Mozart : Don Giovanni
Chorus and Orchestra of the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden
Nicola Luisotti
Having read a couple of less than enthusiastic reviews of Kasper Holten's new production of Don Giovanni for the Royal Opera House, I was in two minds about going to the broadcast tonight. I'm very glad I did; this turned out to be as satisfying a performance as I've seen in some time, both musically excellent and dramatically coherent.
The set, by Es Devlin, is a rotating, two-tier, hollow cube, filled with enough doors, stairs, nooks and crannies to satisfy the requirements of a French farce. On to the various facets of this structure were projected all manner of images, from Escher-like kaleidoscopes, to the names in the Don's little black book, to floods of ink, not to mention many other things. It was eye-catching, sometimes a bit dizzying, but often very effective. Where I especially liked it was at the start of Act 2, where the confusion engendered by Leporello and the Don switching hats and coats actually seemed credible, given the relative positions of the characters throughout the next three scenes, and the constant play of light and shadow.
Commentary from Holten indicated that this space was intended, in part, to represent Giovanni's mind, and at the end, the final image is Giovanni alone on stage, in front of this construct which had flattened out into an implacable wall full of tightly shut, utterly plain doors. In the context, it seemed that his hell is to be trapped inside his own head by, at the very least, a mental breakdown, if not a physical one too, utterly deprived of the stimulus of other people, or even of his own fantasies. Any interaction Giovanni had with the Commendatore's statue is clearly a figment of his own imagination, and the entire last supper scene is similarly the product of a mind going off the rails, to the despair of Leporello.
It was an interesting idea, and one which largely worked, not clashing too egregiously with the libretto, also thanks to the performance of Mariusz Kwiecien in the title role. This was apparently his 100th outing (not in this production, of course) in this role, but he made it seem as vital and doomed as could be wished, the energy draining progressively from the character, each rebound more effortful than the last, till he stands, utterly lost, before that blank facade, judged and pitiable. Add a handsome face, a charismatic stage presence, and a fine, burnished baritone to his grasp of Holten's vision of this character, and you had a Don Giovanni in which, for once, the title role lacked for nothing in order to justify the compelling place Don Juan holds in our mythology.
It was E.T.A. Hoffmann who first put the idea out there that Donna Anna is not the innocent she appears to be. It's a notion that was largely ignored in the opera house until perhaps the last couple of decades, since when it seems to me that every other production runs with with it, that Anna is fully conscious and consenting in her seduction. Most times, in those productions, the conflict between Anna and the Don, with the immediately tragic consequence of the death of her father (whether accidental or deliberate), seems to be a case of woman-scorned syndrome. Here, it was more that they are on the point of being caught in flagrante, and it's Anna's lies to protect her own reputation that provide much of the motor for the events subsequently depicted. This too worked well for me, and by the end, while she's maybe still not telling the truth to third parties, you sense she has come to terms with it in herself, and found a new strength. Malin Byström sang Anna with a clear, smooth tone and much grace.
Véronique Gens has probably at least as many Elviras under her belt as Kwiecien has Giovannis, and she wasn't being asked for anything untoward in this production, so we pretty much got her standard Elvira - which is not to be sneezed at. The voice flowed evenly, there was some lovely gradation of tone in "Mi tradi" in particular, and she lives up well to the "che aspetto nobile" comment Anna and Ottavio make on first meeting Elvira. Zerlina, on the other hand, is quite the schemer here. Not realising just what, or who, she's dealing with, she plays the Don's game quite openly, but cries rape at the Act 1 finale, presumably to gain leverage for either financial or social advantage. It's only when she finds her husband beaten up by Giovanni that she realises she's bitten off more than she can chew, and regrets her actions. Elizabeth Watts delivered a crisp and quite fiery Zerlina; you wanted to tell her off for being reckless, but at the same time, admired her chutzpah. Like Anna, here was a character who learned some valuable lessons.
It is fairly usual for Don Giovanni performances to be largely dominated by the three female leads, and you can count yourself lucky if the title role can stand up to them (which was certainly the case tonight). Alex Esposito did not make a great deal dramatically of Leporello, but brought a very sound, dark-hued bass-baritone to the part, and his timing was good. Antonio Poli did what he could with Don Ottavio, always a very difficult role in which to achieve anything significant. This one was a young man completely out of his depth, both with his apparent fiancée, and with the violent circumstances into which he is cast. The production required him to sing "Il mio tesoro" while swaying gently back and forward, and with the camera providing us with an upper-body view throughout, I have to say that it was distracting and actually made me faintly queasy, which didn't do Poli any favours. I found his voice a little nasal in quality, but he had the control for both arias. Dawid Kimberg's Masetto was a stolid, somewhat surly figure, not in any way detracting, but not especially noteworthy either. On the other hand, Alexander Tsymbalyuk was one of the most vocally imposing Commendatores I've heard in a very long time, a resonant, treacly black bass voice which I think was slightly assisted at the end, though I can't imagine he actually needed it. And apart from some rather eccentric fortepiano continuo playing, Nicola Luisotti guided the ROH orchestra in a swift-paced, energetic, good-quality reading.
One last comment about this production. In the final scene, you go straight from Giovanni's last, despairing cry into the sextet of the epilogue, without the intermediate passages in which Leporello describes what just happened, and everyone discusses their future plans. On paper, it's more than a little shocking, but in context, it does actually work. You don't see the six characters, they are just voices setting out the moral of the story, while Giovanni is alone on stage. Who they actually are no longer matters, and of course, since the supper scene mostly takes place inside Giovanni's head, any description by Leporello of a statue showing up for dinner and dragging the Don off to the fires of hell is strictly redundant. It is a barbarous cut - but Holten puts forth a pretty good case for it. Altogether an absorbing evening, musically and theatrically satisfying.
[Next : 18th February]
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