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© Pascal Victor / Artcomart
Marlis Petersen as Donna Anna and Colin Balzer as Don Ottavio at the Act I funeral for Il Commendatore
Live from Aix 2010: A Duel for Don Giovanni
July 2, 2010
This article is the first in a series on the 2010 Aix festival. Read the other articles in our Culture section.
The 62nd annual Festival d'Aix-en-Provence got off to a slow start last night with Russian director Dmitri Tcherniakov's bizarre new production of Don Giovanni-a heavy-handed subversion of Mozart's tragic-comic dramma giocoso that transforms the irresistibly seductive Don Juan into a manic-depressive drunken lout in a dirty tee shirt.
Bo Skovhus as Don Giovanni and Marlis Petersen as Donna Anna
Nothing can ever be really bad at the Aix Festival, especially not any production held, like this one, in the enchanting outdoor courtyard of the 17th-century Episcopal Palace. And this Don Giovanni has a lot of redeeming values too, notably superb performances by American bass baritone Kyle Ketelsen as Leporello and German soprano Marlis Petersen as Donna Anna. The period-instrument Freiburger Barockorchester, conducted by Louis Langrée, plays with exceptional clarity and grace, and the English Voices chorus is excellent.
When the blistering heat of the day gave way to a soft Provençal summer night, with a whisper of a breeze and stars overhead, the stage was set for the festival's usual lyrical sorcery. Instead, Mozart had to duel for attention with Tcherniakov's confusing attempt at a satirical send-up. Characters have been rearranged willy-nilly, dressed in a mixed-era, mixed-season mélange of costumes that might have been plucked arbitrarily from a touring company trunk.
Leporello is no longer Giovanni's servant but a friend of his wealthy family; Donna Elvira is no longer a seduced, abandoned and forgotten former conquest but Giovanni's ex-wife; Zerlina is not a young peasant girl but Elvira's daughter by a former marriage; no one is masked or disguised, but mistaken identity reigns supreme; everyone is constantly removing everyone else's clothes, Don Giovanni's leer is more like the grin of a village idiot, and Zerlina sings her delicious consolation aria Vedrai, carina not to her fiancé Masetto but to Don Giovanni's coat. Go figure.
Danish baritone Bo Skovhus, a veteran Giovanni, delivers the familiar role with full-voiced assurance, while struggling valiantly with Tcherniakov's strange vision, jumping up and down and flopping his arms like a crazed cockatoo. Canadian tenor Colin Balzer provides a finely tuned performance as a bespectacled bourgeois Don Ottavio, and the rich, stentorian authority of Russian bass Anatoli Kotscherga's Commendatore ends the evening with a welcome flourish. It's a fight to the finish, but Mozart wins again.
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YES! Who could fall in love with this lout? But fantastic voices and memorable staging -- one that will last forever.
Susan Liang
July 06 2010
BIZARRE is right and whoever chose to pay for it needs his/her head examined. Mozart is probably turning in his pauper's grave. The singers and orchestra were excellent as noted and one had to feel sorry for the pricipals being clothed for the Russian winter in canicule Aix last night for the "Direct" Arte emission. The booing was definitely called for. Thank goodness I did not waste 210 euros.
Robert Parson, Nimes
July 06 2010