donna Elvira's Act 1 wedding gown and Zerlina's shift (a
very unflattering garment for poor Miah Persson). Clearly we are
meant to liken Don Giovanni to the Devil.
There is plenty of fire in the final scene-none of it connected
to the Commendatore, who rises from below looking just as he had
when alive, and whose statue is represented by a hand-like
structure made of blue lights at the back of the stage, cely
visible at all in the previous graveyard scene, which moves to
the front to the stage at last to cast the Don into hell. (Eric
Halfvarson's wobbly singing as the Commendatore didn't help make
him seem any more threatening.) But in a final touch, the last
thing we see in the Epilogue is... Don Giovanni in hell holding a
naked woman in his arms. What kind of punishment is this?
Under the circumstances, Keenlyside literally climbs the walls a
lot-the first verse of "Deh vieni alla finestra" is sung while
hanging with one hand off Donna Elvira's garden wall-but piles on
the soft legato charm with the ladies, achieving genuine vocal
and physical elegance in "La ci darem la mano". The Devil can be
a gentleman, as goes the old saying; but he can also be a
positive ruffian with the men, as "Meta da voi" revealed-the duel
with the Commendatore is rendered as a mugging pure and simple
(not even with Don Giovanni's , but Leporello's dagger!)
But this is a very violent production by traditional standards
(props to fight director William Hobbs); even Donna Elvira in her
opening scene brandishes a musket, though to no good use
considering that just by pulling the trigger she could have
dispatched Don Giovanni then and there. Also a very touchy-feely
production; when during "Mi tradi" Zerlina and Donna Anna wander
in and began taking things away from Donna Elvira, we seemed to
have wandered into a group therapy session.
Of the three ladies, vocal honors go to Joyce DiDonato's Donna
Elvira. I was surprised at how large and how comfortable with the
higher reaches of the music her voice seemed. What with her
unremitting vocal and dramatic intensity throughout the first
act, the notion that some misguided early-music conductor
suggested the Fidelio Leonore to her seemed less crazy. (And
having heard her in the Curtis Alcina, I marvel all the more that
she can adjust her vocal approach from the delicate nuances of
period-instrument Handel to the broader strokes of big-house
Mozart.)
Persson, as Zerlina, has the sort of light lyric soprano that
projects as solidly in its lower octave as it gleams above the
staff; she was the most enthusiastic adder of ornaments among the
cast. Marina Poplavskaya threw herself into Donna Anna's plight
with plenty of gumption, but the music doesn't show her voice to
advantage; declamatory passages too often came out dark and
foggy, and anything above the staff thinned out.
Kyle Ketelsen, as Leporello, offered an exceptionally nuanced
vocal performance matched to a smooth and ringing bass, without
milking the audience's attention even though he rather overdid
the physical awkwardness shtick. (I especially enjoyed his
handling of the multivolume encyclopedia of Don Giovanni's
conquests-did I tell you this is a prop-heavy production?) Ramon
Var, as Don Ottavio, has vastly improved his posture since I
last saw him as Ramiro in the Met Cenerentola back in 1998. He
played the role as a properly manly aristocrat rather than the
stereotypical wimp, to the point of rather barging his way
through "Dalla sua pace" so that you realized what a difficult
aria it was ("O mio tesoro" fared well, though).
Robert Gleadow, the Masetto, sounded right, but he could have
restrained his temper a little- or at least directed it to some
object other than Zerlina- to dramatic advantage. Sir Charles
Mackerras, in the pit, conducted with his usual energy; few of
his patented added ornaments made it into this performance, but
appoggiaturas abounded.
So should you buy this performance? It's not one for the ages.
There are better traditional Don Giovanni productions on DVD out
there. Still, it's pretty well sung and conducted; it may not be
worth preserving on DVD, but it would I imagine be an enjoyable
evening in the theater. -- Partererre Box, Indiana Loiterer III,
November 5, 2009
TC has reviewed seven DVD versions of Mozart's Don Giovanni
(Issues 115,137, 179, Arthaus; 160, 186, Opus Arte; 173, TDK;
197, EMI), but the eighth, from the Royal Opera (Covent Garden)
in 2008, is the only production that treats the work as a tragedy
with comic moments, according to the work's designation as a
"dramma giocoso" (1009 D, two discs). The singing is terrific;
Simon Keenlyside (Don Giovanni), Kyle Ketelsen (Leporello),
Marina Poplayskaya (Donna Anna), Joyce DiDonato (Donna Elvira),
Miah Persson (Zerlina). In addition, Ramón Var brings
star-quality singing to the usually colorless role of Don
Ottavio. Charles Mackerras leads the excellent orchestra in one
of his most dynamic performances. All three female leads look
their roles; the Don certainly would find them attractive, which
is not always the case in performances of the opera. High
definition video and great sound in all three formats. Several
short bonus interviews are provided. -- Turok's Choice, Paul
Turok, November 2009