Mozart Don Giovanni opera to libretto by Lorenzo Da Ponte. Directed 2008 by Claus Guth at the Haus für Mozart as part of the Salzburg Festival. Stars Christopher Maltman (Don Giovanni), Anatoli Kotscherga (Commendatore), Annette Dasch (Donna Anna), Matthew Polenzani (Don Ottavio), Dorothea Röschmann (Donna Elvira), Erwin Schrott (Leporello), Ekaterina Siurina (Zerlina), and Alex Esposito (Masetto). Bertrand de Billy conducts the Wiener Philharmoniker and the Konzertvereinigung Wiener Staatsopernchor (Chorus Master Thomas Lang). Continuo: piano Felice Venanzoni; cello Tamás Varga; mandolin Ulrike Eckhardt. Stage design and costumes by Christian Schmidt; lighting by Olaf Winter; dramaturgy by Ronny Dietrich; choreography by Ramses Sigl. Directed for TV by Brian Large. Sung in German. Released 2010, disc has 5.1 dts Master Audio sound. Grade: C
If you already know Don Giovanni well, you might be amused by Guth's updating set in a treefarm that gets trashed by too many tourists. But without the traditional sets and props, the story gets hard to follow. For example, the statue of Il Commendatore is represented by some dead tree limbs sticking up from a log. How would a newcomer to the opera make any sense out of all the things the characters are singing about such as a walking, talking statute? So this insider's joke version gets at best a C grade.
Here are a couple of images from this forest production:
And here's a cute clip with the Don and Zerlina:
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