During the raging overture to Glyndebourne’s season opener, video shows a stone statue being toppled. But rather than cancelling the Commendatore, is it Don Giovanni himself who director Mariame Clément has in her sights, a monument to toxic masculinity who has to be felled? But who exactly is Don Giovanni? A suggestion comes at the very end of Act 1 when he removes his plumed hat and places it onto Don Ottavio’s head, then drapes his cape around Masetto’s shoulders. He is all men. We are all tarred with the same brush. Così fan tutti.
Is Leporello the exception? Dressed like an accountant, the Don’s servant is Clément’s focal point, the opera viewed through his lens. The scales seem to fall from his eyes during the Catalogue Aria, where his statistical analysis of his master’s “conquests” repulses him. When Giovanni’s denouement arrives, he is hounded by a chorus of Leporello clones before being dragged down to hell. And yet Leporello admires him too. He wants the girls, apes the Don’s behaviours, takes voyeuristic notes during his seductions. Something doesn’t quite add up in Clément’s vision.
The action takes place in the lobby of a hotel where Zerlina, Masetto and friends have gone for their stags and hens weekend. Julia Hansen’s multi-level set is lined with doors, although in Act 2 the staircases appear to be outside, the palm trees lit-up, Vegas-style, for the Don’s debauched supper where he’s gorging himself on a giant wedding cake.
Clément wants her cake and eats it too. It’s sad to see Donna Elvira presented as mildly hysterical. The surtitles don’t help here: the audience laughs when Elvira is told to “get over it” or is described as “mentally deranged”. But then, Da Ponte’s gags sit uneasily – dramma giocoso is an inadequate descriptor for this opera.
Ideas that work include the paintings that line the lobby flipping during Leporello’s aria to reveal a series of breasts, “portraits” of the Don’s victims as seen through objectifying male eyes. Zerlina is sexually assertive, posing and pouting for the camera as Giovanni documents his seduction. Don Ottavio is good friends with Giovanni, putting him in a conflicted position. In the production’s one moment of stillness, the Don’s Serenade is sung as a lullaby while a mother cradles a baby, a touching moment of isolation. Is he just a lost guy who misses his mum?
Glyndebourne has largely looked east in its casting: a Moldovan Don, a Russian Leporello and Donna Anna, a Ukrainian Ottavio, an Armenian Donna Elvira, a Polish Commendatore. The opening night performance resolutely refused to take off, the singing decidedly mixed. Andrey Zhilikhovsky was magnetic in the title role, hurling himself voraciously into an angry Champagne Aria, although he found tenderness for his Serenade. Venera Gimadieva was uncharacteristically insecure as Anna, the latter stages of “Non mi dir” taken very carefully, as if treading on eggshells. As Ottavio, Oleksiy Palchykov’s “Il mio tesoro” was similarly laboured, his tone pale and pinched.
Ruzan Mantashyan was a fine Elvira, though, her warm soprano pleasing and flexible in “Mi tradì quell'alma ingrata”. Mikhail Timoshenko was an extremely likeable Leporello, his bass-baritone firm and playing up to the comedic pratfalls well. Jerzy Butryn made for a resolute Commendatore. The evening’s finest singing came from Michael Mofidian’s sturdy Masetto and – especially – Victoria Randem’s live-wire Zerlina. The Norwegian-Nicaraguan soprano excelled in both her arias, but “Batti, batti” was particularly melting, aided by a buttery cello obbligato from Luise Buchberger in her raised continuo position in the pit.
Sadly, Evan Rogister’s hyperactive conducting didn’t get the best out of the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, with some scrappy playing and slips in ensemble. Things will hopefully bed down during the long run. Clément’s thought-provoking staging deserves better. So does Mozart.
