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:

Anne Morley-Priestman - 16 November 2010

You know this is going to be something other than a straightforward staging from the first doom-laden notes of the overture. Conductor Jakub Hrusa injects an element of savage mockery as this progresses which is borne out by Ashley Dean’s version of Joanathan Kent’s original production once the curtain rises. We’re confronted with a black and white world which is blood-red spattered; certainly we are in Seville, but this is Spain in the dying days of Franco’s dictatorship. Everything and everyone is touched by corruption.

Paul Brown’s set is a flexible cube, anchored to a revolve. The cast of singers – who really can act – play out the story as apparent normality of walls and floors degenerates into tilted distortion. There’s no safety behind these massive doors. Don Giovanni himself is something worse than merely immoral; he’s a psychopath and Audun Iversen conveys this very well as well as making much of his two br...

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