Mozart: Don Giovanni Blu-ray

Mozart: Don Giovanni

 (2005)

Mozart: Don Giovanni Blu-ray delivers great video and audio in this enjoyable Blu-ray release
No synopsis for Mozart: Don Giovanni.

For more about Mozart: Don Giovanni and the Mozart: Don Giovanni Blu-ray release, see the Mozart: Don Giovanni Blu-ray Review

Mozart: Don Giovanni Blu-ray Review

This third Blu-ray release of Mozart's masterpiece offers a relatively modern setting, but offers a muddled political context, especially in the finale.

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman, March 16, 2010

The Blu-ray era is mature enough now that we're starting to get manifold releases of some titles, finally offering the consumer a real choice when they get ready to fork over their hard earned dollars. While I've been perhaps a bit curmudgeonly (what else is new?) in my complaints about some less than A-list titles being repeatedly released, there's certainly no such qualm about the three Blu-ray versions of Mozart and Da Ponte's masterpiece Don Giovanni that are thus far available. The Simon Keenlyside Giovanni, which I reviewed for another site before joining Blu-ray.com and my esteemed colleague Svet Atanasov reviewed here, as well as the intriguing if not entirely successful Harmonia Mundi release I reviewed here provide two very different experiences. Keenlyside is an egomaniacal, almost pathological, Don, while the Harmonia Mundi version offers the youthful Johannes Weisser giving a younger, more rakish interpretation. Now we have this at times odd, at other times quite interesting, Madrid mounting with Carlos Álvarez providing a jaded, rascally, almost movie star-esque take on the role (aided, perhaps, by his almost uncanny resemblance to silent film icon John Gilbert).

You might expect this to be the setting for "Cool" from 'West Side Story,' but instead 'Don Giovanni' plays out both in front of and within these alleyway doors.

In one of the interviews included as an extra on the Blu-ray disc, director Lluis Pasqual makes a rather cogent point that keeping Don Giovanni set in the 18th century removes a visceral aspect of the story from contemporary audiences. He then starts talking about the 1940's, and yet this production is absolutely more redolent of the 1930's, and in fact before the finale, I assumed it was attempting to make a point about Fascist Italy. Instead, a brief montage of film clips superimposed over the choral finale is evidently culled from archival Spanish films, and ends with a rather odd "call to arms" to Spain's people that seems absolutely Communist in tone, completely at odds with Spain's own Fascistic history. After all, the Spanish Civil War was fought for years where the world at large viewed the Communists as "the good guys," and Franco's Fascists as evil incarnate (until of course even greater evils reared their ugly heads on the world stage). Be that as it may, this Don Giovanni is a literal carnival of 1930's automobiles, classic pin-striped suits, and full bodied dresses. While I guess a point could be made about the political subtext of Da Ponte's libretto, isn't the real point of Don Giovanni our first operatic anti-hero's resolute refusal to change his erring ways and repent, even when he's given multiple opportunities to do just that? Unless Pasqual is trying to generalize that boneheadedness into a sociopolitical phenomenon (which it certainly is, as any cursory look at today's headlines will tell you), some of the political posturing here frankly whizzed right over my head.

If Álvarez lacks the lugubrious sexiness of Keenlyside or the athleticism of Weisser, he brings a certain doleful maturity to the role. Clad in a cape and sunglasses in his opening scenes, he's weirdly reminiscent of Marcello Mastroianni in 8 ˝, a desperate celebrity racing down a road to ruin, as if to escape his haunted past. Vocally Álvarez provides strength, if not an overabundance of nuance, to the role, but from an acting standpoint, he's quite superb. The scene stealer in this production (as tends to happen in so many Don Giovannis) is actually our Leporello, Lorenzo Regazzo. Is there any other opera that so magically blends tragic and comic elements as does Don Giovanni? Regazzo is both a wonderful singer and a superb and subtle comedian in this role, without ever resorting to the sort of physical comedy shtick that some lesser performers rely on. In fact, a lot of the humor of his Leporello is focused almost entirely in his facial expressions. In fact this is a generally brilliantly sung Don Giovanni, with the exception of Sonia Ganassi's Donna Elvira. Ganassi has a lovely, wispy soprano, with an appealingly controlled vibrato, but she is either under-mic'd or simply cannot project, and as a result the bulk of her arias drowns in the orchestral accompaniment.

The dialectic between the tragic and humorous seems more evident than it usually is in this sometimes peculiar production. When the alleyway garage doors open and we're greeted with a "Giovinette che fate" played out on a multicolored carousel around which various characters are driving bumper cars, it's temporarily disconcerting, but ultimately captures the momentarily carefree lives of these characters about to be touched by Don Giovanni's nefarious and immoral plotting. On the other hand, the final showdown between Don Giovanni and the ghost of the Commendatore (Alfred Reiter) is rather traditionally staged, with the officer actually atop the statue of a horse. Is Pasqual making a subtle jab at Don Giovanni's actual stratum of existence when he has the rascal actually raised into midair as he enters the depths of hell?

There's something rather amazingly subversive about Mozart and Da Ponte's depiction of a hedonistic soul evidently bent on self destruction. Written amidst an environment when the Church knew all and decided what was right for everyone, Don Giovanni's stubborn refusal to accept salvation, come what may, is both the ultimate act of nihilism as well as the strongest possible proclamation that he is the master of his own fate. That's the real political context of Don Giovanni, and I'm not sure it needs film clips of swarming Spanish masses toasting libertad, even as those very same film clips reveal their own propagandistic subtext. The strength of this opera is that it can weather any number of staging decisions and still have its rather chilling intent, as dichotomous as it may be, still ring through loud and clear. This is in some ways the least traditional of the three Don Giovanni's out on Blu-ray, but it's a testament to the source material that there is still dramatic meat on its bones.

Mozart: Don Giovanni Blu-ray, Video Quality

 

Opus Arte presents this Don Giovanni on Blu-ray with a generally quite excellent AVC encoded 1080i image that captures the live performance feel that so many who relish these operatic Blu's love. The 1.78:1 image is frequently bathed in blue, as you will see from these screen captures, but the carnival sequences especially are alive with some gloriously saturated colors. Detail is exceptional in these segments, as the multicolored greens, reds, blues, purples and yellows all twinkle with brilliant clarity. Contrast is strong throughout this piece, with good depth of field (a lot of this production plays upstage, for some reason). Blacks are occasionally just slightly muddy, so you will see the dark suits of the men temporarily melt into the background. There are also some issues with the stage lighting which the Blu-ray can't overcome, so be prepared for some singers' faces to have shadows on them from time to time.

Mozart: Don Giovanni Blu-ray, Audio Quality

 

For all the sometimes off-putting "historical accuracy" the Rene Jacobs Harmonia Mundi Don Giovanni offered, we at least had that conductor's fiery and emotional, but also classically balanced and intellectually profound, approach to the score. This Don has a somewhat less robust approach under the baton of Victor Pablo Pérez. There's nothing egregiously wrong here, and in fact Pérez coaxes some exuberant playing out of the Madrid Symphony at times, but often the opera plods along without a lot of aural excitement. Therefore don't be expecting a sonic wonderment with the DTS HD-MA 5.1 mix. What's here perfectly represents what's going on onstage, which is a solid, if somewhat uninspired, reading of the score. I was most impressed by the brass sounds on this recording, which are uncommonly plangent as Don Giovanni's descent into degradation plays out. Winds and reeds are facile and bright sounding. There's generally good orchestral balance, but as noted above, I had a really hard time hearing Ganassi most of the time. This particular Opus Arte outing seems to have a little less of the live hall ambience and directionality of some other recent efforts.

Mozart: Don Giovanni Blu-ray, Special Features and Extras

 

Per the usual Opus Arte approach, we're given a nice illustrated synopsis and cast gallery on the disc. There are also 27 minutes of interviews with Pasqual, Álvarez and Pérez. A good essay in the insert booklet attempts to put the "real" Don Juan's history into a context of the many dramatic adaptations, including Mozart and Da Ponte's.

Mozart: Don Giovanni Blu-ray, Overall Score and Recommendation

 

This is an interesting, if not altogether compelling, Don Giovanni. The (relatively) modern dress and setting work quite well, but Pasqual perhaps tries to hard to lacquer on a political sheen which isn't really needed. There's enough nuance in Da Ponte's libretto that we don't need any tangential analogies to make it all seem "current."

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