***** (5 stars)
“Sheer Perfection”
Sheer bliss! Utter perfection! Don Giovanni may have been dragged down to hell, but the Usher Hall audience were transported to heaven last night by eight matchless soloists and the Scottish Chamber Orchestra under their charismatic conductor, Maxim Emelyanychev.
Don Giovanni is a compulsive womaniser. His servant, Leporello, assists him with his amorous intrigues and keeps an exhaustive record of every single one. It’s not just in Spain that the Don chases anything in petticoats, oh no: but the list for Spain is already up to 1,003. Yes, you heard me: one thousand and three…
The Don isn’t fussy, either – old, young, thin, fat, beautiful, ugly, high class, low class: he wants them all. His latest conquest – or at least, attempted conquest – is the noble Donna Anna, whom we hear shrieking for help. The Don escapes from her bedroom but encounters her father, the Commendatore: the Don simply runs him through with his sword and leaves him to die.
Don Ottavio, Anna’s fiancé, tries to comfort her: she swears vengeance, and the two set off to try to find the masked intruder. They meet Donna Elvira, also hot on someone’s trail – Don Giovanni, who seduced her with promises of marriage but is now nowhere to be seen.
The Don’s next target is Zerlina, a village maiden about to marry Masetto: the whole wedding party is invited to a massive do at Giovanni’s place. Ottavio, Anna, and Elvira arrive – they’re wearing masks, so of course they must be invited in. They have realised that Giovanni is the villain they are all seeking: they foil the attempted seduction of Zerlina, but don’t manage to capture Giovanni – instead, they find Leporello, who once more takes the punishment intended for his master.
Giovanni finds himself in the cemetery, beside a statue to the late Commendatore. The statue warns him of a terrible fate: the Don shrugs and invites him to dinner that evening. He’s at supper, gorging himself while Leporello starves beside him: Elvira enters and tries unsuccessfully to convince him to mend his ways. There’s a knocking at the door. It’s the statue of the Commendatore, who’s come to dine with Giovanni. He can no longer eat earthly food but invites Giovanni to dine with him. Giovanni can’t resist a challenge: he takes the Commendatore’s hand and freezes. Offered the opportunity to repent, the Don defiantly refuses and is dragged to hell. This is how it ends for all villains, sing the remaining cast members…
Every August I look forward to the SCO’s Mozart in concert performance, and every year they fulfil all my expectations. Firstly, there’s the simple joy of watching their conductor, Maxim Emelyanychev, bounce about the stage like a live wire, living every note of the music and every nuance of the drama taking place around him. The orchestra are equally engaged and engaging. It’s a delight to be able to see them, for once not buried in a pit below the stage – and their playing reflects the satisfaction they must feel at being an equal part of the action rather than its subterranean supporters. The almost total lack of staging, props, and costumes means that one can focus on the music, while Maxim’s conducting guides one to that part of the orchestra we particularly need to hear. [His continuo playing is a further subtle delight!]
And then there are the soloists. All but one of them was new to me, and all were perfectly cast.
Brindley Sherratt was indisposed, so the role of the Commendatore was taken at short notice by Clive Bayley, whom I well remember from my previous life in England, when I could regularly attend performances by English National Opera and Opera North. It didn’t take him long to die, in one of the most tender moments of the opera, but his subsequent appearances as a statue were mesmerising. In the graveyard he boomed out a warning: at the final scene his power and magnetism were spine-chilling in their intensity.
The other soloists were equally superbly cast, each one outstanding in their solo moments, and interacting with each other in subtle ways with gestures, facial expressions and body language that revealed so much about their characters and relationships with each other.
Louise Alder as Donna Anna: what a glorious outpouring of sound, what perfect delivery of two of the most difficult arias – emotionally as well as musically – that Mozart wrote; soaring over the duets and ensembles, and particularly moving in the final duet for her and Don Ottavio. Giovanni Sala’s Ottavio was gentle and tender with his newly-bereaved Anna but fiery and strong when expressing his determination to discover, unmask, and punish the villain who attempted to seduce his beloved. No wimp he, and the audience was loud in their appreciation of both his challenging arias.
Janai Brugger was even more bewitching as the deeply conflicted Donna Elvira: still desperately in love with Giovanni even while raging at her betrayal, wanting to see him suffer for his sins and yet desperately afraid for him too. Her mi tradi quel’ alma ingrata was the perfect mix of the emotions with which she struggles: and her tender heart was obvious to see in her concern for Anna, Zerlina, and even the Don’s servant, Leporello.
Hera Hyesang Park was the perfect Zerlina: her light, bright soprano and lively personality lit up the role of the simple village maiden who is sorely tempted by Giovanni’s allure, and both delightfully cross with and tender towards her intended husband, Masetto. William Thomas was perfect as the great bear of a man, sullenly resentful of his ‘betters’, ready to explode into violent action at any moment, yet putty in the hands of his fiancée.
And then we had the complex master-and-servant relationship of Giovanni and Leporello, superbly portrayed by Konstantin Krimmel and Michael Sumuel. They are inextricably bound to each other. Leporello resents and admires his master in equal measure, while the Don is completely dependent on his servant’s assistance while unhesitating in asserting his dominance if he feels the latter has crossed some invisible line and is treating him too familiarly.
For much of the opera, one’s sympathy is totally with Leporello as he has to watch this libertine’s incessant pursuit of anything in a skirt, while never getting any part of the action and often receiving the punishment which was his master’s due. His ‘catalogue’ aria, brilliantly descriptive of his master’s single-mindedness, also clearly displayed his own reactions thereto.
For much of the opera, one’s sympathies are most definitely not with Giovanni – and yet for a few brief moments he held us spellbound with the most meltingly tender and enticing deh, vieni alla finestra I think I’ve ever heard – it felt as though the entire Usher Hall audience was ready to fall at his feet…. [a special shoutout for the mandolin player, too: unfortunately, there wasn’t room for the programme to give his name.]
The final sextets were a gentle way to return us to reality after the horror of Giovanni’s fate. Righteous satisfaction that justice prevailed turned into a consideration of ‘what now?’ Zerlina and Masetto were going to be happy together; Ottavio was asked to wait a year before being able to marry Anna – tough, but he agreed, and the pair sang movingly of the strength of their love; Elvira shrugged her shoulders and said her only possible future was in a convent – but she still had time to comfort Leporello, who simply said he wanted to eat well and find a better master…
Silence: then the positive storm of applause.
If only I were allowed six stars: this Don Giovanni deserves all those and more!
Mozart, Don Giovanni, Edinburgh International Festival, Usher Hall Edinburgh, Run Ended.
