Concert note.(Don Giovanni)(Opera Review)

Don Giovanni at the Metropolitan Opera House, New York

Mozart's Don Giovanni may be one of the handful of works vying for the "greatest" title--and certainly one which has been subject to reams of paper and gallons of ink. Nonetheless it is a difficult opera to bring off in performance, in part because of the nature of the story itself, and in part because of the demands Mozart puts upon the singers. For instance, is the fabled archetype a Latin Lothario long on charm, is he a stand-in for Satan himself, or is he merely your local variety of sadist/misogynist? Is the opera a dark tragedy, to be taken with the utmost seriousness, or is it a tragi-comedy that veers from one to the other during the course of the evening, or is it a buffo comedy with dark undertones? How should a repertory opera house, which will have to keep the production available for a generation, handle it?

In the event, the Metropolitan Opera opted for safety, and its new production (which I heard March 9), traffic-cop-directed by Marthe Keller, is generalized to the point of anonymity and will frighten no horses or operagoers.

Thomas Hampson as Giovanni, dressed in long black coat, white scarf, and a black fedora hat like some refugee from an opera house, possesses a solidly produced baritone and a quality of moving about with effortless aplomb, but his stage presence has always been short on the animal charisma necessary for the role, and his voice is short on honeyed, sexual persuasion. His Giovanni turns ugly and domineering by fits and starts and is otherwise bland. The one outstanding performance was given by the extraordinary Rend Pape as Leporello. Even though he may learn to deliver the Catalogue Aria with more nuance in the future, he nonetheless is already a Leporello of significant note, both vocally and histrionically, and more than a foil for Giovanni.

The women were problematic: a shrill and pitch-insecure Donna Anna of Anja Harteros (whose acting, when she realizes the identity of her father's murderer, is a striking and unfiltered example of the Theda Bara School), and a well (if forthrightly) sung Donna Elvira of Christine Goerke, but one that ...