Here’s a Don Giovanni update you needn’t be frightened of.
Gerald Finley and Anna Virovlansky in Glyndebourne’s production. Photo Bill Cooper
MOZART: DON GIOVANNI, Gerald Finley, Luca Pisaroni, Anna Samuil, Kate Royal, Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, Glyndebourne Festival Chorus, directed by Jonathan Kent, conducted by Vladimir Jurowski (EMI DVD).
It is generally wise to see a classic version of an opera before braving the updates. One Don Giovanni I saw abstracted it into metaphysical patterns so far from convention only a science student would understand it. But Glyndebourne Opera’s Don Giovanni in modern clothes is digestible for anyone. The death of Giovanni (Finley) in Hell is just as gruesome as the conventional flames. In his brilliantly sung Catalogue aria to Doña Elvira (Royal), Leporello (Pisaroni) ends up taking a Polaroid photograph of her to give her as the Don’s 1003rd Spanish conquest. But these witty extras and scenes – such as Doña Anna (Samuil) taking off her pantyhose to tie up the hapless Leporello – do not detract from the production’s main threads of the plot. The only role I question is Zerlina (Anna Virovlansky). She needs to be visually and vocally younger to suit this naive and pretty pueblorina. Otherwise, Glyndebourne fields a brilliant cast and sharply focused chamber orchestra.
PUCCINI: TOSCA, Karita Mattila, Marcelo Alvarez, George Gagnidze, Metropolitan Opera Orchestra and Chorus, directed by Luc Bondy, conducted by Joseph Colaneri (Virgin/EMI DVD).
The brutal act two torture and stabbing of Baron Scarpia caused Benjamin Britten to call Tosca “a shoddy little shocker”. On this DVD, Met Opera’s practice of interviewing between acts spoils the stage magic; the manipulative evil of Scarpia (Gagnidze) is demystified as soon as we see him as an ordinary bloke backstage. Soprano Mattila’s fiery passion in the great aria Vissi d’Arte epitomises the Met’s dramatic tenseness in this top-rate production, and brings the house down.
RODRIGO: CONCIERTO DE ARANJUEZ and INVOCACION Y DANZA, STEPHEN GOSS: ALBÉNIZ CONCERTO, et al, Zuefei Yang, Orquestra Simfònica de Barcelona I Nacional de Catalunya, conducted by Eiji Oue (EMI CD).
Young Beijing-born Yang is among the world’s top guitarists, as one can tell by her two Rodrigo works – especially the most popular, Concierto de Aranjuez. Her two new Albéniz works are even more fascinating, especially Goss’s arrangement of a substantial Guitar Concerto in 2000 from pieces from Albéniz’s masterly piano suite. Goss’s orchestration exhilarates and the guitar-writing shows off the wide colour range of Yang’s tremolos, artificial harmonics, flesh and nail contrasts and rasguedos. Outstanding.