Chicago.(North America)(review of Don Giovanni as performed by Bryn Terfel)(Opera Review)

Lyric Opera of Chicago burst into life in 1954 with a "calling card" performance of Don Giovanni featuring such legends as Nicola Rossi-Lemeni and Eleanor Steber. The company inaugurated its golden-anniversary season with an elegant new production (seen Sept. 18) of Mozart's masterpiece that proved as star-driven as its historic predecessor and, one imagines, every bit as satisfying.

Bryn Terfel's charismatic Giovanni was a driven, dangerous, middle-aged roue, hurtling inevitably closer to his sell-by date. In moments of seductive manipulation, Terfel refined his burly instrument to the merest thread of honeyed delicacy; a hardness of timbre employed elsewhere kept one ever mindful of a disturbing violence lurking within. The Leporello was Ildebrando D'Arcangelo, a caustic, streetwise manservant with fine comic timing and plenty of virile bass tone for the catalogue aria. Kurt Streit was a mellifluous Ottavio, sweetly vibrant of tone and vital of characterization. The male contingent was completed by a booming Commendatore from Andrea Silvestrelli, truly frightening as the avenging statue, and Kyle Ketelsen's lovable lunkhead of a Masetto.

The absence on opening night of Karita Mattila, the scheduled Donna Anna, was disappointing, but Erin Wall sang gloriously in her place, defiantly launching her voluminous soprano through the fabric of the ensembles and coursing through the coloratura with precision and verve. Some interpretive spit and polish is in order, but this was as beautifully vocalized a Donna Anna as one is likely to encounter today. Susan Graham made a highly successful role debut as Donna Elvira, spinning out lovely pianissimos in the opening of "Non ti fidar," and captured the woman's humor without debasing her as ridiculous; Graham's "Mi tradi" was heartrending in its conflicting emotion. Zerlina was ...