Mozart, Don Giovanni:  Soloists, ballet and chorus of the Opéra National de Montpellier, orchestra of Le Concert Spirituel orchestra, Hervé Niquet conductor. , Opéra National de Montpellier, France. 6.4.2008 (MM)

Mille tre seductions in Spain alone, six hundred forty in Italy, though but one hundred in France [!], these numbers may add up to the number of Don Giovanni productions that have failed around the world, maybe last year alone.  One sure thing -- Don Giovanni seduces audiences into the opera house, and he most often leaves them there.

The Opéra National de Montpellier opened its latest version last summer with two performances at the Festival de Radio France et Montpellier, and continued the run with three more performances in late March/early April.  Intelligence gathered from conversations in front of the opera house after the final performance revealed that perhaps the summer performances had not been seductive, that the rehearsals for the March reprise had deepened the characters, and that with the final performance on April 6, this Don Giovanni had arrived.

And seductive it was indeed, though with some bumps along the way.  As these well-known characters revealed themselves, one was struck by their youth, all late twenties-early thirties.  Primal operatic fears (was this yet another premature use of young-artist-program singers?) were allayed as they immediately passed as finished artists, their youth displayed in fresh, well-focused voices in handsome, histrionically expressive postures.

Stage director Jean Paul Scarpitta deployed a clinically suspect evaluation of Don Giovanni's ‘Don Juan syndrome.’  Scarpitta's Don was not the confident stud, instead a troubled young man and  the Donna Anna was the Freudian one, hanging desperately onto the Don despite the threats of her father.  Masetto was not a bumpkin, Zerlina was not a pushover, and Donna Elvira was a woman deeply in love.  Further dramatic confusion ensued when the Don broke into hysterical laughter in the first act finale, leaving us bewildered at intermission, and frustrated that we had not been able to comprehend the familiar music.

The second act was the revelation, each of Mozart's actors pouring out the torments of youthful love, the Don's Deh vieni alla finestra sung mezza voce, almost vocally whispered, transporting us inside a delicate psyche searching for love, Zerlina palpably oozing love for Masetto in Vedrai carino, Elvira possessed by love in Mi tradi, Donna Anna's mind racing in Non mi dir, Ottavio's lovely Il mio tesoro pitifully stated.  The power of these expressions of love transcended into the mind and soul of the young Don and induced his chaotic and terrifying end (the corps de ballet, Da Ponte's implied devils disguised as waiters, swarmed onto the stage, cleared the dinner table and brought Scarpitta's banquet of young love to its end).

The opera did seem to end here  but after a while the survivors finally appeared on stage, Ottavio quite alone, Zerlina and Masetto quite together.  Anna and Elvira then stepped forward and grasped hands, sharing their youthful desolation.  With them, and with us was the young man who saw it all Leporello, always at the side of the Don and absolutely as bewildered by love and life as was his master, and perhaps as was the Montpellier matinee audience recollecting its lost youth.

The second act achieved an almost unprecedented level of lyricism as Scarpitta's concept was absorbed by conductor Hervé Niquet and his early music ensemble Le Concert Spirituel, and driven to dizzying heights by insanely fast if revelatory tempos.  Niquet's music was enacted with ultimate class by the Montpellier cast.  The American Franco Pomponi, bare-chested in white tights, infused unusual nuance and complexity to the Don.  The lithe Leporello of the Dutch baritone Henk Neven evoked the possibility of a definitive Leporello performance.  The Italian Donna Anna, Raffaella Milanesi now holds the record for having sung the fastest Non mi dir in history, her love sick rival Donna Elvira tenderly portrayed by French soprano Isabelle Cals.  Zerlina and her Masetto were large scaled characters deeply in love, performed by Georgian born Anna Kasyan and French baritone Nicolas Courjal.  Finnish bass Petri Lindross provided a vocally resplendent, very, very young Commendatore.  Though graduated a bit soon from his young artist program, tenor Cyril Auvity made poor Don Ottavio really pitiful, earning for himself a huge ovation.

Jean Paul Scarpitta took us inside Mozart's music, his stage and costume design offering decor that supported but never defined this interior space, as carefully lighted by Urs Schonebaum.  

Michael Milenski

Pictures © Marc Ginot / Opéra National de Montpellier

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