Don Giovanni Monte Carlo – 2015
Don Giovanni in Monte Carlo 2015
True love?
Erwin Schrott as Don Giovanni challenges the dead commander, Foto Alain Hanel
Is Don Juan/Don Giovanni simply an amoral, selfish libertine who goes all the way in his joie de vivre?
Review by Torkil Baden, Photos: Alain Hanel /l’Opéra de Monte-Carlo
Don Giovanni, opera by W. A. Mozart, libretto by Lorenzo da Ponte. First performance: Prague 29th October 1787. This production: 2008/March 20th – 29th 2015 Opéra de Monte-Carlo
MONTE CARLO/MONACO: The great seducer himself will always be the crucial point in a production of this Mozart masterpiece. Uruguyan Erwin Schrott has been a Mozart star on the world stage for twenty years and knows his score. He makes a good team with his servant Leporello, the excellent Rumanian Adrian Sampetrean, and the two have just completed a Don Giovanni-series in a different production in Paris.
On the glorious stage of Monte Carlo the collaboration between master and servant is intimate and lively.
Ottavio and Anna, – not much flesh and blood, Foto Alain Hanel
Don Giovanni is not reduced to a one dimensional villain who abuses his nobility power, and there is room for his complicated personality – though the room might have been larger.
Erwin Schrott, – Don Giovanni, has grandeur in body and voice, and his mandolin serenade was a revelation of beauty. Unfortunately the eagerly awaited young French-German director Marguerite Borie had to cancel due to sickness in family. Instead “directeur général» Jean-Louis Grinda stepped in and revived his 2008 – production
.
It looks like the two leading men continue a way of acting not much influenced by the directing of Grinda. I may be wrong, but the other weeping and loving and revenging characters are moving around on stage in a much more unrealistic and static way. If this is an experiment in monumentality, it is not a success.
The bride couple
The poor couple Anna & Masetto are always a cliché. Now they are more pathetic than ever, but sympathetic in the virtuoso singing of Patrizia Ciofi and Maxim Mironov.
The revengeful Elvira, the innocent bride couple and the commander contribute to the impeccable vocal level of the cast though they could have been challenged to more flesh and blood
.
The expected climax of the show, Don Giovanni taken by the devils into a flaming inferno, was a great disappointment, – simply reduced to a black curtain!
The opera is a continuous flow of engaging and glowing music, and Italian Paolo Arrivabeni is a master guide through the score in his musical direction.
Who is Don Juan?
The production makes it relevant to raise the question once more: what kind of personality do we see on stage? Is Don Juan/Don Giovanni simply an amoral, selfish libertine who goes all the way in his joie de vivre? In the history of opera Danish philosopher Søren Kierkegaard has made an important remark about how true the hero is to his own destiny. In his homage Kierkegaard describes the endless erotic desire as a power of life, like a force of nature, like a wind or a water fall outside control.
Leporello and Elvira
Donna Elvira: Sonya Yoncheva
Leporello:Adrian Sampetrean
Donna Elvira: Sonya Yoncheva
Leporello:Adrian Sampetrean
Donna Elvira: Sonya Yoncheva
Leporello:Adrian Sampetrean
Maybe a secret, not too often observed, lies in some of the very last lines of the finale. In the Monte Carlo production it comes out very clearly. The lovesick Ottavio reminds his fiancé Anna that you should give in to a true love, “al desìo chi t’adora ceder deve un fido amor”. Fortunately she answers positively and probably resigns to his love call when the curtain is down. The message is: don’t say no to true love!
For Don Giovanni the experience is that half an hour true love may be enough to qualify for true love.
In the principality where a Hollywood star ended up as a princess it is an obvious connection to the everlasting memory of Grace Kelly singing just that tune, “True Love”……
Political
On the way to hell
In this wholeheartedness Don Juan also becomes a rebel in a political sense, in opposition to the rules of contemporary society, two years before the French revolution. No wonder that Mozart’s opera was banned by censors in a city like Munich.
The season in Monte Carlo
The Monaco opera house has a short season, expanded with a series of concerts. The first opera production was traditionally at the National Day celebration on November 19th with Romeo et Juliette (Gounod/direction Jean-Louis Grinda), a coproduction with Genova. The new year opened with the new production by Grinda Guillaume Tell (Rossini). February was dedicated to a new production of A Florentine Tragedy (Zemlinsky/director Daniel Benoin,) & Pagliacci (Leoncavallo/Allex Aguilera).
After this Mozart the season will be completed in April with a Polish production of Lady Macbeth de Mtsensk (Chostakovitch/Marcelo Lombardero).
Every production runs only for a few days, from three to five, including a Sunday matiné and in the case of “Don Giovanni” a special night for a young audience, jeune public.
Some showings like last year’s “Ernani” as well as this “Don Giovanni” are transmitted on the internet, on French TV and in movie theatres.
The schedule for the season 2015/16 will be presented end of April.
In Monte Carlo:
Musical direction: Paolo Arrivabeni
Direction: Jean-Louis Grinda
Design and costumes: Rudy Sabounghi
Cast:
Don Giovanni: Erwin Schrott
The commander: Giacomo Prestia
Donna Anna:Patrizia Ciofi
Don Ottavio: Maxim Mironov
Donna Elvira: Sonya Yoncheva
Leporello:Adrian Sampetrean
Masetto:Fernando Javier
Zerlina:Loriana Castellano
Chorus of l’Opéra de Monte-Carlo
Orchestre Philharmonique de Monte-Carlo
Leporello and Elvira
On the way to hell, but not very scary