The Mostly Mozart Don G

[lennygoran]

I see from the Mostly Mozart email to me today they're repeating this Don G-here's the 2011 review from TOMMASINI-I don't know about this one-some photos are at the link if you can get to it. Regards, Len

Chalky Chorus of Specters Who Dance and Crush

By ANTHONY TOMMASINI AUG. 5, 2011

The Mostly Mozart Festival is billing its presentation of Mozart’s opera “Don Giovanni,” featuring the conductor Ivan Fischer, the excellent Budapest Festival Orchestra and an admirable cast, as just a “staged concert.” While festival organizers deserve respect for their honesty in not inflating the scope of this venture, the “Don Giovanni” that opened at the Rose Theater of Jazz at Lincoln Center on Thursday night, which was also directed by Mr. Fischer, is more involving, imaginative and theatrically daring than many full productions I have seen.

It was first presented last year in Budapest as part of a cycle of the three operas written by Mozart to librettos by Lorenzo Da Ponte. No doubt, keeping costs in check was one reason for the simplicity of the staging. The singers wear modern-dress costumes; there are no sets, other than two black boxes, one big and one small, framed by dark curtains in the back.


But 16 young actors, students of the Budapest Acting Academy, dressed in dusty gray-white clothing with chalky faces and hair, group themselves into various formations that suggest walls, windows, benches and more. When needed, they become the chorus, singing and dancing at the wedding party for Zerlina and Masetto. The men join the search to track down the obsessed seducer, Don Giovanni.

The ghostly look of the actors is clearly associated with the statue of the Commendatore. In the opera’s first scene the honorable old Commendatore is killed in a duel defending his daughter Donna Anna from Don Giovanni, who is poised to ravish her. When the Commendatore reappears as a talking statue in the cemetery scene, he is in many productions covered with pasty facial makeup and wearing dusty garb. That image has become a little trite. But here, by presenting a whole roster of spectral-looking, mostly silent actors, who stand in physically awkward positions with uncanny stillness, the production reclaims that old image of the singing statue. The Commendatore here (Kristinn Sigmundsson) joins a brotherhood of the walking dead, who stalk through the opera eerily in this gripping production.


Mr. Fischer is a first-rate Mozart conductor. A co-founder of the Budapest Festival Orchestra in 1983, he has turned it into an active ensemble that plays around the world and has made award-winning recordings. He drew a bracing, fresh and urgent performance from his gifted, eager players on Thursday. Many conductors opt for fleet tempos in trying to enliven familiar works like “Don Giovanni.” Not Mr. Fischer. His tempos, while never sluggish or heavy, were reined in enough to elicit emphatic, clear and effectively paced playing. His ear was alert to startling harmonic shifts and inner textures. The performance, though not flawless, was rich with character and teeming with musical ideas.

If judged by vocal excellence alone, some of the singers were not exceptional. The standout was the soprano Laura Aikin, who brought her shimmering, warm voice and exquisite pianissimo high notes to a sensitive performance as the suffering Donna Anna. Also strong was the soprano Myrto Papatanasiu, the Donna Elvira, who sang with dark-hued colors and penetrating richness.

The Greek baritone Tassis Christoyannis had vocal limitations as Don Giovanni. He almost crooned in softer passages, and his forceful singing sometimes lacked body. Still, he was a riveting actor who threw himself into the dramatic concept of this unusual production. So did the entire cast: José Fadilha as an endearingly befuddled Leporello; Zoltan Megyesi, a light-voiced lyric tenor, as Don Ottavio; Sunhae Im and Riccardo Novaro as Zerlina and Masetto, an adorable country couple in love.

Since Mr. Fischer is the only credited director, he must have been largely responsible for devising the fluid, imaginative movements of the 16 actors. It was at once charming and ominous to see the window through which Don Giovanni serenades Elvira’s maid depicted with a series of linked arms by the grim figures. When Giovanni kills the Commendatore, no swords are used. Instead, at the fatal moment, Mr. Christoyannis pushes over an entangled group of stone-still actors, who tumble onto the Commendatore, crushing him.

And in the final scene, in which the statue comes to Don Giovanni’s house for dinner, the table is formed by a circle of male actors, on their hands and knees, with female actors lying face-up on the backs of the men.

Then, when Giovanni goes to damnation amid fire and brimstone, Mr. Christoyannis is sucked into a matrix of grasping arms from the whole roster of actors. Giovanni is about to join the legions of the dead. I have attended some elaborate “Don Giovanni” productions. But I have seldom seen this climactic moment staged to such haunting effect.


http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/06/arts/ ... eview.html

[John F]

If there had been any singers of interest in the cast, I would have seen it. There weren't, so I didn't. I don't expect better this time around.

[lennygoran]

If there had been any singers of interest in the cast, I would have seen it. There weren't, so I didn't. I don't expect better this time around.

Thanks for your thoughts on this matter. Regards, Len

[jserraglio]

This clip from 2011 (in Budapest?) might help. The Commendatore is the same as in the 2017 MM show:

[lennygoran]

This clip from 2011 (in Budapest?) might help. The Commendatore is the same as in the 2017 MM show:

Thanks-I sure won't be there. Regards, Len

[Len_Z]

I think the cast is much more exciting at the Met current run, especially considering that Nadine Sierra has just won the Tucker Award, confirming that she's poised for a major, MAJOR carreer. The presence of another favorite of mine - Sonya Yoncheva - doesn't hurt, either.

I haven't seen the production but am planning to later this month.

The other Len:)

[lennygoran]

Nadine Sierra... Sonya Yoncheva - doesn't hurt, either.

I haven't seen the production but am planning to later this month.

The other Len:)

Len I can't seem to find it what date is that performance with those two? Regards, Len

[Len_Z]

I'm terribly sorry, I got it confused with something else. Must be a senior moment:)

[lennygoran]

Must be a senior moment:)

Len senior moments-that's become a specialty of mine! Regards, Len