Dangling and turning like shards of a giant overhead chandelier in Don Giovanni’s banquet hall, this is an evocative multimedia production that tantalizes the senses while shining new light on Mozart's genius.
Director Jo Davies' staging of Mozart’s dramma giocoso for Nederlandse Reisopera is a high-spirited affair packed with humour, where the emphasis is decidedly more on giocoso than on the dramma.
Don Giovanni is an opera which has as its title character a man who is an unrepentant womaniser, who ultimately receives his just reward in one of the most famous scenes in opera where he is consumed into the fires of hell.
Whilst the spirit of Mozart permeates the Estates Theatre in Prague, it was sadly absent in both the staging and singing of his “work of uninterrupted perfection”.
According to director Sven-Eric Bechtolf, Don Giovanni’s divine retribution for a life of pure evil and insatiable fornication is just more of the same.
The Netherlands Chamber Orchestra was in glittering form, while strong singing and acting enhanced each other in the evocative woodland of Claus Guth’s Don Giovanni.
A brilliant modern revisioning by Genevieve Raghu, in a superb contemporary translation by Benjamin Hamilton, makes Don Giovanni feel more relevant than ever for the Tinder generation and their disposable approach to love.
Strassberger’s production of Don Giovanni raises interesting questions about modern society and our relationship with religion. Unfortunately, this production lacked focus, but is redeemed by occasionally glorious singing.
Within Mozart’s Don Giovanni, the darkest corners of the soul are exposed by music, stirred up by the lying, lecherous exploits of the aristocratic scoundrel, Don Giovanni.
Kasper Holten's virtuosic staging is revived by the Royal Opera with a cast of three exceptionally strong women, and accomplished performances by Christopher Maltman and Alex Esposito as the Don and his servant.
This production's consistent visual beauty forms the setting for this Don’s musical approach. It is a testament to this ensemble that Mariusz Kwiecień can’t steal the show in spite of his utterly commanding physical and vocal presence as the Don.
David McVicar's Don Giovanni for Opera Australia takes its cue from the brutally grim opening of the opera, yet remains true to Mozart’s own description of a “jocular” work (dramma giocoso).
Jonathan Kent claims one of the great difficulties of Mozart-Da Ponte’s 1787 dramma giocoso is ‘the collision of an extraordinary variety of music and mood within it’
In Ole Anders Tandberg’s staging of Don Giovanni at the Swedish Royal Opera, the Don seems to prefer making love at gunpoint, or in a public lavatory under the threat of discovery.
Seeing Don Giovanni at the Estates Theatre in Prague is a special occasion, for two reasons. Firstly, for the history: it’s the theatre where the opera was first performed, back in 1787. Secondly, because today’s Estates Theatre is one of the loveliest opera houses you will find anywhere. Seating just 643, it’s an intimate space, in the classic horseshoe parterre-plus-boxes configuration.
A year of theatre refurbishment leaves Scottish Opera with only three and half full productions this season, so the spotlight turned firmly onto this Don Giovanni from director Sir Thomas Allen, designer Simon Higlett and lighting designer Mark Jonathan.
Don Giovanni is perhaps the most difficult of the Mozart–Da Ponte opera trilogy to stage. Not only is there the problem of how exactly the Don is to be consumed in flames at the end of its three-hour span, or the issue of how to make the statue of the Commendatore come to life.
Three years ago, John Berry, ENO’s Artistic Director, invited acclaimed theatre director Rufus Norris to reinvent Mozart’s Don Giovanni. Unfortunately, it was not much of a success, and was panned by critics. This year, the production has returned to ENO, with some changes, albeit none that are particularly remarkable.
Director Alessandro Talevi’s imagination, wit and audacity meant that Don Giovanni, which has just launched Opera North’s new season, was a huge success. The production was enthralling throughout, never dragging or disappointing, even in the second act. It works much better than others I have seen, because the emphasis is placed firmly on the comic rather than the pathetic.
On Wednesday night the Kennedy Center for Performing Arts was more crowded than a shopping mall during the holiday season. Apparently, nothing could keep DC opera lovers from getting to the Washington National Opera - not even the notorious peak hour traffic.
