Don Giovanni is an opera poised between tragedy and farce. On the one hand you have murder, rape, beatings and calculated sadism; on the other, bluff, tricks, sex, ridiculous disguises and the funniest master/ servant comic partnership in opera. The callous libertine Don Giovanni opens the evening by attempting to rape Donna Anna and succeeding in murdering her father, then moves on to seduce the bride Zerlina on her wedding day. He's interrupted by an old flame, Donna Elvira, who in revenge for his abandonment of her now devotes herself to warning people of his true character.
There follows a man-hunt, some outrageous lying, more seductions and of course a masked ball, until finally a statue of Donna Anna's father comes to life and drags Giovanni down to hell. During this, Don Giovanni's timid servant Leporello trails haplessly in his wake, trying to save his own skin and always unintentionally ending up taking the blame and beatings meant for his master.
WNO keep the balance beautifully, making the consequences of Don Giovanni's deplorable behaviour vivid but also playing up the comedy all the way through. This is down to excellent acting from the singers: the ambiguity of the Morecambe-and-Wise relationship between Don Giovanni (Christopher Purves) and Leporello (Robert Poulton) comes across very convincingly, as does the tenderness of Donna Anna's (Geraldine McGreevy) relationship with her patient fiancé Don Ottavio (Matthew Beale). Elizabeth Donovan does a pleasingly petulant and manipulative Zerlina and Elizabeth Atherton, as the statuesque, expensive-looking blonde Donna Elvira, manages somehow to combine spitting with rage and singing with startling grace and precision.
Musically, the company live up to their high standard in almost every particular. The performances of the orchestra and singers were emotionally sensitive and technically tight, although Matthew Beale (Don Ottavio) occasionally seemed fractionally shaky on ornamental bits compared to the other principals. Nevertheless, and not for the first time at a WNO production, I left longing for a recording of the performance to listen to at home.
The visual design, however, could have been much more compelling than it was. The costumes are pretty unarresting, and the set – a bleak enclosure of a soot-encrusted walls and windows - stays more or less unchanged whether it’s supposed to be a town square, a graveyard or a palace interior. Admittedly, you’re not there for the spectacle so much as for the sound, but I felt the performers (especially Jonathan May, who made a tremendously authoritative statue-ghost in spite of a lack of dramatic make-up and costume) deserved better visual support.
The direction was very good in most places but a touch indecisive. One or two ideas - notably Don Giovanni’s and Leporello’s brief appearances in drag – I would have liked to have seen either more fully explored or left out. And occasionally bits of business seemed unfinished. In many scenes, however, (particularly the Act II finale, where we saw Don Giovanni’s women tear up and destroy his infamous diary of conquests) the business and choreography were worked out to perfection. On the whole, it’s a good production of a great opera and if you like Mozart you should definitely try to see it.
There follows a man-hunt, some outrageous lying, more seductions and of course a masked ball, until finally a statue of Donna Anna's father comes to life and drags Giovanni down to hell. During this, Don Giovanni's timid servant Leporello trails haplessly in his wake, trying to save his own skin and always unintentionally ending up taking the blame and beatings meant for his master.
WNO keep the balance beautifully, making the consequences of Don Giovanni's deplorable behaviour vivid but also playing up the comedy all the way through. This is down to excellent acting from the singers: the ambiguity of the Morecambe-and-Wise relationship between Don Giovanni (Christopher Purves) and Leporello (Robert Poulton) comes across very convincingly, as does the tenderness of Donna Anna's (Geraldine McGreevy) relationship with her patient fiancé Don Ottavio (Matthew Beale). Elizabeth Donovan does a pleasingly petulant and manipulative Zerlina and Elizabeth Atherton, as the statuesque, expensive-looking blonde Donna Elvira, manages somehow to combine spitting with rage and singing with startling grace and precision.
Musically, the company live up to their high standard in almost every particular. The performances of the orchestra and singers were emotionally sensitive and technically tight, although Matthew Beale (Don Ottavio) occasionally seemed fractionally shaky on ornamental bits compared to the other principals. Nevertheless, and not for the first time at a WNO production, I left longing for a recording of the performance to listen to at home.
The visual design, however, could have been much more compelling than it was. The costumes are pretty unarresting, and the set – a bleak enclosure of a soot-encrusted walls and windows - stays more or less unchanged whether it’s supposed to be a town square, a graveyard or a palace interior. Admittedly, you’re not there for the spectacle so much as for the sound, but I felt the performers (especially Jonathan May, who made a tremendously authoritative statue-ghost in spite of a lack of dramatic make-up and costume) deserved better visual support.
The direction was very good in most places but a touch indecisive. One or two ideas - notably Don Giovanni’s and Leporello’s brief appearances in drag – I would have liked to have seen either more fully explored or left out. And occasionally bits of business seemed unfinished. In many scenes, however, (particularly the Act II finale, where we saw Don Giovanni’s women tear up and destroy his infamous diary of conquests) the business and choreography were worked out to perfection. On the whole, it’s a good production of a great opera and if you like Mozart you should definitely try to see it.