The Met’s ‘Don Giovanni’ eschews gimmickry, lets Mozart’s masterpiece speak for itself

Mille e tre critics can’t be wrong — or can they? Michael Grandage’s controversial new production is better than the nay-sayers would have us believe

By David Rubin

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Is there, really, much new that any director can say about Mozart’s Don Giovanni without doing violence to the work?  Critics of Michael Grandage’s new production at the Metropolitan Opera in New York complained that it was traditional; that is, set in the right time period with authentic costumes, faithful to Da Ponte’s libretto.

Indeed, it was precisely this conservative approach to the opera that appealed to the Met’s Giovanni, Polish baritone Mariusz Kwiecien, who was singing the role in New York for the first time.  Kwiecien told interviewer Renée Fleming during the intermission of the HD telecast that he and his colleagues Barbara Frittoli (Elvira) and Luca Pisaroni (Leporello), who have sung the opera together often, appreciated Grandage’s production because it is not freighted with high-concept baggage.  They could focus on the singing and the acting.

And do they ever.  With the estimable Fabio Luisi in the pit and a true ensemble of eight strong singers on stage, this is a Don Giovanni for those who like it without directorial gimmicks.  Grandage provided a worn Spanish street scene as a constant backdrop, the residences marked by peeling paint and crumbling plaster.  He stacked small apartments in cellblock fashion, each with a balcony.  The windows on three levels provided a variety of playing spaces for singers and supers.  

Grandage pulled apart this façade to reveal the wedding scene for Zerlina and Masetto in the first act, and to transport the audience to Giovanni’s equally worn palace, dressed up with a few chintzy chandeliers.  This bleak set did force the singers to the front of the stage where most of the action played out.  This permitted the HD audience to focus almost exclusively on the interactions among characters, and on the singing.

Grandage conjured a few deeply satisfying stage pictures.  Zerlina became a wishbone as Elivra tugged on one arm, Giovanni on the other, she trying to save Zerlina from rape, and Giovanni dragging her to it.  

The Commendatore entered the Don’s palace in a ghostly light and dispatched him to hell in a nightmarish scene of real flame and enough smoke to alarm a fire department.

In Leporello’s catalog aria, a sample of Giovanni’s female conquests appeared in the windows of the small apartments, dressed and lit as if in paintings by Vermeer.  It was, or at least could have been, a stunning effect, but it was ruined in the HD telecast because the video director insisted on cutting away from these images quickly to resume the tight close-ups of Leporello and Elvira.  Such relentless close-ups now regularly disfigure these video presentations.  Is Met boss Peter Gelb, the architect of these highly successful telecasts, aware of how annoying this camera work is?

So strong was this cast that no disrespect is meant by first praising the Zerlina and the Ottavio — not the most important characters.  

Making her Met debut as the peasant bride was the German soprano, Mojca Erdmann.  Here the close-ups served the HD audience well.  Erdmann has a magically pliable and expressive face of impish beauty, perfect for a Zerlina who does want to be ravished, until she doesn’t.  Every emotion of her character flickered across her face.  She is model-thin with strawberry blond hair and twinkling eyes.  She had Masetto wrapped around her finger, as any good Zerlina must.  Her voice is agile, pure and clean.  Both Batti, batti and Vedrai, carino brought great pleasure.

Veteran tenor Ramón Vargas was Ottavio, and for a change Ottavio was not a wimp.  Vargas has a more robust tenor than many who assume this role.  He has both volume and sweetness, and his soft singing in Dalla sua pace was melting.  Vargas made an excellent case for casting a tenor who also sings heavier roles, as he has, such as Riccardo in Un Ballo in Maschera and Rodolfo in La Bohème.  The endlessly vacillating and selfish character of Donna Anna was lucky this Ottavio was interested in her at all.

Kwiecien was singing his first Giovanni at the Met.  The HD relay was his second performance.  He seemed fully recovered from emergency back surgery that kept him on the sidelines opening night.  His voice is more baritone than bass, so don’t expect Cesare Siepi or Samuel Ramey.  He delivered the serenade to Elvira’s maid sweetly and sensitively.  Finch’han dal vino and Gia la mensa e preparata were feverish, fast, and frightening in their intensity.  Grandage clearly wanted an unhinged Giovanni from the beginning.  With his small eyes, somewhat pinched face, and athletic swagger, Kwiecien was a constant menace to all those around him.

Pisaroni’s catalog aria was not as funny as some, but he makes a luscious, round sound that contrasted nicely with Kwiecien’s.  The two were at their best in the recitatives where their experience in the roles together paid dividends.

The two ladies were an unusual pair.  Frittoli is a singer of great dignity and pathos.  She has been a heart-stopping Sister Angelica and a sensitive Desdemona at the Met.  She was not a fiery or half-mad Elvira, as the role is often played.  She is too sane and dignified to have been chasing around this Giovanni.  But as a road-weary Elvira, used and abused, she was a good foil to the younger and fresher Anna, sung by Marina Rebeka, who was making her company debut.

Their voices were also a logical dramatic contrast.  Rebeka has a gleaming top with lots of power and agility, but her voice is a bit characterless.  This fits Donna Anna, a naïve and puzzling woman.  Grandage suggested that she was hardly being assaulted by Giovanni in the opening scene, despite her later protestations.  But who knows?  Only Da Ponte.  Frittoli’s voice is heavier, not as agile, but loaded with personality and the wisdom of experience.   

As Masetto, Joshua Bloom might be a brother to the Rocky of Sylvester Stallone.  He cuts a muscular figure, sang strongly, and acted as the perfect complement to his Zerlina.  Stefan Kocan was sufficiently booming as the Commendatore.

Luisi’s conducting was so perfectly judged that one forgot the opera was actually being conducted.  Every tempo seemed right.  Don Giovanni  is a long opera, but under Luisi’s direction, and with the heavenly Met Orchestra playing at its usual level of perfection, the afternoon was too short.

The Met has not had good luck with this opera for many years.  While some critics groused about the production, it proved to be a very satisfying musical and dramatic experience.  Grandage lets the work speak for itself.  Would that more directors took his cue. 

Details Box:
What: Mozart’s Don Giovanni, Simulcast Live in HD
When: October 29, 2011
Who: Metropolitan Opera
Running time: approximately 4 hours
Where: Metropolitan Opera House, New York
Encore performance: November 16, 2011 at 6:30 pm