Kasper Holten's cinematic Don Giovanni shines at the Canadian Opera Company

Kasper Holten’s classic production of Mozart’s Don Giovanni, seen in opera houses and cinemas around the world, opened in Toronto last night in a revival directed by Amy Lane. It’s a spectacular staging, with an intricate, rotating set by Es Devlin, multiple rooms, staircases and balconies providing space for various apparitions and characters who are where they ought not to be. It's then elevated from the functional to the spectacular by Luke Halls’ brilliant projections, seen to far better effect in 3D in the opera house than on a flat screen. 

The most obvious element are the names of Don Giovanni’s conquests, projected onto various surfaces using a variety of scripts. Cleverly, different graphical approaches are used for different ladies. There’s the enormous list during the catalogue aria but ladies appearing in the show get individual costume treatments: Elvira is amended and partially erased; Anna is totally erased – at one point by blood; and Zerlina is just plain, a blank page for Don Giovanni to work on. However, it’s not all just names and blood. Some scenes get quite atmospheric projections and there’s one where polygonal shapes revolving around Don Giovanni create a mesmerizing recession effect reminiscent of Hitchcock’s Vertigo.

In terms of cuts, the version is fairly conventional although it ends abruptly with the demise off Don Giovanni, with no moralising epilogue. What is added are various apparitions: of the Commendatore and, presumably, Don Giovanni’s past conquests. In typical Holten style, it’s completely ambiguous as to whether we read then as “real” or figments of Don Giovanni’s imagination.

The cinematic quality of the sets and projections is reinforced by some of Lane’s decisions. She has clearly allowed the current cast to create versions of the characters they feel comfortable with and nowhere is this more evident than with Paolo Bordogna’s buffo Leporello. Wth his highly physical antics and his bowler hat, there’s more than a touch of Charlie Chaplin to him. He’s also a very stylish singer, even when he’s clowning around.

Gordon Bintner made a welcome return to Toronto as a youthful Don Giovanni teetering on the edge of madness. The big numbers were beautifully sung, especially, “Deh, vieni alla finestri” and the sense of his dissolution in the final scenes was palpable. It’s a feature of this production that Don Giovanni and the Commendatore don’t interact physically after the opening scene, reinforcing the question of how much is “real” and how much is Don Giovanni’s imagination.

The ladies made an interesting contrast. Mané Goloyan’s Donna Anna was sweetly sung with some stylish ornamentation in the big numbers. She also conveyed a fair degree of ambiguity about her relationships with both Don Giovanni and Don Ottavio. “Non mi dir” was questionably sincere! Anita Hartig, as Donna Elvira, did a good job of portraying a conflicted character. Vocally she took a little while on opening night to sound entirely comfortable but then produced some very fine singing with a lovely, burnished “Mi tradi”.

Ben Bliss was a more assertive Don Ottavio than many. He sang with proper Mozartian style but in a more muscular, less “pretty” voice than some other Mozart tenors. Both “Della sua pace” and “Il mio tesoro” were very fine. David Leigh was a powerful and physically impressive Commendatore. In this production he (or his ghost) lurked in the background in a lot of scenes and he managed to look suitably menacing. He was excellent in the final scene with a bass that reverberated around the house.

Which leaves Zerlina and Masetto, both played by graduates of the COC’s Ensemble Studio. Simone McIntosh is a feisty Zerlina. Definitely a mezzo, and acting quite forcefully, she looked and sounded tougher than many a Zerlina. Given Bordogna’s comedic abilities it would have been interesting if the rarely performed “Per queste tue manine” had been included. As it was she sang a lovely “Batti, batti” and a wonderfully cheeky “Vedrai carino”. Joel Allison made an effective foil as Masetto with some excellent physical acting and stylish singing.

Johannes Debus conducted and, as always, drew some beautiful playing from the COC orchestra as well as keeping the many ensembles tight and effective. There was also some good playing from the zombie-ish on-stage band in the final scene.

Considering that this production has been around for ten years since it’s first appearance at Covent Garden and has had a cinema release and two different video disk releases it’s an achievement to produce something as fresh and compelling as this performance at the Four Season’s Centre.