Salzburg's soulless Don Giovanni

A new Mozart Don Giovanni at the Salzburg Festival with a superb cast and a good conductor. So what went wrong? Excellent singers - Lenneke Ruiten (Donna Anna), Anett Fritsch (Donna Elvira), Valentina Nafornita (Zerlina), Ildebrando D’Arcangelo (Don Giovanni), Luca Pisaroni (Leporello), Tomasz Konieczny (Il Commendatore,) Andrew Staples (Don Ottavio), Alessio Arduini (Masetto), Conductor Christoph Eschenbach. Maybe I was expecting too much, but surely good Mozart in the Haus für Mozart should not be too much to hope for ?

Joyce DiDonato has said  "People need to understand that great performances are aided by great direction." She knows what shes talking about. Good direction isn't about costumes, or props, or physical things, but about drama.  An opera is "about" something. Performers are there to express what the story and music might mean. Every performance, even a 100th revival, should engage with the dynamic of  human relationships. Singers of this calibre can't go wrong. But what were they singing about? They seemed oddly disengaged, almost as if they were bored.

Setting Don Giovanni in a stylish hotel is a good idea, because it allows quick scene changes that don't hold up the pace. Donna Anna might be in a fancy suite, while Masetto and Zerlina's wedding takes place in the ballroom. This solves the problem of fitting in parties and dinner guests. A hotel is also anonymous: a metaphor for Don Giovanni's  soulless pursuits. But there's more to good directing than a set.  Sven-Erik Bechtolf's production unfortunately dwells so much on the impersonal and anonymous that there's almost no insight as to why Don Giovanni does what he does, or why women fall for him. Or, for that matter, why the audience should care.

Luca Pisaroni's Leporello looks bemused the whole time. The look of incomprehension on his face may be the director's take on the drama. Pisaroni has done the part so many times that he knows how much more there is to Leporello than this. Very good singing, but he can, and has, been much more emotionally involved.  When will he sing Don Giovanni himself ? In a production that makes full use of his exceptional skills for characterization, one hopes.

Ildebrando D’Arcangelo sings Don Giovanni well, but the lack of direction lets him down.  He appears in a snakeskin coat, which is a nice touch, since the character is a snake, who slips his skin off when he wants. His many costume changes aren't in themselves a problem, but there's much more to drama than what one wears. Who is Don Giovanni? What drives him? Why does he defy death itself? He's a lot more than a serial seducer. D’Arcangelo falls to the ground when the Commendatore grabs his hand. But at the end he gets up, runs off and chases yet another anonymous woman.  Quite probably, men like Don Giovanni don't learn a thing, but Mozart makes it pretty clear that Don Giovanni is wrong. In this production, so much for the Moral, and for the intensity of its expression.

There are lots of extraneous details, like waiters in devil masks and a rather good scene where D’Arcangelo licks the icing off Zerlina's wedding cake, but these details amount to nothing, if there's no engagement with the deeper ideas in the drama.  There are people who sneer at "Konzept",as if they're being clever. But all the word means is joined-up thinking. It's all very well to have bits of this and bits of that, but without an overall conceptual understanding of what makes a drama work. Maybe some audiences like productions that are purposeless but pretty. But Mozart and da Ponte deserve a whole lot more. How can anyone not engage with music and ideas as powerful as those in Don Giovanni ?  There's no such thing as affect-neutral listening.

FREE Glyndebourne Don Giovanni

FREE Glyndebourne Don Giovanni on Sunday 6th July from 3pm.  ENTER BY CLICKING THIS LINK HERE.

With this glorious weather you can picnic in the comfort of your own garden, if you can rig things up. I don't know if it's international, but it's worth a try. The link will stay live for a week. Wonderful, vivid production with a better cast than the current year - Luca Pisaroni practically steals the show.

HERE is what I wrote about the premiere in 2010  (the one we'll be seeing)
 
".......instead of a conventional set, there’s a giant rotating cube, a square globe, so to speak, which contains “the world”. It unfolds, reshaping and reinventing itself: a box of tricks, like Don Giovanni himself. Because it’s meticulously designed the cube moves quickly and silently. it’s much less intrusive than conventional set changes. Major transformations take place during the interludes, so they don’t get in the way. This amazing set frees the action from technical limitations. allowing the drama to unfold, rapid-fire and free.At first the cube reveals its secrets slowly. A crack appears. It’s a narrow alleyway. Don Giovanni is trapped like a rat, so he lashes out and kills the Commendatore..The cube closes again, its outer walls like a stone building. Later, the cube opens to reveal a sunlit garden, complete with trees. It’s the peasant wedding. So many shifts of focus. Garden transforms to ballroom, Zerlina’s loyalties shift, the masked visitors move in on Don Giovanni."


"Conflagration ends the First Act. While the crowd converge on Don Giovanni, Don Ottavio points at objects, just like the Commendatore will later point at Don Giovanni. For now, it’s just the furniture that goes up in flames. Real flames, you can smell the gas. It feels dangerous, even though you know Glyndebourne (and its insurers) have checked it all out thoroughly. We know Don Giovanni will end up in hell, but seeing him circled by fire is dramatic. It’s entirely consistent with the turbulent music with which Mozart marks the beginning of Don Giovanni’s end"

Innovative Don Giovanni Royal Opera House

The new Mozart Don Giovanni at the Royal Opera House London is so innovative that it will take time to sink in fully. What is Don Giovanni but an opera that operates on many different levels?  Many will panic at the very idea of anything new. But Don Giovanni is so  rich that anyone, including the audience, who doesn't keep learning from it, will not do it justice. This production has so much insight  that will enrich appreciation of the opera itself,  and of the process that goes into the making of opera. Kaspar Holten has pulled off a great feat: this Don Giovanni could be rewarding for years to come. Indeed, I think we'll appreciate it even more once the initial shock effect wears off.

Women's names appear on the backdrop, gradually developing into a torrent in tinier and tinier script. We are seeing the Catalogue unfolding before us. There are so many names that they become undecipherable, the identities of the women blurred. What sort of man keeps a catalogue of conquests?  What motivates such obsessional behaviour? Don Giovanni's relationships with women are mechanical, bringing no lasting pleasure. What is really behind his compulsiveness? This production is psychologically penetrating and exceptionally subtle. The images often suggest marble, a stone that seems soft to the touch but is enduring. Like women, perhaps, or like the Commendatore's statue. Don Giovanni smashes a stone head but ends up trapped behind stone walls. Is he in the Commendatore's tomb or in some frozen womb?

This sensitive approach to the opera reveals itself in the multiplicity of visual images. The central structure , designed by Es Devlin,  resembles MC Escher's etchings of palaces with staircases that lead nowhere, and buildings that reverse themselves in precise, but irrational ways.  Like Don Giovanni's mind. He compartmentalizes his emotions, locking them in a maze of subterfuge. He needs escape routes if only to escape responsibility for himself.  Perhaps he seeks challenge in order to prove himself? Gambling with the Commendatore is the ultimate dare. Leporello's scared but Don Giovanni is defiant. Suicide by Stone Guest?

Onto this structure, numerous images are projected, allowing exceptionally rapid changes of nuance and detail. Music develops  with every note and operates on many simultaneous layers. Physical stagecraft just can't compete. It felt as if we were watching notation dance and come to life. At one stage the singers are seen each in their individual vortexes, moving forwards while being pushed back by the force of the visual projections. We know it's video, but the image is so powerful that it expresses the force of the music and the psychic trauma the characters are going through.Luke Hall's video designs elevate projection into an art form. A hundred years ago, electrictyb transformed stagecraft : now we are heading into  a new doimension.

Nicola Luisotti's conducting emphasized agility and brittleness. This wasn't a full-blooded Romantic interpretation, but something at once late Baroque and surprisingly modern. How poisonously dissonant the fortepiano, harpsichord and cello continuo sounded! Don Giovanni was elegant though he used his grace for evil purposes. (Luisotti played the fortepiano).

Watching this Don Giovanni was stimulating because the visuals, for once, kept up with the constant motion in the music, which reflects Don Giovanni's obsession with staying ahead of the game. This production elevates video into art form, much in the way that electricity transformed stagecraft a hundred years ago, yet it's also pertinent to meaning.  Don Giovanni is a master of deception. Portraying his personality through tricks of light  intensifies the sense of constantly changing illusion.  When Leporello hides, we can still just about see him, camouflaged in moving shadows. When the Stone Guest appears, he materializes as if from the very structure of the building,  By this stage in the opera, the images are becoming more recognizable, as if reality is starting to intrude on Don Giovanni's  consciousness. The Stone Guest stands above  the image of an eye, a reference to the all-seeing Eye Of God, often seen in Catholic symbolism,  and also in Freemasonry.  Normal physical staging could not produce this level of detail.

When Don Giovanni is drawn down to hell, he's seen trapped behind high walls that fill the whole stage area. All his life, Don Giovanni has survived by manipulating people. Suddenly, he's all alone. What can be more horrifying to someone like that to be alone and having to confront himself ? Being entombed alive is far more chilling than comic book hellfire. Moreover, he hears the Sextet, taunting him from a distance. The "happy ending" is sometimes unrealistic, like an add-on moral lesson. Here, it's incredibly poignant.

Part of the joy of this production was the way the visuals stayed as backdrop, allowing the singers to take prominence. The big set arias were given full prominence. in this production, Mariusz Kwiecień was very much the central character. His elegance suggested Don Giovanni assumed his superiority as if it were his natural right.  As the net closes in on the character, Kwiecień sang with  vehemence verging on demonic, without losing his innate poise.

Véronique Gens was outstanding as Donna Elvira. She sang with such richness and dignity that she brought out the tragedy in the role. Donna Elvira throws herself at Don Giovanni : she's just as obsessive as he is, and possibly disturbed, but Gens makes us feel her tragedy. When she sings her last big aria, she is so compelling that we feel sympathy for Don Giovanni lurking in the darkness. Perhaps he's learned the real meaning of love, too late.

Malin Byström sang Donna Anna. with presence, well supported by Antonio Poli's Don Ottavio. Elizabeth Watts was a lively Zerlina and Dawid Kimberg sang Masetto. Alex Esposito sang Leporello.  As the run progresses, the singing will settle, so I'm certainly going again, and catching the HD broadcast on 12th February. For more, please read Opera Today, where Claire Seymour will be reviewing.

photos copyright  ROH Bill Cooper 2014

NOT Là ci darem la mano

Ahead of Don Giovanni at the Royal Opera House tonight, NOT Là ci darem la mano but Dort reichst du mir deine Hand. Heinrich Schlusnus and Erna Berger sing Don Giovanni and Zerlina auf Deutsch. Once, singing in the vernacular was not uncommon. Sometimes singers would even sing in their own language if they couldn't master the local language.  The ENO was founded on the premise that English audience "needed" English words even for basic repertoire. Nowadays, we have (I hope) learned the importance of syntax and stresses in vocal music but this clip goes to show that performance practices in the past were very different to what they are now.

Kaspar Holten Juan

At last, I've seen the film Juan by Kaspar Holten.  Please see my post from April 2011 for links to clips, and read  the first major review which was in Opera Today in July 2011.  This isn't another staging of Don Giovanni, not by any means. Juan is a wholly original concept, taking its cue from the heart of the opera. As film noir on its own terms as cinema, it's extremely impressive.

Juan begins in an opera house. Grand settings, and a performance on stage so gloriously late baroque that it would cost too much to mount in full today. Juan (Christopher Maltman) is in the audience. Elvira (Elizabeth Furtral) is in a box. Eye contact. Suddenly for both, the crowd disappears. Assignation and clearly consensual groping. The gilt and pomp of the opera house aren't reality. The camera pans on elegant marble staircases: luxurious, but hard and cold. Much is hinted at, but not disclosed. When the Commander pulls a gun in this modern setting, you wonder, what sort of man carries weapons into his daughter's rooms?  The railway station imagery above is evocative. Anna is "between trains" looking for connections she may never make.We're not watching a remake of Don Giovanni, but a study of the lost souls in this plot, desperately searching for things they can't articulate. This isn't sordid for sordid's sake. The mean streets, the empty places, all expressions of this terrain of spiritual anomie.

Juan is a pschological study of the characters. Enough of Mozart's music is there so anyone familiar with the opera will be listening on two levels, following the dramatic logic in the film while carrying the opera like a shadow. The effect is deliberately unsettling. "Real" people don't sing, but these characters do, albeit in English, which further distances us from the real Mozart. Humour, too - one of the guests at Zerlina's party is Placido Domingo, in street clothes! Then, when Elvira, Ottavio and Anna gatecrash, the camera switches to the film crew, gesticulating. Flames burn the curtains. Are these special effects? Or does Maltman look genuinely in danger as he runs along the rafters in the ceiling?

One of the strongest points in this film is the way tension builds up to breaking point. Sirens of police cars and anbulances, piercing any semblance of safety. Sudden, stealthy glances. People are stalking each other, trapped in difficult games. In the final act, Juan and Leporello (Mikhail Petrenko) are assaulted by Nature itself, as rain pours down on them. No shelter: no conventional ending with Don Giovanni safely despatched to hell. No final triumphant ensemble.  Instead, the film ends with a wonderful shot of a terrazzo, paved in an intricate pattern of black and white, like a gigantic maze. Anonymous figures in raincoats huddle under umbrellas, walking randomly, without purpose.


Photo : Elvira (Elizabeth Futral), Juan (Christopher Maltman) and Leporello (Mikhail Petrenko) - credit Steffen Aarfing(courtesy juanfilm.dk)

Don Giovanni - Garsington Opera at Wormsley

FULL REVIEW with photos in Opera Today . Garsington Opera at Wormsley is stunningly beautiful. Just being there is an experience, which is why the social aspect is so rewarding. But regular patrons can do bland, corporate affairs any time. They come to Wormsley because they care about opera. This new production of Mozart's Don Giovanni has a lot to offer to those who pay attention.

The Wormsley Pavilion is a wonder of translucent glass and  gleaming metal.  It inspires the set design by Leslie Travers.  Simple, clean-cut lines, stylish elegance. If Don Giovanni were alive today, he'd live in  designer surroundings like this.  He fits life into compartments, which the "boxes" in this set reflect. But as we know, things go awry. Under this surface glamour lurks something very nasty. Don Giovanni (Grant Doyle)  and Donna Anna (Natasha Jouhl) act out bondage games. Naturally, she doesn't want her father to know. She cuts Don Giovanni from his handcuffs, and he stabs the Commendatore (Christophoros Stamboglis).  It's not a conventional reading but valid. Don Giovanni gets his kicks from seduction, not rape in the modern sense, and those around him are complicit. Besides, Donna Anna's feelings are conflicted. Her Don Ottavio (Jesús León) is rather alluring  and comes over as a real match for her. When they masquerade, she wears dominatrix, he dresses as muzzled dog, which expresses much about their relationship.

Because Garsington Opera uses relatively young singers, the production is energetic. Boyle's Don Giovanni is quick on his feet (as is the character). Joshua Bloom's Leporello  radiates physical presence. Interesting voice, with good colour and range - definitely a future Don Giovanni. When Bloom sings the catalogue aria, he snaps out statistics rapid fire. He prints off a speadsheet, and reams of paper fill the stage. Donna Elvira (Sophie Bevan) is dumbstruck.

While Natasha Jouhl's Donna Anna is svelte and sung with richly controilled poise, Bevan's Donna Elvira  is more earthy, even endearing. This brings out the social commentary in the opera. Donna Anna's posher, but far more trapped by her position in soctey. She has too much to lose. Donna Elvira on the other hand, seems to be able to roam freely in pursuit of Don Giovanni and declare her feelings openly. Zerlina (Mary Bevan) is "a bit of rough"  Her wedding dress is more showgirl than country virgin, because she she has aspirations. Think footballers' wives weddings. She wants more than the underclass which Masetto (Callum Thorpe) represents, but she puts up with his violence because she has no option. Or perhaps, like a dirtier version of Donna Anna, because something in her draws her to the dark side Don Giovanni offers. Massetto and the villagers sing and move well. You can sense that this lot could riot and wreck Don Giovanni's spotless cocoon of a penthouse, if they had a chance.

But retribution comes when the Stone Guest comes to dinner. A corpse resembling the Commendatore is wheeled in on a hospital table. This looks much more like a marble statue than some depictions, and close to text. The inscription is written on a tag. While Don Giovanni and Leporello examine the corpse, a voice booms out from high above the stage, as Stamboglis sings. They can't see him, but we can. Wonderfully surreal. We don't need to see Don Giovanni literally dragged down to hell. He drops dead and falls into the same wheelchair with which the Commendatore's body was removed at the start of the opera.  Perfect symmetry. More controversially, Donna Anna caresses Don Giovanni's corpse. Her emotions are complex. This implies more than a simple happy ending. The Edition used in this production is Barenreiter-Kassel, edited by Wolfgang Plath and Wolfgang Rehm.
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A full review with cast list soon in Opera Today. 

Erwin Schrott Mozart Don Giovanni Royal Opera House

Erwin Schrott triumphed as Don Giovanni in the Mozart/da Ponte series at the Royal Opera House. Schrott exudes charisma, which gives him an advantage not every singer can muster, for Don Giovanni is a larger-than-life personality who needs to be expressed in the grand manner.  It's pointless to nitpick a portrayal as passionate as this. Schrott creates Don Giovanni in all his malevolent glory -- virile, confident, arrogant. bursting with animal sexuality, yet manages to hint at the manic obsession that drives the  character. Schrott hints at these fears in brief, quieter moments, and slips back into macho mode with increased vehemence. Stunning. To match the well-toned voice he also has a well-toned body. At last, director Francesca Zambello's bizarre idea that Don Giovanni should dine semi-naked  with the Commendatore makes a little sense. You're hypnotized by Schrott's biceps and pecs, and forget, for a moment, how silly it is that he should be costumed like this for what he knows to be the biggest confrontation in his life.

Schrott is brilliant but even he has to work within the limitations of Zambello's brainless staging and untypically leaden playing from the Royal Opera House Orchestra, conducted by Constantinos Carydis. Also the more reason in this production to appreciate the efforts of the singers, who rise above what they have to deal with. Leporello, for example, should give Don Giovanni a run for his money. He's a servant, but not entirely subservient. He's also to some extent culpable for Don Giovanni's crimes. But in Zambello's production, he's portayed as a buffoon, even more peasant-like than Masetto's peasant friends. Why would a sophisticate like Don Giovanni hire someone this bucolic? Nobody could possibly be fooled by this servant in his master's clothes. So the production plays against anything Alex Esposito might make of the role. He sang in the 2008 version of this production, and has done the part many times, so he should have been aware how the production takes the bite out of whatever Mozart and da Ponte may have meant it to be.

Ruxandra Donose is a fiery Latin Donna Elvira, with a spirited edge When Donna Elvira sets out to confront Don Giovanni, she wears what looks like a dirty dress, hem ruched up over her calves in a way no aristocratic lady would dare to be seen.  It's probably not the way to play power games with Don Giovanni, master of intrigue, but Donna Elvira is no strategist. Donose's "Mi tradi" takes on a wild air, expressing Donna Elvira's emotional trauma.  Donose has a very strong background in French repertoire, so imbibes its values of intelligence and clarity. This enhances her feel for the fundamental poise of Mozart's style, even in an opera which should be as dangerous as Don Giovanni.

Carmela Remigio was making her Royal Opera House debut as Donna Anna, though she's taken the part of Donna Elvira many times (Please read this interview in which she speaks about the challenges). She specializes in 18th century opera, so brings a late baroque sensibility to what she does. She's far closer to the spirit of Mozart than this maudlin production deserves. She sings with tight focus, suggesting Donna Anna's tension, struggling with feelings she can't articulate. Her sexuality is aroused, but she's trapped by what society expects of her. Fortunately, Pavol Breslik's Don Ottavio is sensitively portayed and sung with more authority than the role usually gets. Donna Anna might  luck out, after all. Breslik's tender "O mio tresoro" was interrupted by the loudest snort I've ever heard from any audience. I don't condemn coughing as it's involuntary, but it's not funny to choose to blow one's nose with such violence at this point. It sounded like a boo, not at all fair on the singer.

Throughout this opera, Mozart plays with the idea of switching identities, expressed through the balance of voice types. Kate Lindsey's Zerlina was pert and bright, almost strident, but a good foil for Matthew Rose's deep, authoritative Masetto. Inspired casting!  Rose's Masetto is big in every way, not simply because he's so tall : this is a resonant voice, one can imagine him  taking on Don Giovanni, at a stretch, and certainly the Commendatore.  As for the Commendatore he was hardly present at all. Instead, a huge golden object kept swaying in the background, eventually revealing itself as a giant hand, its finger pointing at Don Giovanni. One of the truly horrific moments in the whole repertoire, reduced to something out of Monty Python, worse still but prettified and shiny.Whatever Reinhard Hagen might have done with his role, he was completey upstaged, for no obvious dramatic or logical reason whatsoever.

Judging from the audience reaction, this Don Giovanni should be a great hit, though not necessarily for the best artistic reasons. Many  burst out laughing at the subtitles, as if to prove they got the joke. Yet if they really know the opera, they'd know it's not a comedy. Its wit is savage irony, for the story is essentially tragic. Don Giovanni's sex addiction is a sign of weakness, a symptom of the corruption of a power structre held together by exploitation. In this world of peasants and aristocrats, everyone gets screwed.  Instead, Zambello's production ignores the fundamerntals, and plays up irrelevancies like the Madonna, crucifixes and the objects Masetto's friends carry for no clear purpose.  It trivializes the drama by introducing an inordinate amount of stage noise, further encouraging new audiences to think of Don Giovanni as merry slapstick. This is Regie-opera at its worst, but because it's colourful, those who don't like directors will be fooled. So thank goodness for the singers in this cast, who have salvaged what they can, and used their experience and instincts to present a wonderful evening of song. For the singers, and for Erwin Schrott, this production should not be missed. (It runs to 29th February) FULL REVIEW, CAST LIST and MORE PHOTOS in OPERA TODAY.

photos copyright Catherine Ashmore and Mike Hoban, Royal Opera House February 2012

Carmela Remigio Donna Anna, ROH

As I predicted earlier, of all three Mozart da Ponte operas at the Royal Opera House this season, this second cast of Don Giovanni would be the one to catch.  The singing this evening justified the whole exercise. Erwin Schrott had firm tone in body as well as voice. For a change, it made (some) sense of director Francesca Zambello's bizarre idea that Don Giovanni would dine semi-naked with the Commendatore. Was she trying to suggest Don Giovanni was out to seduce the Stone Guest? Surely a smoothie like Don G would have more finesse. Yet the sight of Schrott with his chest bare and those tight red pants.... sigh!  But Anna Netrebko was sitting in the audience (two seats from me).

The three female parts were stunning. Carmela Remigio, absolutely luscious singing. Please read this interview with her in Opera Today where Mark Berry talks to her about singing both Donna Anna and Donna Elvira.  What a sharply focussed mind she has - no wonder she sings with such poise and intelligence.  Ruxandra Donose's Donna Elvira was passionately Latin, with a wild edge that made sense of the strange costume change. Surely an aristocrat like Donna Elvira wouldn't wear a dirty-looking dress with an uneven hem? Donose is stuck with that outfit, so she uses it to emphasize Donna Elvira's abandon.  Donose is good at creating character - once she vividly explained the dynamic of L'heure espagnole to me. Both Remigio and Donose show how truly experienced singers can make more of a role than they get from some directors.

Also impressive were Kate Lindsey's pert Zerlina, Pavol Breslik's sensitive Don Ottavio, and Matthew Best's Masetto, transformed into a bigger personality than sometimes happens, and not just because Rose is 6 foot 7. Alex Esposito's Leporello suffered from poor directoral concept. No way would a sharp card like Don Giovanni employ a yokel, especially not one so buffoonlike he's more peasant than the peasants. All along, Mozart is telling us that service isn't subservient and that servants and masters can switch.  Zambello should read da Ponte.

Definitely catch this cast if you can. Excellent, enjoyable singing. Pity this very excellence showed up the production!  MORE to come soon, but read the interview - Remigio is so articulate.

Champagne and bombs - highs and lows of 2011

What fizzed and what fell flat? Some real surprises and not quite what you'd expect. Safe top choice, Gounod Faust at the Royal Opera House. No compromise on the economic mess, top quality production, top quality singing. More adventurous top choice, Puccini Il Trittico, also ROH, and especially Suor Angelica. "ReNUNciation" - a Cinderella opera to the fore, great singing from Anna Larsson and Ermolena Jaho. Another mega hit, Mozart Don Giovanni at Teatro alla Scala, Milan. Fabulous singing, intelligent staging, provocative approach. When this comes out on DVD, get it.

Productions which help you re-assess wehat you think you knew are usually the most rewarding. We've all seen the same old production of Verdi La Traviata so many times, and Alfredo is almost always a lightweight. So when Piotr Beczala turned the role into a major creation, all assumptions overturned.  It was like hearing the opera afresh, from a new perspective. This is a singer who really knows what he's doing and is genuinely well informed about historic tenor style. There is so much hype about these days, but Beczala is the genuine article, who delivers beautifully, without fuss.

For the same reason I loved Wagner Lohengrin from Bayreuth. Hans Neuenfels rats make you realize that the opera is about Brabant and why people want to control it. The rats are funny, tragic, scary, but more "human" than the main characters. It's a completely different perspective and once the shock value wears off, makes the opera much deeper emotionally and intellectually. Obviously we won't get rats again, but this production is seminal because it expands understanding,

For non-staged opera, Handel Alcina at the Barbican, conducted by Marc Minkowski, part of an excellent series there of operas on the theme of Orlando Furioso, which were very good, with specialist French casts and players., At the South Bank, Bartók's Duke Bluebeard's Castle. Tomlinson, DeYoung and Salonen showed how it should be heard and the semi staging showed how it can be seen. Probably way above the heads of those who don't relate to the quirkiness of this opera. At the ENO, Rameau's Castor and Pollux was also beyond those who couldn't see past the sex. Shocking, but not wrong. The whole point of the opera is that it's an allegory about the dangers of physical excess! So those who think it "must" be pretty because it's baroque need to study it and its period more carefully.

Popular opinion means nothing. Because Monty Python has many fans, most people loved Terry Gilliams's Berlioz Damnation of Faust for its cheap gags and irony-free racism.Unfortunately it proved Mel Brooks's adage about "Springtime for Hitler". People follow crowds when they don't think, in art as well as in politics. OTOH , I learned to love Rimsky-Korsakov's The Tsar's Bride at the Royal Opera House, not from the dull, lacklustre conducting by Mark Elder but from listening to Russian recordings afterwards, which bring out its true violent pungency. Then the mafia staging made total sense. Pity everyone else seemed to expect Sheherazade.  Similarly, to my surprise, I actually got a kick from Mark-Anthony Turnage's Anna Nicole at the ROH despite the first act longeurs. Anna Nicole was hype, so the opera was a daring statement onn the dangers of trash, an irony lost on many.

On the other hand, 2011 saw other mega-hype bubbles burst (while some still grow). Both Havergal Brian and Mieczsyslaw Weinberg have been plagued for decades by "fans" who may not actually know their music but boost their own cachet by pretending to.  Brian's Gothic Symphony received its best ever performance and highest profile at the Proms, but killed the myth.  Similarly Weinberg's The Passenger (ENO) and The Portrait (Opera North) revealed the music for what it is. Fake fans went ballistic when their bluff was called. That's a good indicator of hype. Genuine music lovers can discuss things rationally. Fashion victims can't. Please see the comments under my post on Dudamel's Mahler at the Proms for more evidence. For much the same reasons, I didn't even bother with Nico Muhly's Two Boys, having spent 18 months trying desperately  to make sense of his other music. My theory is that the Met wanted to outdo the ROH's coup in getting a new opera by a major British composer, so the Met invested huge money in creating Muhly. At least Turnage already existed and had a genuine track record.

This year I've done a lot less orchestral music, song and recordings than I used to (well over 400 a year, once). I loved Vladimir Jurowski's Liszt Faust Symphony at the Proms, and Andrew Davis's Elgar Caractacus at the Three Choirs Festival.  Also Boulez Pli selon Pli, with Barbara Hannigan and Ensemble Intercontemporain, though it was the end of a long tour. Earlier performances must have been mind blowing! Although I've been doing Lieder for more than 40 years, most recitals this year were good rather than exceptional, and there were a few disappointments. A quiet patch, maybe. Recordings-wise, I loved José Serebrier's Dvořák Symphony no 9 "The New World", vindicating studio performance as an art form. Best CD of the year, though, has got to be Pierre Boulez's CD of Szymanowski's Symphony no 3 with the Wiener Philharmoniker. This is so astonishing, it ranks among my top favourites of all time. If you think you know Boulez, or if you think you know Szymanowski, listen to this. It's a revelation. Boulez is conducting two concerts at the Barbican next year, one in April with Tetzlaff and Scriabin, the other in May with Znaider and Szymanowski 3. I booked a year ago.

Brilliant Don Giovanni La Scala Milan - Barenboim Netrebko Frittoli Mattei Terfel

More than a gala for Milan, and for Italy, this wonderful Mozart Don Giovanni at Teatro alla Scala, Milan was a gala for all the world, broadcast live internationally.  Golden casting: Daniel Barenboim, Peter Mattei, Bryn Terfel, Anna Netrebko, Barbara Frittoli, Anna Prohaska, Giuseppe Filianoti, Kwangchul Youn, and Stefan Kocan. Golden performances and a staging that accessed daring levels of meaning.

This production starts controversially. Donna Anna (delicious Anna Netrebko) tussles with Don Giovanni (Peter Mattei) .We assume it's rape, because nice girls don't do sex with strangers. But what is she really objecting to, his presence or his mask?  And how did Don Giovanni get past her defences? He's a man for whom the thrill of the chase may be more important than the act. So this Donna Anna seems to be enjoying herself while claiming to object. After all, she has a fiancé and an image to protect.  Don Ottavio (Giuseppi Filianotti suspects Donna Anna might not love him.  Netrebko sings the recititative and Mi tradì, quell'alma ingrata Non mi dir, bell'idol mio, with such passion that you wonder what private grief she's trying to suppress. Netrebko's Donna Anna is psychologically complex, not simply a victim of an attack, but of the whole  repressed, narrow world she lives in. Netrebko's performance was a tour de force of great emotional depth, haloed by exceptionally lustrous orchestral playing.

Don Giovanni is a cad but he's a charmer. Mattei is sexy, and sings with alpha male confidence, but he expresses Don Giovanni's appeal on deeper levels. Don Giovanni embraces life - meals as well as women - and deliberately flouts convention, whereas men like Don Ottavio and Masetto (Stefan Kocan) cling to it. e offers choice. "È aperto a tutti quanti! Viva la libertà!”. Perhaps that's why he only meets his match in The Commendatore (superb Kwangchul Youn) who defies the constraints of death. Mattei's Don Giovanni has animal energy, and glories in it - what kind of man keeps his own studbook? But Mattei also suggests the boyish impishness that some women can't resist. Women like Donna Elvira (Barbara Frittoli) need so much to be needed that they fall for a trite ditty like Deh vieni alla finestra.

Ultimately, Don Giovanni seduces because he fills women's fantasies. He also charms men. Leporello (Bryn Terfel) is culpable for Don Giovanni's misdeeds, but can''t break away.  Mattei and Terfel are the same age, and have created both Don Giovanni and Leporello, so it's interesting to hear them together. At first Terfel is costumed like a roughneck, which is a complete mistake. No surprise that Terfel, who knows the opera thoroughly, looks uncomfortable and doesn't sing the catalogue aria as crisply as he has done before. Don Giovanni wouldn't hire a buffoon. Once the silly costume is gone, Terfel shows why he's a match for Mattei. Their different styles bounce off each other, creating dramatic tension. Terfel sounds like he's about to explode with the violence Don Giovanni suppresses under his urbane exterior. Mattei, though, is strong enough to stand up to this savage Leporello, his elegant demeanour barely ruffled, for he knows Leporello isn't so different from Donna Anna and Donna Elvira. They all protest but remain transfixed. The Mattei/Terfel dynamic shows the symbiotic relationship between two strong personalities made uneven because of their social status. The dinner party scene bristles with latent menace.

Everyone's playing mind games in this opera. Zerlina (Anna Prohaska) keeps up an illusion of innocence yet delights in kinky activities (read the text). Zerlina is young, but no puppet. Prohaska's movements are as crisp as her diction, creating a pert, non-victim personality who could quite possibly pull the strings on Don Giovanni if their positions were reversed.  Prohaska is a singer to follow. Book now for her recital at the Wigmore Hall on 4th March.  

This production, directed by Robert Carsen, emphasizes the games the characters are playing. When Don Giovanni and Leporello change clothes, they aren't really fooling anyone who doesn't want to be fooled. The set (Michael Levine) resembles the curtain at the Teatro alla Scala, which Don Giovanni "pulls" down in replica. The masqueraders emerge from the audience, dressed in velvet, the colour of blood. It's a very good use of the otherwise wasted space right down the middle of the theatre, and dramatically correct for it engages the audience to take a stand on the morality in the opera.

When the Commendatore rises from his grave, Kwangchul Youn's magnificent bass booms across the auditorium. It's terrifying because the audience is disoriented, just like Don Giovanni. Youn is standing in the royal box, with the President of Italy, Giorgio Napolitano. It's a powerful statement, since the Italian president isn't an ordinary politician. Politicians screw around like Don Giovanni, but the President of Italy, like Il Commendatore, is supposed to represent higher ideals. Mattei and Youn struggle with such intensity that it's irelevant whether Youn "is" or isn't a statue.  He stabs Don Giovanni through ewith his sword. "Questo è il fin di chi fa mal" sing the ensemble at the end. Often this epilogue feels unnatural after the fireworks that went before. This time there's a twist. Mattei stands on stage, while the ensemble descends into a hole in the ground.  In the real world, Commendatores don't appear by magic. Bad guys will win unless we take responsibility against them.

There are clips on Youtube of the broadcast, but boycott them. They're very poor quality and will spoil the experience. So wait for the repeat broadcast (Arte TV soon, I believe) and DVD.

Don Giovanni - La Scala, Milan (1)

Click here for the half hour trailer to Don Giovanni from Teatro alla Scala, Milan. The trailer doesn't even come near the full experience. HERE IS MY REVIEW. Please read it, it's quite detailed. The real thing's much better. Don Giovanni is Peter Mattei, in top form. Bryn Terfel, Anna Netrebko, Barbara Frittoli, Anna Prohaska, Kwangchul Youn, Giuseppe Filianoti, Stefan Kocan, each one of them superb. The dynamic between Mattei and Terfel is interesting. Both are the same age, both have created both roles memorably, in their own very different styles, and here they are up against each other. Terfel is the last person to be servile, but the casting comes into its own at the end.  Daniel Barenboim conducts. Extremely witty staging, Robert Carsen, all is forgiven after the Glyndebourne Rinaldo!