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‘Don Giovanni’ at Spoleto Festival
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
OPERA REVIEW
“Don Giovanniâ€? at Spoleto Festival USA in Charleston, S.C. 843-579-3100, www.spoletousa.org Charleston, S.C. — In a summer when the Spoleto Festival USA is presenting a clutch of enticing new works and American premieres, it’s a surprise that a ticket to Mozart’s old favorite, “Don Giovanni,â€? is the hotttest thing going.
The Don Juan opera, of the dashing seducer/murderer who‘s ultimately dragged down to hell, runs through June 11. But forget about tickets: the show sold out before opening night. Conductor Emmanuel Villaumecq talked it up as the most thrilling production of his life.
Spoleto’s “Don Giovanniâ€? is fun and enchanting in look and ambiance, yes, and the singers were consistently excellent. But the production undercuts the musical values and makes for shallow theater. German stage director Günter Krämer, a provocateur with a reputation for over-the-top opera, ignores key themes, including the clash of the sexes and class. In cutting more than half the recitatives — the semi-sung dialogue that fills in the plot — he slashed coherent drama.
The set is the real star: in the gutted Memminger Auditorium (a former school gymnasium), Ulrich Schulz designed an undulating forested landscape with a stream, a pond and full-sized trees. Villaume’s magnificent orchestra sits on a flat area next to the pond. The audience sits on bleachers along three walls.
A sequence from the middle of act one might illustrate Krämer’s can’t-look-away approach. Zerlina (Monica Yunus) and her bridal party frolic merrily in the pond, even forcing a few violinists in the orchestra to move to avoid getting spashed — blurring reality and fiction. Giovanni enters in a black bikini swimsuit and, with no introduction whatsoever, seduces Zerlina with the aria “La ci darem la mano.â€? They’re going at it in the water when Zerlina’s fiance, Masetto (Keith Phares), catches them and appears to urinate on Giovanni. (He later shows us he’s holding a water bottle.) Giovanni then dunks Masetto’s head underwater a couple of times before the latter has to sing “Signor, si.” And so on. Call it a new, brutal form of reality opera.
In this setting, the cast sang and acted with remarkable conviction. As Giovanni, Nmon Ford sang with athletic stamina and firm, steely tone. Brain Banion played his long-suffering servant, Leporello, as a groovy surfer dude, singing handsomely.
As the jilted (and possibly crazy) Elvira, Ellie Dehn delivered rapturous tones and vocal charisma — a gorgeous talent starting to bloom. Don Ottavio, typically a wimp, was here sung virilely by Mark Thomsencq (a tenor who was miscast as Rodolfo in the Atlanta Opera’s recent “La Bohèmeâ€?).
Yet for all the stimulating moments, this production didn’t offer us anything new about human nature, and it didn’t always make sense. Despite its memorable beauty, in setting and singers, I ultimately left the auditorium feeling malnourished, and exhausted.
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