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14 of 14 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Magnificent, May 6, 2000
By A Customer
This review is from: Mozart - Don Giovanni / Kreizberg, Cachemaille, Glyndebourne Festival Opera [VHS] (VHS Tape)
The back of the video quotes OPERA as describing this version as "hair-raising," and it is. It's a very polished, modern-dress version with good singing overall. It's got excellent direction and photography, with some eerie special effects. Sung in Italian with English subtitles. This is the Glyndebourne Festival Opera, conducted by Yakov Kreizberg. Despite its being an overall excellent video of a truly great opera (some scholars rate it as the greatest opera every written by anyone), there are a few things I didn't like about it: (a) Gilles Cachemaille is disappointing as Don Giovanni. His rendition of the drinking song is particularly weak. (b) This is a very dark interpretation, with Don Giovanni (admittedly a scoundrel in even the most sympathetic versions) being downright evil. Every thing is interpreted in the way most detrimental to the "hero's" character. That's okay, except that it undermines the comic, satirical, and sympathetic elements that make this opera multi-dimensional. It also makes it hard to understand why Giovanni's servant, Leporello (superb in this version!), stays with him. Still, the music is breathtaking, and the production as a whole is magnificent. I truly recommend it, even to those not familiar with opera videos. (Also, try Glyndebourne's beautifully done "Le Nozze di Figaro" with Renee Fleming.)
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9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Interesting and unusual, February 13, 2006
This review is from: Mozart - Don Giovanni / Kreizberg, Cachemaille, Glyndebourne Festival Opera [VHS] (VHS Tape)
The only time I am bothered by "updated" or "unusual" versions of an opera is when the opera itself is altered in order to fit the production. I am not disturbed by the fact that Elvira takes Prozac halfway into "Ah chi mi dice mai" with a bottle of water, or the fact that Don Giovanni drinks a can of Diet Coke at the wedding party. I even think Leporello's little bag of potato chips is a neat idea; Don Giovanni keeps snitching from it throughout the scene. However, I do not appreciate how brutish the men tend to be, nor how victimized the women are.
It has been called a feminist production for a reason--even the mild-mannered Leporello puts on a display of physical brutality during his catalogue aria--an aria which, while being in content shocking, is delivered with only the most polite language. Only Don Ottavio restrains himself, but they nevertheless manage to portray him as something of a jerk in the "Non mi dir" scene. Masetto looks disappointed with himself for being too weak to beat Zerlina, who appears to be perfectly sincere in her normally teasing aria "Batti, batti." The feminism isn't what bothers me--it's the fact that they take away from the integrity of the characters, making them, for the most part, less interesting. There is little distinction between Donna Anna and Zerlina in regards to personality, and Donna Elvira is only slightly different from them.
Don Giovanni is really gross. There is nothing appealing about this man, not simply in the way he acts, but in his state of dress, and in his appearance in general. There is nothing seductive about him. He is so disgusting that it seems like the women are falling for him purely out of tradition. He does have a wonderful playfulness to him at times, suggesting that he takes nothing seriously, certainly not the things he should take seriously, and especially not his servant, whom he abuses to no end. Actually, I thought the amount of abuse Leporello received was a little too much; when Don Giovanni is constantly strangling him and throwing him across the stage until one thinks the servant will break in half, the moment when the Don is actually prepared to kill him (the end of the first act) is nothing new at all. In fact, I wondered why Leporello was so upset over it--Don Giovanni "almost kills" him roughly five times a day, so why should this time be any different?
Leporello is beautifully sung and well-acted. The character in this production is quite a clown, more so than I generally like, but less so than many Leporellos. His look upon seeing Donna Elvira for the first time is priceless; he looks ready to spew potato chip crumbs everywhere.
Donna Anna is sympathetically played and sung wonderfully well, making her the first Donna Anna I can remember not hating. Don Ottavio is a little wooden, but a fine tenor nonetheless. Masetto is slightly frightening, whereas Zerlina is a complete wimp. Donna Elvira is probably the best of all of them, strong even as she crumples beneath the weight of all that's happening to her. Vocally, she is nearly perfect for the role, with a nice weight to her voice so essential for her wonderful aria "Mi tradi quell'alma ingrata."
The production is very minimalistic, which creates a dark, modern atmosphere. I actually find it very clever. There is a slightly different take on the "Don Giovanni a cenar teco m'invitasti scene" in this production; Don Giovanni opens the door, only to find nothing. Looking back to the table, he sees the Commendatore standing there already.
The Commendatore was done in a commendably low-tech fashion; he was essentially presented as a ghost rather than a statue. During "O statua gentilissima," Don Giovanni and Leporello sing to a real statue, while the ghost moves slowly about the stage, watching them. It is the ghost which nods and sings "si." Very well done for a low-budget production.
Altogether, not terrible, but not so great. It balances out to an average. Three stars seems right.
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7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
Not a success., January 7, 2007
DON GIOVANNI is such a masterpiece that it takes poor conducting, very poor singers, or extremely poor direction to screw it up. It's the last that is the downfall of this production, with the combined lack of a adequate performance in the title role.
In concept, the staging could work: the production strips the Don of whatever shred of nobility he has, and he is shown as a brutal rapist and murderer who is still somehow strangely compelling to the fairer sex. I'd go see that GIOVANNI. But the best laid plans of mice and men often go awry, and what we are left with is a bit of a mess.
To start at the end, the final scene is deprived of any terror, full of cheesy fire floating in the background. The Commandatore appears to be a businessman in grey makeup, without a notion of the frightening specter that drags the dirty Don to hell. Before we get to the climax, there is some very uneven direction. Elvira is a valium-popping neurotic, which works. She tries to attack Leporello during their love duet, which doesn't. Masetto's beating is really brutal, which works. Masetto offers the Don a Heinekin when he crashes the wedding, which doesn't. Anna is clearly reliving her near-rape during her first act aria, which works tremendously well. During said rape, The Commandatore is strangled, which doesn't work at all, for not only must he sing after he receives his wound, but the music calls for a sword fight and the libretto depicts him lying in a pool of blood. Worst of all, the Don gropes a statue of the Madonna during the graveyard scene and the banquet, a clear-cut case of directorial silliness.
This is also a Don Giovanni without a real Don Giovanni. Elsewhere, Gilles Cachemaille has done fine work as Lepporello and Masetto on CD, but the Canadian Bass-Baritone is a lost cause as the Don. He's compitant enoungh, but he doesn't make much of a vocal impression when compared with his rivals on dvd: Siepi, Ramey, Allen, Luxon, and Terfel are playing a whole different ballgame. The serenade is completely unmemorable, the Champagne Aria rushed and uncomfortable. Cachemaille is usually a fine actor, but has been left to wallow here. (The Final scream as he is dragged to hell is comical, nothing more than a kind of yelp.) With the concept of a brutal Don, we must be offered another reason why women are so attracted to him, a magnetism or a zest for life. Cachemaille offers us nothing by way of compensation. Why does Elvira follow him, why does Anna feel at the same time repulsed and attracted to him, why does Zerlina nearly leave Masetto for him? Cachemaille gives us nothing in return, and we have no clue.
The production's saving graces come in the supporting cast. Steven Page is a wonderful Leporello who makes me wonder if the production would have been more successful if Master and Servant had switched roles, and both Donna Anna and Donna Elvira (Hellivi Martinpelto and Adrianne Pieczonka, respectively) are superb. Roberto Scaltriti's angry young Masetto is one of the best I've ever seen, and Julianne Banse is a sweetly-sung Zerlina. John Mark Ainsley is a noble Ottavio, for once worthy of both Donna Anna's hand and the divine Music he is given. Gudjon Oskarsson is an unobjectionable but unmemorable Commandatore. Yakov Kreizberg's conducting is workmanlike and brisk, video direction is fine, sound a bit weak in certain areas (The opera starts off with a very bad echo.) I'll give this two out of five stars for the excellent supporting cast.
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