Death of a Ladies’ Man

Of the three operas created by Mozart and the librettist Lorenzo da Ponte, it is Don Giovanni alone where the gauzy curtains of social comedy are pulled back far enough to reveal the unfathomable darkness that exists just beneath the actions and desires of the characters. It is a darkness that is easily ignored, as demonstrated by the numerous productions over the years that have treated the opera as a simple comedy with a necessarily moral ending. However in Claus Guth’s haunting production – which opened at the Staatsoper Berlin at the very end of the 2011/12 season and makes a welcome return this month – the darkness is brought to the fore to such an extent that it becomes endless and inescapable. Although the production takes place in an identifiably modern world – Don Ottavio has a mobile phone and drives a Chrysler; Leporello…