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Don Giovanni
Robert Lloyd and GF. Photo by Tristram Kenton
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Composer |
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart |
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Librettist |
Lorenzo da Ponte |
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Venue and Dates |
Royal Opera House 12, 15, 18, 23, 26 September, 1, 4, 8, 11(m) October 2003 |
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Conductor |
Antonio Pappano |
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Director |
Francesca Zambello |
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Production |
Maria Bjornson |
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Performers |
Don Giovanni : Gerald Finley Leporello : Erwin Schrott Donna Anna : Anna Netrebko (12, 15, 18, 23 September) / Tamar Iveri (26 September; 1, 4, 8, 11 October). [Alexandra von der Weth was due to sing 23, 26 September; 1, 4, 8, 11 October, but was indisposed] Donna Elvira : Nuccia Focile Commendatore : Robert Lloyd (12, 15, 18, 23, 26 September; 1, 4 October) / Reinhard Hagen (8, 11 October) Don Ottavio : Ian Bostridge Zerlina : Rosemary Joshua (12, 15, 18, 26 September; 4 October) / Rebecca Evans (23 September; 1, 8, 11 October) Masetto : Darren Jeffery |
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Notes |
If you have any further information please do let us know by emailing webmaster@geraldfinley.info |
What the critics say
Fiona Maddocks, Evening Standard 15.09.03
…The previous evening, Antonio Pappano conducted a fizzing, bristling, provocative Don Giovanni in Zambello's revived 2002 production, with a prime cast and Maria Bjornson's burnished religio-Spanish sets. This was his first Mozart with the company. What would it reveal? Speeds were brisk, the orchestral sound warm yet limpid. Tony Legge's upfront, richly embellished forte-piano continuo was a characterful bonus.
The dynamic Russian soprano Anna Netrebko, a late replacement, proved a febrile, lustrous Donna Anna, boldly showing us who's in charge. She caused a stir in Salzburg this year and one can see why. Darren Jeffery's young Massetto was sympathetic, Erwin Schrott's Leporello outrageously assertive if too crowd-teasing. As Don Ottavio, Ian Bostridge looked most ill at ease with pistol and revenge but sang with tonal beauty. Nuccia Focile's Elvira was a nervy, silveryvoiced wraith-waif, stalking the villainous Don with rifle and telescope.
Other optics in the audience were largely trained on Gerald Finley, stripped to the waist and giving a visibly muscular account of the title role, negotiating 10ft high hellfire flames and displaying enough soft, seductive, serpentine arrogance to fell any woman from a thousand paces. Damn him.
Tim Ashley for The Guardian,September 15, 2003
Francesca Zambello's production of Don Giovanni came in for considerable stick when it opened at Covent Garden in January last year. Now in its first revival, it remains a gravely flawed piece of music theatre, hampered by a lack of focus and by Zambello's preference for spectacle over psychological detail.
Her approach to Mozart's complex examination of the relationship between individual integrity and metaphysical absolutes is ultimately simplistic. The set is dominated by a massive statue of the Madonna, beneath which Gerald Finley's Don sacrilegiously plans his seductions, and to which Ian Bostridge's drippy Ottavio addresses his arias, even when Anna Netrebko's guilt-ridden, all too human Anna is on his mind. Meanwhile, Elvira's endless dithering proves too much for Zambello, who sees her simply as mad: Nuccia Focile plays her as Miss Havisham in embryo, kitted out in the tattered wedding gear she was wearing when, we presume, the Don dumped her.
A barrage of pyrotechnics and special effects indicates that damnation looms. The Don is hunted by a torch-lit lynch mob and tracked by a huge, sculpted, pointing finger - the hand of God, we may presume - before being consigned to hell as the stage is engulfed in flames. This looks mightily impressive, but is also incredibly noisy, with the roar from the gas jets half obliterating some of the greatest music Mozart ever wrote.
This is annoying, given that, musically, the evening is glorious, though some may find Netrebko's singing monochrome and Bostridge, though elegant, not in best voice. Focile is tremendous negotiating Elvira's lightning changes of mood. Finley is sexy, sadistic and metaphysically defiant by turns, and the revival is also blessed with a truly great Leporello in the form of the Uruguayan bass Erwin Schrott. He is as attractive as Finley - which makes the scenes where the two men have changed clothes disturbingly erotic - and is matchless in his depiction of Leporello's vicarious desire to live out his master's existence and of the savage contempt with which he treats Elvira. Conducted by Antonio Pappano, the score seethes with as much fire as there is on stage. Much of it is electrifying, though Zambello's staging ensures that the opera - which should always be at the cutting edge - is turned, at times, into safe entertainment.
Anthony Holden for The Observer, September 21, 2003
http://observer.guardian.co.uk/review/story/0,,1046204,00.html
A right song and dance
…Far more radical revisionism is on offer at Covent Garden, where Don Giovanni of all people appears to have won the National Lottery, as a giant finger sweeps down from the heavens as if it say: 'It could be you.' In fact, of course, it's the finger of fate consigning him to hell, amid flames alarming enough to scorch the stalls.
This risibly otiose (and no doubt pricey) designer dottiness, which also robs the cemetery scene of its indispensable singing statue, is typical of the absence of real thought about the piece dogging Francesca Zambello's visually led production. There is no tension, no involvement, no pity or fear, just some magnificent singing and playing going to waste in the adventure playground of an acutely self-indulgent director.
The main interest of this rapid revival of last year's production is what Ian Bostridge, in his Mozart stage debut, would make of Don Ottavio; the answer is that he manages to turn the poor sap into even more of a wimp than ever. The poncy wig doesn't help, but I fear Bostridge of the beautiful voice is soon going to have to square up to the fact that he was not cut out for opera. Having seen his debut as Britten's Lysander nearly a decade ago, and many subsequent demonstrations of his gauche stage presence, I fear not even Stanislavsky could make an actor out of this superbly intelligent singer.
A pity, because Gerald Finley makes a wonderfully menacing Don, with the satanic look of the young Brando, well paired with the Uruguyan bass Erwin Schrott as a marvellously malevolent Leporello. And how exciting, for once, to have a truly young, svelte Anna in the Russian soprano Anna Netrebko, whose purity of voice overshadows Nuccia Focile's somewhat anaemic Elvira and Rosemary Joshua's pallid Zerlina.
In the pit, Antonio Pappano begins the overture with the slow, solemn majesty of a Karl Böhm, gradually revving up to the thrilling, high-octane energy of a Carlo Maria Giulini. Musically, this is a very satisfying evening; dramatically, it is a limp-wristed travesty.
Edward Seckerson for the Independent, 16 September 2003
http://arts.independent.co.uk/music/reviews/article87160.ece
Seduced by a fiery 'Don'
Rating: Four stars out of five
It isn't just Don Giovanni who feels the heat in the closing minutes of Francesca Zambello's Royal Opera staging. Great plumes of fire sprout from the stage and a flaming gauntlet blazes a trail across it, the fickle finger of fate pointed accusingly at the downcast Don. One imagines the conductor must feel rather vulnerable, too. If ever there were incentive for a scorching finale, this is it.
But at least the fickle finger is not yet pointed at Antonio Pappano, opening his second season as music director of the Royal Opera in some style. He led an exceptional cast in this his first Mozart opera for the house. And that cast seemed to enliven Zambello's rather laborious production. Pyrotechnics apart, there isn't too much that is theatrically gratifying about it. I wouldn't, for instance, choose to remember the late, great Maria Bjornson for her designs for this show. The set provides fluency but awkward, often feeble, vantage points for key moments. Much of the action quite literally goes to the wall on its account. The one exception is a somewhat surreal finale to act one where Bjornson's painted ballroom begins to bend and close in, Dali-like, on the Don and his guests prompting a survival-of-the fittest escape up the nearest convenient rope.
The Don in this revival is the Canadian baritone Gerald Finley - and after Bryn Terfel and Simon Keenlyside he has tough acts to follow. Finley's strength is his arrogant bearing and vain manner with nonchalant flicks of his long mane suggesting one who, supremely confident in his aristocratic immunity, is never, ever ruffled. He sings, too, with the emphasis on those sotto voce enticements, sweet and seductive, and he's assisted by Pappano who more than most is prepared to look for and exploit the quiet shadowy recesses of this score.
Dons, of course, are more often than not inclined to be upstaged by their Leporellos and Finley's near-nemesis is the Uruguayan bass Erwin Schrott, a terrific performer all the more threatening for being a seasoned Don himself.
Indeed, you really feel for once that this Leporello's saving grace is the accident of birth which placed him at the wrong end of the food chain. He's a looker with a big voice and wonderful audacity in the recitative.
There's luxury casting, too, for Don Ottavio, a sap of a role ennobled here by Ian Bostridge's singing. He's not a natural stage animal though visually you might be persuaded otherwise on account of his alarming resemblance to one of those slightly overdone 18th century etchings - too pale, too tall, too thin, too effete. This being the later Vienna revision of Don Giovanni (and not the Prague original that Mackerras conducted last time around) he gets his aria "Dalla sua pace" which he sings with real artistry achieving one of those rare moments of frisson in the theatre - a fragile, pin-dropping pianissimo in the reprise.
As for the women, without whom, of course, there would be no narrative imperative, Nuccia Focile's Donna Elvira duly arrived in urgent pursuit of her deserter armed with telescope, map, and musket. For her, the opera might be renamed "Elvira Get Your Gun". A new slant on the shotgun wedding. Singing, as ever, for the cause and never the effect she conveyed well the irrationality of one for whom love and hate are now indivisible. "Mi tradi" was a little too hyper-ventilated to be comfortable but the neurotic spirit prevailed. The only real difference between Donna Elvira and Donna Anna is that the latter succeeds rather better in keeping her powder dry. Anna Netrebko looked a complete knock-out in the role and sounded almost as good. "Non mi dir" was very accomplished indeed. And let's not forget the radiant Zerlina of Rosemary Joshua.
The show ends with a final glimpse of the Don and yet one more naked woman looking all too comfortable in that "other place". Which only goes to prove that not all wrong-doers get their due deserts and that some actually like it hot.
Rupert Christiansen, The Telegraph, 16 September 2003
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/arts/main.jhtml?xml=/arts/2003/09/16/bmdon16.xml
Devious Don and masterful servant
The Royal Opera's new season gets off to a cracking start with this splendid revival of Francesca Zambello's superficial but fluent and effective production of Don Giovanni. Its chief virtue is energy.
After conducting a rather flaccid account of the overture, Antonio Pappano sent classical elegance to hell and raced through the drama with irresistible panache - sometimes leaving the singers breathless and the players in a muddle.
On the whole, however, they seemed exhilarated by the challenge. The sensation of the evening was a young Uruguayan bass-baritone Erwin Schott, who I'd rank as the best Leporello since Bryn Terfel. A born stage animal, flamboyantly handsome and confident, Schott sings with a vigour and relish that managed to make even the tedious Catalogue aria seem amusing. The audience adored him. Star potential here, no question.
Any Don risks being overshadowed by such a domineering servant, but Gerald Finley proved artist enough to hold his own. Refreshingly, he presents the character more as devious gentleman than rapist lout, singing the Serenade with immaculately seductive poise.
Ian Bostridge struggled to draw a convincing character out of Ottavio's drippiness, but his version of "Dalla sua pace" was achingly beautiful in phrasing and feeling. Robert Lloyd boomed balefully as the Commendatore, and the former Vilar Young Artist Darren Jeffrey was an admirably forthright Masetto.
Outstanding among the ladies was Rosemary Joshua's little sparkler of a Zerlina - up for anything with anyone, by the look of her. Nuccia Focile was pushed by some of Elvira's music, but she is so wholehearted a performer that she can make you overlook the patches of forced tone. The Russian soprano Anna Netrebko made a fearless Donna Anna.
Yes, she wields an impressive vocal instrument, but I'd like to have registered more words and a few of the finer stylistic points. On which note - how could Pappano sanction the delivery of some of the recitative in a sort of speechy rasp?