Don Giovanni

Synopsis

Written shortly after The Marriage of Figaro. Based on the famous legend of Don Juan the master seducer from whom no woman can be considered safe. Don Giovanni pursues, seduces, rapes and murders and in the climax is pulled to hell by a stone statue of one of his victims come to life - he remains unrepentant. His servant Leporello witnesses all his masters wrongs. There is also a rarely performed opera of the same name (and story) by Giuseppe Gazzaniga which was first performed in 1786, eight months before Mozart's version.

Our Review:

Karen Bussell - 23 November 2010

Glyndebourne On Tour opens its visit with Jonathan Kent’s brooding production of the Vienna version of Mozart’s difficult and complex Don Giovanni.

Revised for the tour by Ashley Dean, this Don Giovanni is no likeable rogue: he is a nasty piece of work – a rapist, a letch, a bully, violent and in great need of anger management training - and Auden Iversen portrays this sociopath superbly even if the murder of the Commendatore is somewhat slapstick. The frankly distasteful content is given full throttle and it never ceases to astound me how a mainly grey audience laps this up with laughs and sniggers galore.

A slow, somewhat damp first half on opening night in Plymouth, the voices which soared above the muffled but generally competent but lacklustre crew were those of the outstanding Natasha Jouhl as Donna Anna and Robert Gleadow as Leporello. Soprano Jouhl’s voice is by turns delicate and sonorous bringing great depth to her pi...

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