Find classical music concert, opera, ballet and dance reviews | Don Giovanni

A strong cast take us to the brink of damnation in Welsh National Opera’s revival of Don Giovanni.

Alessandro Talevi's production of Don Giovanni, conducted by Christoph Altstaedt, receives a welcome revival at the Grand Theatre, Leeds. 

Jean-Louis Martinoty’s scenically seductive Don Giovanni comes as a welcome relief from recent Regietheater aberrations. 

Christian Gerhaher’s experience in a role he knows well rescued an evening of mitigated pleasures.

The King of Opera leads an inspired performance commemorating the 230th anniversary of Don Giovanni.

Iván Fischer's minimalist staging of Don Giovanni makes a triumphant return to Mupa, Budapest.

Jean-François Sivadier's pulsating new production propels The Don through his lusty adventures at a whirlwind pace. 

An impressive cast, lively orchestra and a few twists in the tale made this an exciting Don Giovanni from the Staatstheater am Gärtnerplatz.

A visually stunning production with a fine cast to match. 

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. 

Mozart's Don Giovanni is transported by director Oliver Platt to The Queen Mary in the 1930s. It looks handsome enough, but the concept is flawed.

Robert Carsen's Don Giovanni cannot burn in a hell in which he does not believe. 

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.

In Richard Jones' production of Don Giovanni at Theater Basel, it was the singers alone who stole the limelight.

Oliver Mears' impressively-cast farewell production in Belfast combines gripping drama and exuberant fun in a symbol-packed reading of Don Giovanni. 

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.

A lack of inspiration and dull staging is a serious hindrance to the second of Glyndebourne's touring productions.

Richard Jones' new production is original and thought-provoking, while a commendable cast soars under the capable baton of Mark Wigglesworth.

Roddy Doyle's new translation is ingenious more often than incongruous; John Molloy's Leporello steals the show in the Opera Theatre's Don Giovanni.

Simon Keenlyside returned to the Met after absence and led a delightful cast of Don Giovanni at the Met.

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.

In Ron Daniels' production of Mozart’s Don Giovanni at Santa Fe Opera, the specter of death and the possibility of judgment is always center stage. 

Ian Page assembled a fine cast, with a particularly good Leporello from David Soar for yet another superb performance of Mozart from Classical Opera.

Revel with a naughty Don Giovanni at the Komische Opera in Berlin.

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.

Wonderful singing and playing liven up a slightly lifeless staging of Mozart's turbulent masterpiece. 

Erwin Schrott seduces the Budapest audience with smiles, but Zerlina steals the show in Budapest. 

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.

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.

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.

An accomplished technical display from the OAE's period wind ensemble which occasionally lacked personality. 

A revival of Chris Alexander's comedy-slanted take on Don Giovanni tames Mozart's subversive opera in Seattle's season opener.

Theodor Strassberger's Oslo production of Mozart's Don Giovanni offers a fresh, mostly well-sung take on an old classic.

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.

A mixed evening, more notable for the efforts of the cast than for Brodie's modern Don Giovanni concept.

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’

Malin Hartelius and Palle Knudsen electrify an otherwise competent Don Giovanni in Copenhagen.

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.

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.

What makes for a good performance of Don Giovanni? Some have called it the greatest drama in opera, and with music by Mozart at the height of his compositional powers, its status as a masterpiece of Classical music is undisputed. Los Angeles Opera’s opening night production had elements both outstanding and troubled.

A trip to the opera at Garsington in its new, idyllic setting at Wormsley Estate, Buckinghamshire, is a fine treat even in the rain. And with a Don Giovanni production which, despite plenty of oddities, is light-hearted and often witty, an excellent evening of high-class entertainment is guaranteed.

It's the most spectacular entrance in opera: the giant stone statue bursts in to join Don Giovanni at the dinner table; a pair of sweeping downward octave swoops in D minor fills the audience (and the hapless Leporello) with terror at the rake's imminent descent into hell.OK, that was a spoiler, but then we all know the story: a production of Don Giovanni is all about how you tell it.