In the spirit of accentuating the positive, it should
be said up front that the new production of Don Giovanni at
the Staatsoper Unter den Linden has a magnificent cast. Not only did one have
the impression that each role was filled by a singer whose strengths matched
the part, but the singers functioned remarkably well together in their various
configurations; the result was an evening of eloquent arias and crisply wrought
ensembles, rarely ostentatious but endlessly attentive to the nuances of Da
Ponte’s cynical humour and Mozart’s glorious music.
The
quality of the performances, however, must be weighed against that of the
staging. The evening marked the third and final installment of the Staatsoper’s
new Mozart/Da Ponte cycle, in which all three operas were entrusted to a single
director. That director, Vincent Huguet, conceived of…
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