The Metropolitan Opera was broadcasting at the cinema on Saturday, and for the lucky ones who can benefit from the “Live at home” experience in good conditions, its new Don Giovannian eagerly awaited show by Ivo van Hove directed by Nathalie Stuzmann for his debut with the company.
If the Don Giovanni du Met has for many of us, Quebec music lovers, an air of deja vu, it’s completely normal. It is a co-production with the Paris Opera and the show was shown for the first time in the French capital in June 2019. It had at the time attracted all our attention, since the distribution associated the Quebecers Étienne Dupuis in Don Giovanni and Philippe Sly in Leporello. It was also part of the Paris Opera’s broadcasts in the cinema and had been presented here, for example at the Cinéma du Parc and the Cinéma Beaubien in Montreal and in a few other theaters in Quebec.
At the time, we noted the deep intelligence of this “austere and powerful” show, sprinkled with relevant dramatic and historical ideas in a gray setting dotted with balconies, stairs and alleys. New York director Gary Halvorson’s appetite for low-angle shots added an interesting perspective to this labyrinth of conspiracies and consciences on Saturday, capturing “at ground level” this setting in which Don Giovanni blends in to hatch his plans. .
Age structure
Compared to the Parisian production and most of the shows of Don Giovanni, the New York presentation added (finally!), and very elegantly moreover, an essential dimension of the mainspring of this opera that we hardly ever see: Donna Anna and Donna Elvira are not interchangeable characters or “women like the others “. Donna Anna is a “canon of beauty” while Elvira, admittedly a beautiful lady, has passed her prime. This is a spring giocoso (joyful) of this Dramma giocoso »: see the incessant return of this woman who calls Don Giovanni to account, while he is really thinking about changing generations (cf. also his appetite for Zerline). It can be thankless for Ana María Martínez to embody Elvira opposite the flamboyant Federica Lombardi, one of the two revelations of the afternoon. But the show gains greatly.
The other revelation is Ben Bliss in the almost cursed role of Ottavio. “Almost cursed”, because either the singer is sweet and Ottavio is said to have no backbone, or he “plays tenor” and is stylistically off the mark. Bliss has it all: the right voice, the right acting.
This Don Giovanniwhich, despite its austerity, seduced the public, had everything of the great spectacle of the Metropolitan Opera: Nathalie Stutzmann conducted the orchestra with a generosity of sound and a beautiful reactivity, the continuo player showed spirit (of real spirit, not swagger like the oboist who claimed to be making Mozart at Arion this weekend) and the sunny set brought together the cream of the crop, with Peter Mattei and Adam Plachetka, truck drivers in their respective roles of Don Giovanni and Leporello, Alexander Tsymbalyuk, impressive Commander and Alfred Walker and Ying Fang, impeccable Masetto-Zerlina couple.
It’s obviously worth seeing the replay, if you missed the broadcast.