Customer Reviews

Mozart - Don Giovanni

5 star:		(8)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

I saw this many moons ago on TV around Christmas when the other two Da Ponte operas were transmitted along with this DON GIOVANNI.

This version was long overdue for a DVD issue. I've owned the previous VHS and Laser-Disc editions and I've snapped up this DVD edition as part of a slip-cased Da Ponte Box Set released in the UK.

The quality of singing and acting talent alone would merit an immediate purchase but the production by Peter Sellars makes it an essential recommendation to any opera lover. It grabs you by your throat and never lets up until the tragic finale. And the finale will take your breath away.

The complexity and duality of Don Giovanni / Leporello is really brought to the fore in this daring version. The lines are blurred and the psychology and implications are disturbing.

On this new DVD there's a choice of DTS sound, optional English subtitles (supplied by Sellars himself so as to bring out the nuance of this visceral vision), trailers for the other operas in the series and the image quality really captures the murky world of pollution and vice that runs rampant in the sewer-like set.

This is a DON GIOVANNI for our times and the quicker you grab it the better. The previous editions went out-of-print and commanded sky-high prices amongst opera connoisseurs.

Now all we need is the Peter Sellars documentary that aired at the time when these operas were screened on TV. It was called DESTINATION MOZART and packed a real punch. It should have been added as an extra feature on the second disc of DON GIOVANNI.

Recommended.

This Sellars' interpretation on Mozart's classical Don Giovanni is so amazingly entertaining. What you are looking to was married with what you are listening to. What we are seeing is something that is so close with our daily realm, a naive playboy, Don Giovanni, while what we are hearing is something that has been chanted hundreds of years ago as the sound of the great avant-garde of human cultural realms. This phenomenological marriage is a recommendation for those who loves to ponder Mozart's creative works without even sinking into the history of the maestro.

The performance of the twins Perry as well as the twin-acting performance of Dominique Labelle, were beyond perfect, somehow, the way they express the beauty of Mozart chosen melodic lyrics the lines of face, gestures, are the key of the success of the inter-century cultural marriage. We can enjoy the opera without even have to guessing what and how any historical sensitive facts behind the opera - as well as be absorbed into an opera performance without even attending the opera at all.

I believe that this sort of operatic work, be it a kind of contemporary interpretation of classical works or endeavor of bridging a state of the work of art frequently stages in live performance into our own private realms of home entertainment.

This work of art is not a movie although the media is sort of it, yet, it is also not an opera although the coercive ideas are the interpretation to a maestro. This work of art, thus, not only the mixture of two long-time-separated media-of-art, it presents the symbolic mixture of two great human civilisation...

Salute to Sellars!
-hs

This is a highly original and fitting adaptation with two really excellent leads (the Perrys) and of course, the always excellent Lorraine Hunt (pre-Lieberson) as Elvira. Zerlina is very enjoyable. But, Donna Anna and Don Ottavio disappoint. Donna Anna has some good moments, but is uneven. Ottavio is just poor, well out of his league vocally.

That said, this is more than worth owning and enjoying...vocal flaws and all. The dramatic impact cannot be denied and indeed why should it be? Opera is both music and drama, this is a little deficient in one and excellent in the other. I plan to show this to my daughter who is definitely not an opera fan. I am certain this Don will capture and amaze her (could this be 18th century opera??!!).

I remember taking a youngish opera neophyte to a performance of The Barber of Seville. She loved it, and commented after the performance that it was nice that they updated it to make it funny for modern audiences. She was shocked when I told her there was no updating at all. As with this Don, human nature translates seamlessly century to century.

Where have the Perry twins been all my opera life?

This production is absolutely extraordinary, for two reasons - the singing and the interpretation.

The singing is superb, with Eugene and Herbert Perry possessing excellent squillo.

And Lorraine Hunt as Donna Elvira is simply unsurpassed. I admired her before for her Handel roles, so I knew she would be a virtuoso, and indeed her Elvira is just the best ever in technique and expressiveness. Her command of the voice is superb, and the voice itself simply heavenly.

The interpretation is hilarious and dramatic at once. Sellars is always the most inventive, and Don Giovanni being a thug from Harlem is refreshing. His gun is a novelty. The scene of his last dinner, with a sandwich and soda from McDonald's is just a riot. It really is outrageously hilarious.

Elvira's tawdry clothes are excellent, too, in conjunction with her devotion to the bible. And of course Don Ottavio being a policeman is marvelous.

My only critique would be that I found it some tricks repetitive. For example, Don Giovanni strips for the ball and then again when Commendatore asks for a hand; another of Donna Anna injecting herself with a needle, after Don Giovanni had already done so in Champagne aria.

In Champagne aria, which was sung impeccably, I found it disturbing hearing the noise of broken Veuve Clicqout bottles - I think a director can make any action, but the fabric of music must be preserved without introducing foreign sounds.

Also at finale all five offended by Don Giovanni are presented as asylum patients. Strangely enough, this idea has been since exploited - I've seen a production of Iphigenia in Paris where she was playing an old patient in a psychiatric clinic, and the whole story was her hallucination. Here it was a bit of the same mood, but it takes credit for inventiveness since it was the first of such kind.

Unique performance, for those who like novelty intertwined with superb musical delivery.

I guess it's not surprising that DonG goes very well as a '70s blaxploitation flick. It really is a cheesy exploitation story-- lots of gratuitous sex and violence and overdramatic characters, and the main theme is how ornery and dangerous the title character is. I think DaPonte and Mozart would have loved this. Although they might have called for Leporello to be more clowny--Herbert Perry plays him more or less straight.

But there's more: even if you take away the urban-ethnic stuff, this performance shows the interactions among the characters, and their intense emotions, more clearly than any I've seen on video. For this reason I'd recommend it as a first exposure to the piece in spite of the unconventional aspects. Plus, world-class singing by everyone.

I have only one suggestion for improvement: The chorus of demons should be limping, decaying zombies, and they should come on stage as the Commendatore disappears, converge on DonG, clawing and biting, and finally tear him to pieces and disperse after his final yell, gnawing on organs and severed limbs. Hire Tom Savini for makeup and props. If they could conceal him by crowding around him with their backs to the camera it wouldn't be that hard to stage it convincingly.

Tonight we are going to watch it again with some friends. I LOVE this production - cannot have enough of it!
Would LOVE to see the Perry brothers perform in Israel!

I recently ordered Peter Sellars' "Don Giovanni" starring Herbert and Eugene Perry as the Don and Leporello, or was it Leporello and the Don? Since the brothers are identical twinc and would change roles from time to time just to keep from getting in a rut, I had often wondered what they were doing. A couple of years ago, Long Beach Opera did a shortened and interesting version of Wagner's "Ring" cycle. Lo and behold, there were the Perry Brothers, portraying Faffner and Fasolt, the two giant brothers who built Valhalla for Wotan and a catalytic force in the changing ownership of the Ring. They sounded great, and I have no idea which one was which, but I was delighted to see them. I am not a Peter Sellars fan, although this operatic concept works as well as almost any update I've ever seen, and it does present the audience with a modern and realistic street-smart approach to characters who are difficult to fully understand at best. Under Sellars' supervision, they become modern and real. This DVD is highly recommended to any viewer who wishes a modern and realistic approach to the timeless story. Joann Toll

You either hate this CD or at the very least, like me, enjoy it a lot. Why? Because Peter Sellars' most unusual take on the old story, transplanting it to modern Harlem seems to me fun, fascinating and sometimes a bit infuriating.

The Perry twins, Eugene & Herbert, of whom I have never heard and haven't heard of since (which seems grossly unfair) are fierce. They fit the milieu in their sharp, decisive actions. Intense! I have never seen such a mesmerizing performance. SOmewhat overboard perhaps, as when the Don briefly strips to his BVD's - twice no less! - and yet not all that unbelievable in terms of the overall portrayal. At least to my mind.
And he certainly has a body for display!

Oh, the singing? Yes, the brothers sing, and quite well too. No Pinza or Baccaloni (see what an old-timer I am), but nothing to be ashamed of. For me, their singing matched the manner of their presentation well.

Oh, and dear Lorraine Hunt L. - what a wonderful Elvira. She acts very well too. I liked the other performers well enough, except for the Ottavio. But the twins and Lorraine - they are enough for me.

The orchestra seemed OK to me, but frankly I paid so much att'n to the stage that I never much noticed the band. One annoyance: during the overture the camera takes you on a scenic ride through the dumps of Harlem. Even the subway appears. I must say, I was put me off but once the curtain went up, I was hooked.

Excuse me while I groove on Hoffmann, no stranger to getting high.

I stupidly bought this based on Amazon reviews and Peter Sellars fame as a director. I hated it from the start and not so much because of the updating. The leveling between Don Giovanni, who is supposed to be an aristocrat {albeit totally corrupt} and the others in the production totally distorts the story. The story is just squeezed into the director's concept into a totally squalid, depressing, Harlem regardless of the distortions involved. This is the real trash of eurotrash. I did not even notice the singing which did not seem to be outstanding. The sound was quite poor, harsh sounding. which made the voices hard to evaluate, especially the Sopranos. Avoid and buy a traditional version.

Yeah right! there's no other interpretation of Mozart except whatever the original was,nor should we even contemplate it;i.e. powdered wigs, Jefferson coats,Ben Franklin spectakles for lecherous aristocrats to hide their deceit and opportunism of innocent females hovering around their property.I suppose Hannibal Lecter is our modern counterpart obsessed also with consumption of flesh differently to The Don here. Imagine in Mozart's time the very idea of an aristocrat committing murder in the very first Scene, and then the remaining degradations of woman, commonfolk and the Don himself with talking statues,descents into Hell and capture of this evil-doer.Everyone knew that aristocrats could do whatever they wanted in pre-Revolution Europe to as long as they paid their stipend to the Royals,like American Presidents,they don't need the UN or Europe or Congress or population voting endorsements.(Females can also be invited to the White House remember Monica & Bill.)
This production Set in the ghettoized South Bronx this is a classic now, and it is impossible for me to return to the sterile productions we usually encounter. The Perry Twins are marvelous, their singing and requisitioning the image of the Don into modern terms of the inner city metroplis getting into the core the hardcore of the Don,one scene we see the Don shooting up (with his twin beside him) in one scene breaking bottles incessantly. Yes the visual reproduction is poor, the lighting was understandably dark,not so ominous,the usual "fishtank" of opera stage lighting sort of that ubiquitous one-predictable hue, but again the acting and the pace makes up for all this as in the other Sellar's Mozart, "Cosi fan tutti",(set in a Fifties Diner) and "Marriage of Figaro" (set in Trump Towers) more blasphemous productions.

The point is that if Mozart were alive he would have wanted his works to speak the language of the natives, so that the content/meaning is placed in the right context,many of Mozart's tunes from his opera's were like immediate hits, sung on the streets of Vienna or Prague. Sellars certainly knows this in all he does.Mozart was a genius in that he knew how to work his creativity in between the most highly playful and the deadly serious dimensions of stagecraft.Yet Wolfgang knew you need the experience of writing Symphonies to mount the length of this Opera.As the opening overture to Don Giovanni really says all there is and every aspect of this can stand alone if needed.