[Met Performance] CID:274380



Don Giovanni
Metropolitan Opera House, Thu, November 3, 1983

Debut : Roberta Alexander




Don Giovanni (374)
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart | Lorenzo Da Ponte
Don Giovanni
James Morris

Donna Anna
Edda Moser

Don Ottavio
David Rendall

Donna Elvira
Carol Neblett

Leporello
Paul Plishka

Zerlina
Roberta Alexander [Debut]

Masetto
Christian Boesch

Commendatore
John Macurdy


Conductor
Jeffrey Tate


Director
Herbert Graf

Designer
Eugene Berman

Choreographer
Zachary Solov

Stage Director
Bruce Donnell





Don Giovanni received fourteen performances this season.

FUNDING:
Revival a gift of Mrs. Edgar M. Tobin and Robert L. B. Tobin

Review 1:

Bernard Holland in The New York Times
Opera: “Don Giovanni” in an Old Met Production

One of the ways the Metropolitan. Opera is celebrating its 100th anniversary is by looking to its past. Mozart's "Don Giovanni" Thursday night did just that, and perhaps the kindest thing one can say about this 1957 production is that it has an "archival" character.


Eugene Berman's sets exude a faded shabbiness that may speak volumes about Met production values in days long gone but that embarrass the house today. The cardboard cutout-like sets made only the saddest of stabs at three-dimensions, and the stone facades painted on backdrops rippled and fluttered uneasily in backstage drafts. At one point, a panel of the inner yellow curtain simply disintegrated at the fringe. Unseen hands mended it frantically as David Rendall sang "Della sua Pace."


As nearly the oldest Met production still in use (1952's "Forza del Destino" holds that prize, say Met officials), this worn and primitive "Don Giovanni" may hold an archeological interest for some, but it does little for Mozart's great opera.


Still, a great Don might have saved the evening. James Morris has a smoothly attractive voice when he does not force it, and he moves with a nice athletic grace; but he simply did not have the personality to command a stage.


Don Giovanni is one of opera's most charismatic figures, but here we often had trouble remembering that Mr. Morris was in front of us at all. In his first confrontation with Donna Elvira, Carol Neblett – despite the problems at both ends of her range – made him seem a straight man. Roberta Alexander's radiance as Zerlina again reduced Don Giovanni to the background. And next to Paul Piishka, a solid and relatively undemonstrative Leporello, Mr. Morris simply faded ghostlike from view.


It is a shame, given his assets. Mr. Morris's bass had a soft, mellow quality at piano, and it hardened only when he pushed it upward and outward. He is a fine looking Don Giovanni. Unfortunately, he is a bland one as well.


Thursday's Donna Elvira and Donna Anna made a fierce and vengeful pair of heroines. What Miss Neblett may have lacked in vocal beauty, she made up for with sheer intensity. Edda Moser's Donna Anna had metallic glint to it and a ferocious cutting power. Mr. Rendall's Don Ottavio, on the other hand, had the fineness of articulation that bespeaks a real Mozartean tenor. If only he had been able to sing more often in tune.


Mr. Plishka worked well as Leporello, avoiding buffoonery and singing with considerable dexterity and style. John Macurdy was a steady if somewhat pale Commendatore, but Christian Boesch's barking delivery and emphatic arm waving ran Masetto's bumptiousness into the ground.


Jeffrey Tate was the evening's conductor, and those who enjoyed his lickety-split tempos in last year's "Rosenkavalier" at the Met got more of the same Thursday. This haste created some unfortunate discomfort in the wonderful open*ing moments. Perhaps his violinists in the overture should have been able to articulate clearly at such speeds, and perhaps the open*ing trio should have kept up as well. But the fact remains that they didn't. Some of the ensemble work later on did function well, perhaps because of the agility of Mr. Plishka, and especially of Roberta Alexander.


Making her Met debut, Miss Alexander made a lovely Zerlina. Her soprano is lovely and well-tempered and her radiant submission to the Don at the end of their great Act I duet moved us all.


Miss Alexander was indeed a bright moment in a pervasively seedy evening at the opera. The Met might think about retiring this "Don Giovanni," packing it up and selling it to some smaller, needier company. One wonders, however, what opera house, regardless of size or means, would want it.



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