Photo -B ill Cooper

WA Mozart: Don Giovanni, Glyndebourne, 4 July, Drottningholms Slottsteater, Sweden, 28 August 2010.

We were warned! In a Radio Three interview shortly before the opening performance of Glyndebourne’s new production of Don Giovanni, the conductor Vladimir Jurowski said that this was one of the greatest of all operas because of its eclecticism, not only looking back to opera seria but forward to the grand operas and music dramas of the nineteenth century if not also to the post Wagnerian period.  This misguided attitude pervaded the whole production. One cannot deny that it was dramatic! The house lights were suddenly extinguished and the two opening chords of the overture immediately sounded with exaggerated portentousness with little concession to the period sound expected from the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment. The overture set the scene for a performance very dark in mood and illumination aiming at a brutal realism stripping away from the story the veneer of opera buffa (dramma giocosa), the creation of Mozart and da Ponte. Act I opened with Leporello on guard (apparently in underpants). Donna Anna rushes on crying ‘Rape’, having found herself in bed with a stranger, followed by the Commendatore, her father, who is sadistically battered to death by Giovanni, rather than being run through with a sword. And so it went on – the party scene was orgiastic with hints of sado-masochism. The statue appears as a decaying corpse; the cathartic sextet at the end when each character looks forward to the future is marred by having Giovanni’s corpse receiving kicks at the front of the stage, despite having been consigned to Hell moments before. (The flames of Hell were transposed spectacularly but, for no other apparent reason, to the end of Act I.) This is Don Giovanni as verismo opera seen through puritanical eyes where, beneath the surface, there is no distinction between seduction and rape and, in the catalogue of his many conquests, no indication that any of the ladies might actually have enjoyed the experience.

The reader will gather that I disliked this production. To be fair I should say that few I have spoken to agree with me. But how about the staging and performance? Most remarkable is the set design of Paul Brown. The basic element is a rotating cubic representation of a renaissance town house (a companion identified it as the Palazzo dei Diamanti in Ferrara) with the front door opening up for Zerlina and friends, as a chapel where the Commendatore’s coffin lies in the scene where Anna, Ottavio and Elvira take stock of the situation (an innovation reminding of Puccini), and Giovanni’s party. Filling the back wall of the house appear ‘significant’ pictures, first of Mary Magdalene and then a scene of pastiche baroque debauchery. In the second Act the set is more like an expressionist movie, with several levels leading down to a trapdoor and basement where Leporello, disguised as his master, is tied up and lowered. It is difficult to figure this out.

This production gives little opportunity for the singers to develop the subtleties of their characters. It did not help that the lighting was so dim. Gerald Finley as the Don is unusually uncharismatic; Leporello (Luc Pisaroni) makes the most of the few opportunities for humour which remain. Ottavio (William Burden) left little impression. Guido Lonconsolo plays Masetto. Of the ladies, the Zerlina of Anna Virovlansky is the most lively, Anna (Anna Samuil) has a fine powerful voice but little personality, while Kate Royal as Elvira disappoints, failing to contrast the contradictions of her feelings.

The Director is Jonathan Kent. To produce Don Giovanni as verismo opera is an interesting innovation but only serves to emphasise the subtlety, humanity and humour of the original concept of Mozart and da Ponte where the evil charm of the Don is implied through his relation to Leporello and the three ladies.


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By contrast, this year’s production of the same opera at the exquisite baroque theatre at Drottningholm Palace on the outskirts of Stockholm, while introducing a modern twist to the interpretation, was totally true in spirit to the original. This is the third Drottningholm collaboration of the director Johanna Garpe with Drottningholm’s Artistic Director, conductor Mark Tatlow. Previously we have reported Monteverdi Il Ritorno d’Ulisse in Patria in 2008 (OM No.279) and L’Incoronazione di Poppea last year (OM NO.291), both of which illustrated a similar modern freshness of approach. Her basic idea this time is to set the story in the context of the eve of the impending French Revolution, exaggerating the age, class and social standing of the protagonists. Thus Don Giovanni and Leporello are depicted as decrepit oldies (a little too decrepit for dramatic sense), the Don belonging to a doomed aristocracy, Anna, Elvira and Ottavio are outraged members of the bourgeoisie (ultimately invoking the powers of law and order who arrive too late to arrest Don Giovanni at the end), while Zerlina, Masetto and companions are young tearaways. This was neatly illustrated at the end of the first act when Giovanni emerges from his failed attempt to ravish Zerlina, still in command of the situation when confronted by the masked trio who are delicately picking their way between the sprawling bodies of the young people who have overindulged at the party. This stratification made sense of Zerlina’s relationship with Giovanni. What young girl has not at some time been flattered by the attentions of an elderly gentleman, unaware of his lecherous intent?

After a rather ragged performance of the Overture, the orchestra of period instruments settled down to provide a firm accompaniment to a fine group of singers, conducted from the keyboard of a large, impressively sonorous fortepiano (a modern copy of a late 18th century instrument by Schantz). Particularly impressive were Marika Schönberg as a passionate and vindictive Donna Anna and Lars Arvidson, living the part of Leporello. Also deserving their warm applause were the well-rounded Donna Elvira of Miriam Treichl and the unusually robust Don Ottavio of Magnus Staveland (for once one could even believe he and Anna might eventually get together). Recent opera school graduate Susanna Stern sang Zerlina with remnants of a ‘Vadstena screech’, a shrill edge to the voice which I have noted before in fledgling Swedish sopranos and named after the opera academy there. Bass-baritone Håvard Stensvold doubled the roles of Masetto and Commendatore, probably for reasons of economy – the vocal requirements are not compatible. Carl Johan Loa Falkman relied on dramatic ability rather than outstanding vocal quality in his portrayal of Don Giovanni but this did not impair our enjoyment of the whole performance.

For once the temperature in the auditorium was not unbearable nor did the seats seem intolerably uncomfortable. A minor distraction was the filming of the performance for future TV presentation, which incongruously involved a cameraman gliding back and forth across the front of the orchestra followed by a small girl reeling in and out his cable.