Don Giovanni

Riccardo Muti, Conductor

Thomas Allen, Claudio Desderi, Edita Gruberova, Ann Murray, Francisco Araiza, Sergei Koptchak
Composer: Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Librettist: Lorenzo da Ponte

This is currently the only video of Don Giovanni I own, although I plan to add the Karajan and Furtwangler versions to my collection soon. This one is a bit expensive but definitely worth the money.

Thomas Allen is an awesome Don, and one of the few who really make me wonder whether I, too, wouldn't fall into his traps. He is so charmingly wicked. He also nails the aria "Finch'an dal vino" and treats it like the comic scene it is - something I sometimes notice in other Dons is their tendency to sound too serious at the end of it. I like his take on the banquet scene at the end; you almost feel a grudging respect for him becuase he stands up to the statue despite his obvious fears.

Claudio Desderi is not the best Leporello I've seen, but he's a very solid performer nonetheless. I usually prefer a more lighthearted, comic approach to the catalogue aria, but his cruelly sinister performance of it works well with the relatively weak (in character, not performance) Donna Elvira of Anne Murray. You feel that he is deliberately twisting the knife. His voice is similar enough to Allen's so that he can imitate him believably in Act II, and the scene where he is "unmasked" is well-acted and sung. Basically Desderi presents an excellent portrayal of Leporello as scumbag with only a tiny glimmering of conscience - a legitimate interpretation that just doesn't happen to be mine.

I've seen a lot of reviews at Amazon.com which diss Ann Murray for her acting (or rather, lack thereof) during Leporello's catalogue aria. I would tend to agree with them that a bit more emotion would have been nice here, but I will at least concede that staring stonily into space is a legitimate human reaction to bad news. I didn't like that she fainted at the end of it instead of swearing revenge, but that's not really her fault. (In a musical it would be the director's, but I'm not sure about an opera. Do we pin this complaint on Muti?) These criticisms are accurate, but blown out of proportion. The catalog aria scene a)is what, five or ten minutes long? and b)features LEPORELLO not Elvira! If Murray's lack of movement bores you, watch the man who is singing for pete's sake.

In my opinion Murray makes up for that scene with everything that follows it. She is one of the few Elvira's who, in "Non ti fidar," really justifies the comment "ch'asspetto nobile! che dolce maesta!" From then on her acting is great, particularly during the rest of that quartett and then later during the scene where the disguised Leporello is unmasked. And her voice is beautiful. "Mi tradi" is heartbreaking. She does this awesome facial expression during it where you can see her go from "I love him" to "I hate him" to "I love him" again in about three seconds.

Edita Grubernova is great as Donna Anna. She does the best "Non mi dir" I've heard so far , and her acting strikes a nice balance. She does make some weird faces when she sings, but my feeling is that if doing that helps her sing this beautifully, go for it. Her Donna Anna seems sincerely in love with Ottavio (at least by the end), and her motivations seem to spring genuinely from grief for her father rather than any sort of Freudian attraction to Don Giovanni. Good. Frankly, I dislike too much Freud in my opera.

Francisco Araiza is not the best Don Ottavio on video. That honor goes to Anton Dermota. But he's the second best. (Gösta Winberg's acting was a bit more lively, but Araiza's voice is better.) He has such awesome facial expressions and such an emotional voice that you really feel for him. His voice is GORGEOUS. The relationship between him and Gruberova's Anna is interestingly presented, and I love how they acted and staged "Non mi dir." The love and devotion he shows is noble rather than wimpy (there's a huge difference) and adds a great dramatic contrast when set against Thomas Allen's empty (but tempting) promises. All this emotion only adds to his singing; his two arias are flawless. My only complaint there is the staging of "Il mio tesoro." Yes, I realize it's incredibly difficult to sing, but there could have been just a little more movement there. Just because the lyrics repeat doesn't mean he has to go through the exact same motions again. But that's minor. (I don't present the same complaint for "Dalla sua pace" because at that point there is nobody else onstage to interact with. Plus the way he goes and picks up the scarf Anna drops is quite touching.)

Natale De Carolis is my second favorite Masetto (coming just after Walter Berry). He has a very rich bass voice and he really conveys his emotions well. His facial expressions at the end of "Ho, capito!" are very touching, and he does a great job with being slowly won over during Zerlina's "Batti, batti." He presents a slightly more violent character than Berry, but it works with Susanne Mentzer's capable and intelligent Zerlina.

Mentzer is a fantastic Zerlina. Her voice is quite lovely, but it is her acting that really clinches it. Although she occasionally borders on smarmy, her Zerlina has Masetto on a leash and knows it only too well. A strong approach like this is best opposite De Carolis - a meek Zerlina and a violent Masetto don't mix; nor do a gentle Masetto and a manipulative Zerlina. (With the former, you wonder if he really might hit her; with the latter, you feel way too sorry for the poor sap.)

As the Commendatore, Sergei Koptchak has a decent voice. His acting is nonexistent, but I'm inclined to overlook it because it's difficult for anybody to be convincing when the score calls for them to be stabbed, sing for ten minutes, and then die. And he's not actually onstage in the final scene, so he doesn't get a chance to make up for it. I'm not crazy about the use of an actual statue there. The whole point of the scene is that the statue comes to life, and since the libretto specifically states that the statue can nod, walk in, shake hands, etc., my feeling is that it ought to be able to do so. Yet only one out of the four Don Giovanni videos I've seen does this... two if you count the Don Giovanni scenes in Amadeus (EXCELLENT movie BTW).

Other than the (mostly minor) issues I've mentioned already, I like the way this performance is staged. The elaborate constumes create a real sense of the setting. The set itself is fairly simple, as far as I recall there are only two or three main setups which with some little variations show us the various scenes. It works well and makes for smooth scene transitions.