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Don Giovanni

Composer	Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Librettist	Lorenzo da Ponte

Venue and Dates	Metropolitan Opera House 28 March, 1, 6, 9, 12, 16 April 2005
Conductor	Philippe Jordan
Director
Production	Production: Marthe Keller Set Designer: Michael Yeargan Costume Designer: Christine Rabot-Pinson Lighting Designer: Jean Kalman Choreographer : Blanca Li Stage Director: Gina Lapinski

Performers	Don Giovanni: Gerald Finley Donna Anna: Tamar Iveri [Debut] Don Ottavio: Richard Croft Donna Elvira: Adina Nitescu [Debut] Leporello: Samuel Ramey Zerlina: Isabel Bayrakdarian Masetto: Jonathan Lemalu [Debut] Commendatore: Paata Burchuladze Continuo: Howard Watkins, Harpsichord David Heiss, Cello Mandolin Solo: Joyce Rasmussen Balint


Notes	The performance on 28 March was dedicated to the memory of Theodor Uppman

What the critics say

Judith Malafronte for Opera News, June 2005 , vol 69 , no.12

Mozart’s Don Giovanni has never struck me as an ensemble work, but in Marthe Keller’s production (revived, with new touches by Gina Lapinski, at the Metropolitan Opera on March 28), strong individual characterizations and an emphasis on their relationships actually give the work a dramatic cohesiveness I’ve not experienced before.

Michael Yeargan’s dingy sets and Christine Rabot-Pinson’s minimal costuming provide so little visual interest that even more responsibility than usual is thrown onto the singers, and the cast, which included three house debutants, took charge with gusto.

At the center of a vortex of disturbed individuals is Gerald Finley’s Don, a fascinating and repellent Dracula, horrifyingly violent yet seeming to be seeking, in a pathetic way, something like redemption. With suave singing and athletic grace, Finley reveals the Don’s self-fascination in the second verse of the mandolin serenade, “Deh, vieni alla finestra,” as he strokes himself into an oblivious daze. His creepy stillness in the seductive “Là ci darem la mano” is all the more effective as, without once looking at her, he draws the mesmerized Zerlina (the pert Isabel Bayrakdarian) to him.

Conductor Philippe Jordan brought color, clarity and urgency to the score, and if occasional ensemble problems arose, they were balanced by Jordan’s controlled generosity to the singers, for example allowing Richard Croft to make Don Ottavio’s “Dalla sua pace” a wonderfully improvisatory and quiet moment.

In addition to his accustomed vocal authority, Samuel Ramey brings a bemused detachment to Leporello’s observations of his master, and his been-there-done-that smile is not lost on an audience who knows Ramey as a famous Don himself.

In her Met debut, Tamar Iveri was a superb Donna Anna, with incisive and powerfully majestic singing, making both her arias, especially the remarkable slow opening of “Non mi dir,” the evening’s musical highlights.

Of the other debut artists, Jonathan Lemalu was a refreshingly sweet Masetto, smooth-voiced and physically endearing, while Adina Nitescu was less polished, vocally and musically, as Donna Elvira. Nevertheless, with powerful characterization and charismatic stage presence she took her place in the web of relationships that is this production’s strong point.

From “Finley, Unlimited” an interview in Opera News (William R Braun) August 2005, vol 70, no. 2.

Click here to read the full interview

…When Marthe Keller’s production was new, in 2004, it had a void at the center, but Finley’s performance realigned the show. The difference was starkly apparent in Keller’s concept of “Là ci darem la mano,” in which Giovanni never moves but, confident of his magnetism, allows Zerlina to approach and draw back, circle, and at last rush to him. Finley was so sure of himself that he never even looked at her.

He sang the second verse of his serenade quietly, in the traditional manner, but he never lost the vivid Italian double consonants that English speakers usually forget, giving themselves away. Keller makes much of Giovanni’s preoccupation with Zerlina’s shoes; Finley manipulated them like a Ferragamo salesman. And he added some telling moments of his own. After running his hand up and down her legs, he lightly sniffed his fingertips. (“I like sharing the bounty that I have onstage,” he later explained.) This Giovanni had a sensual relationship with his pasta in the banquet scene as well, massaging it into his face and hair. Keller unexpectedly turned up at the dress rehearsal and was delighted. “She said, ‘Yes, it’s his last meal, and of course you must feel the texture of the food at his last earthly moment,’” Finley reports. Keller asked only that Finley treat Donna Anna more roughly in the opening scene. “She said, ‘Don’t treat her gently — finish her off as you’ve begun!’” All in all, it was the sort of performance any repertory house needs to survive. It was fresh and detailed, but it did not require any adjustments or extra rehearsals.

Photo from The Opera Lover's Cookbook. Click here for details

Bernard Holland for the New York Times, March 30, 2005

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/03/30/arts/music/30giov.html?ex=1186113600&en=269f370ed99379aa&ei=5070

A Familiar Story Is Told Once Again, With Some Unfamiliar Faces

When the Metropolitan Opera's year-old production of Mozart's "Don Giovanni" returned to the house on Monday night, the cast was filled with names that most operagoers might not know, and also a few that they should.

There was a new conductor, Philippe Jordan, and a new stage director, as Gina Lapinski took over for Marthe Keller. The other newness for many was seeing one of opera's longstanding Dons, Samuel Ramey, moving down the social ladder to become opera's favorite butler, Leporello.

Michael Yeargan's stage pictures remain the same. I like the simplicity of his sliding brick facades, which show an admirable modesty in the face of Mozart's great opera and, indeed, a faith in music and theatrical timing to gather our attention. Ms. Lapinski has added some jokey touches, including balletic sexual advances and the Don's bad table manners, but the ensembles retain a graceful, almost sculptural beauty. Blanca Li has choreographed the Act I wedding party as a kind of "West Side Story" parody, although I wish she hadn't. This injects a humor incongruously out of touch with the very different kind of humor "Don Giovanni" purveys.

Monday's performance was a nice demonstration of how consistent quality beats star power any night of the week. Gerald Finley is the Met's new Don. A young Canadian, he has a lovely, cultured baritone, creates a convincing physical presence and moves athletically onstage. Adina Nitescu, a Romanian soprano, was stunning as Donna Elvira. This kind of vocal command and musical life force makes us want to hear more from her. As Donna Anna, Tamar Iveri sang with an easy agility and sincere intensity compromised only by flirtations with sharpness when her voice was pressed.

Richard Croft's tenor carried Don Ottavio's difficult music with admirable poise. Isabel Bayrakdarian played Zerlina with elaborate care. Jonathan Lemalu's portly, working-class Masetto was a triumph of casting. Paata Burchuladze was the rock-solid Commendatore.

Mr. Ramey was celebrating his 63rd birthday, and if some of the vocal shine has worn away, the articulation and musical thoroughness are still very much in place.

The Met orchestra played handsomely; players seemed to like their young Swiss conductor. The wonderful opening scene had some uneasy ensemble work and Mr. Ramey's catalog aria at one point almost ran away from the orchestra, but with time, stage and pit entered into easy agreement. Three and a half hours flew by. Some operas are long. Others are good.

Marion Lignana Rosenberg, mondo-marion.com, April 2005

http://www.mondo-marion.com/dongiovanni.html

A 'Don Giovanni' to fall for

Bleak but uproarious, bawdy but singed with hellfire, Mozart's opera Don Giovanni is just as elusive as its title character. Philosopher Søren Kierkegaard identified Don Giovanni with music and desire: "a force, a wind, impatience, passion," forever ungraspable.

Don Giovanni remains ungraspable in the Metropolitan Opera's revival of last season's new production, but utterly enthralling for that. Marthe Keller's staging, deftly revised by Gina Lapinski, sets the action in back-alley Seville, a labyrinth as dark and disorderly as the passions that animate the drama.

Contradictions abound in this Don Giovanni. In the opening scene, Giovanni and Donna Anna, the woman he has ravished, sing of flight and punishment but linger in a heaving clutch, loath to let go of each other. Giovanni's serenade to Donna Elvira's maid ends as an onanistic reverie, the would-be seducer preening before his own shadow while the lady's balcony remains empty. At his journey's end, Giovanni boasts of his costly pleasures while indulging, angry and alone, in an orgy of destruction.

As cruel and alluring as a fallen angel, Gerald Finley bounds and twirls in the title role, delivering Da Ponte's peerless text with stinging vibrancy and singing with unerring elegance. His handsome bass-baritone does not boom; it floats and caresses. He is a musician's musician, spinning a satiny legato line.

Bass Samuel Ramey's Leporello seems wizened from long acquaintance with this Giovanni's searing energy, and rightly so. Ramey, too, is a princely artist. Although the bloom of youth has quit his voice, his attention to niceties of rhythm and articulation is still exemplary.

Making her Met début as Donna Anna, Tamar Iveri sings magnificently, above all in her spellbinding call to vengeance. Full and richly colored from top to bottom, Iveri's voice soars with the fire and brilliance of a fine blade, and her command of Mozart's intricate writing is sure.

Adina Nitescu, also in her house début, is an endearingly unhinged Donna Elvira. She sings sharp early on but offers a heart-wrenching account of the great recitative preceding "Mi tradì," filled with anguish and rage. A third beauty, Isabel Bayrakdarian, is a thoroughly delectable Zerlina.

As Don Ottavio, tenor Richard Croft graces his character's punishing arias with wondrously long lines and subtle shadings, although he occasionally sounds pressed. Bass-baritone Jonathan Lemalu, the production's third debutant, sings with gorgeous tone. He makes the simple, put-upon Masetto the opera's moral core: an unfailingly decent fellow who, at opera's end, extends his hand in friendship to Leporello despite earlier tangles. Paata Burchuladze is an eerily black-toned Commendatore.

Conductor Philippe Jordan leads a majestic account of the score—grand but not laggard, rich-textured but not muddy. All in all, this is as splendidly sung and played a Don Giovanni as one is likely to encounter, with only five performances (and, maddeningly, no broadcast) scheduled before it, too, slips from our grasp.