Don Giovanni
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Free Music Notes for Don Giovanni
Free Music Review: NOT MOZART'S DON GIOVANNI, RENE JACOBS'
Hit: 1 Stars
What is wrong with everyone ??? How is this a great Don Giovanni ??? It comes nowhere near what Mozart originally conceived as an opera! It's restyled as a Baroque opera and really more of a "beautiful mistake". This is the latest recording of Don Giovanni, my favorite opera so I thought I'd listen to it. A friend of mine let me borrow this and I heard it one weekend. Let me tell you. Forget the "glowing" reviews on here. This is Rene Jacob's Don Giovanni, his version, his style, but not Mozart's. There are better recordings out there and with TRUE Mozart style and Mozart singers. This SHOULD NOT be your first Don Giovanni. It's more of an interesting uniqe experiment for acquired opera tastes and veteran opera lovers. I've heard Don Giovanni live in performances many times and on recordings and this is not the way Don Giovanni should be done. Don Giovanni is a Classical-Era opera, and Mozart's brilliant musical genius was already established by the time Don Giovanni hit stages in Austria. The music, is therefore, very important. It is a classical work, full of Mozart's inspired melodies and the singing must reflect the "Mozart" singing voice, a combination of purity of tone/sound and beautiful singing but also dramatic abilities. It is true that Mozart employed the use of the harpsichord for the recitatives scenes, a staple of opera since Baroque times, but the entire orchestra heard here under Jacobs' baton is strictly a Baroque orchestra, with a sound that sounds more like Handel or Vivaldi chamber orchestras. The pacing is also way off. At times the music drags too slowly and other times it speeds up (such as the entire scene "Non Ti Fidar o Misera") and there is no sense of consistency throughout. The male singers are very dull and uninspired. The baritone in the role of the Don is not acting the part and just of the stand-there-and-sing types. He is trying to show off as much ornate baritone singing as possible, despite the fact that the Don has only two arias and his real strenghts lie in the ensemble scenes and recitatives. The Don here is a Baroque voice, again, not a real Mozart voice. The same goes for everyone else, including the baritone-buffo in the part of Leporello, the baritone in the part of Maseetto and the tenor singing Ottavio. The tenor, here, especially is trying to sing as ornately as a Handel opera hero and that's not right for Ottavio. Only the bass in the part of the thunderous Commandatore does a really good performance. The entire Commandatore Dinner Scene is very well done. The women in this cast truly disappoint, with the exception of Alexandrina Pendatchanska as Donna Elvira. Truly, hers is the best Elvira but that's no reason to get this album unless you are absolutely nuts about Elvira. Her performance is right on the money as far as the way Elvira should be sung - full of that dramatic feisty attitude, that anger and also that sense of pathos and beauty. She considers herself still married to Don Giovanni, despite the fact he abandoned her. She wants to get him back but she wants him to quit his wild ways. She is both angry for loving him and still in love with him, in fact the only one of the three women visibly in love with him and showing it. Russian soprano Olga Pasichnyk is a "softer" Donna Ana with a purely lyric voice, not the dramatic voice originally called for. The Mozart style does call for beautiful singing but Donna Ana is a dramatic heroine, demanding blood and justice/vengeance for the death of her father, and she must be screaming for it. She is cold and majestic, and it's actually the most difficult role for a soprano Mozart ever wrote. Only a very few number of sopranos have ever truly mastered the role and in the past I have enjoyed sopranos like Leontyne Price, Sena Jurinac, Edda Moser and Anna Tomowa Sintow in the role. Pasichnyk has fine moments and does nice things with the singing but it's not the way Anna ought to be sung. The soprano in the part of Zerlina is only serviceable and does nothing with the part. Again, don't make this your first Don Giovanni. It's all wrong, with an entirely different take on it and musically too Baroque and too "opera seria" than Mozart's mid-career masterpiece. This is really not all that good. Here are some recordings you ought to turn to instead:
Herbert von Karajan, Vienna Philharmonic (2 recordings)1963, Salburg Festival live recording with Eberhard Wachter, Leontyne Price, Hilde Gueden, Elisabeth Schwarkopf and Cesare Valletti ...AND 1986, Vienna Philharmonic with Samuel Ramey, Anna Tomowa Sintow, Agnes Baltsa, Kathleen Battle and Ferrucio Furlanetto....both recording are wonderful, but the early 1963 Salzburg Festival performance is hard to find and in need of remastering. The second recording from the 1980's is masterfully done in every way with Ramey as a very sexy Don Giovanni and oozing wickedness and Anna Tomowa Sintow as a supremely dramatic Anna.
Bernard Haitink, London Philharmonic, Thomas Allen, Carol Vaness, Maria Ewing, Richard Van Allen...this one is also very admired by critics and opera fans. It has wonderful moments of great musicality with the London forces bringing out rich textures and exquisite drama, Thomas Allen singing the heck out of the Don, Vaness and Ewing doing fine Anna and Elvira.
Ferenc Fricsay, Conductor, Dietrich Fischer Dieskau, Sena Jurinac, Maria Stader....A really dramatically alert and lively Don Giovanni, with intense pacing and dramatic qualities. Dieskau is a marvelous Don, Jurinac a very fine Anna and Stader the best Elvira on record. This is a very Germanic Don but it's one of the better ones on record, and the orchestra and singers are magical.
Karl Bohm conductor, Vienna Philharmonic, Sherill Milnes, Anna Tomowa Sintow, Walter Berry, Teresa Zylis Gara, Peter Schreier, Edith Mathis, John Macurdy...A live performance from 1977 Salburg Festival with American baritone Milnes as the Don. This is a really great Don Giovanni, with great theatricality. All the singers really do an outstanding job and sing with dramatic flair. And the Vienna Phil is always a first class orchestra.
Lorin Maazel, conductor, Ruggero Raimondi, Edda Moser, Kiri Te Kenawa Jose Van Dam, John Macurdy, Teresa Berganza, Malcolm King...A soundtrack to the 1978 Joseph Losey film (first came the LP/recording, then the film) this is a very dark and fatalistic Don Giovanni with the right touch of strangeness, dramatic power and beautiful and I mean beautiful singing. Kiri Te Kenawa makes a beautiful Elvira with a touch of sadness in the voice, Edda Moser's Donna Ana by contrast is so majestic and dramatic that she sets the bar very high for any dramatic soprano taking on Anna. No one can sing Donna Anna like Edda Moser did. Ruggero Raimondi is a dark and mysterious Don Giovanni, with a very good lyric voice.
Ok, I warn you, don't get this awful Don Giovanni. It has beauty, no doubt, but of the Baroque kind, not the Mozart kind. This is not nor ever will be the best Don Giovanni. Rene Jacobs did his own thing here and ignored the fact Mozart never wanted it to sound remotely like this. It's only a conductor's Don Giovanni.
Free Music Review: Love it and hate it
Hit: 3 Stars
Conductor Ren? Jacobs is trying to restore some of the comic elements of this "dramma giocoso." His objective is a sleaker, nimbler Don Giovanni. I applaud his effort but not its execution. The classical structure of Mozart's score allows the action to unfold within the pace of the music. Too often Jacobs brings all the horses to a full halt, only to immediately set them off at full gallop again. Kenneth Tarver is a superior Ottavio; one wishes a less active baton had allowed the man to just sing.
The trend over the past few decades has been increasingly to ornament the vocal line, much as singers of Mozart's day would have done. The forces here sing as if conscious of other recent recordings and make an effort to come up with innovative ornamentation. The results are often klunky. Johannes Wiesser's turn with Giovanni's "Deh vieni" is atrocious, with some of the most awkward melismas ever conceived.
There is a sound gag (hoo, hoo) in the finale when the Stone Guest's arrival is heralded by a timid "tap, tap, tap" at the door. Again "tap, tap" before the pounding begins. This might play on stage, but it was baffling on first listening, tedious on second, and I dread suffering through it again. Give me a splintering crash to make me jump out of my chair. There is much in this set that is a refreshing take on an often bloated classic, but Jacobs's reading is too idiosyncratic for me to want to make this my go-to recording.
Free Music Review: Mozart... not as we are used to it... better!!!
Hit: 5 Stars
Over recent years there have been several releases of Don Giovanni on CD... Keenlyside with Abbado, Gilfry with Gardiner, Terfel with Solti, the list goes on... but none compared with the greatest of all... the classic Guilini set with Sutherland, Schwarzkopf and Wachter. This recording had life, drama and amazing voices all around. Very few people thought a rival would come along... well it has... and as a rival in some ways it out does it's competition.
I am a collector of Don Giovanni recordings with over 50 in my collection. After one hearing, I knew this was my new favourite, now after at least 10 hearings I am convinced this is a masterpiece recording.
The conductor, Rene Jacobs, takes a fresh look at a well known opera. the tempos are different, the recitatives accompanied in a way that I have never heard and every little change seems to bring life to this great opera. The singers are outstanding. The greatest performances come from the two lead men, Lorenzo Ragazzo as Leporello is incredible, a true virtuoso singer, and an incredible singer actor. His voice is dark but always full of life with a full palate of colours at his disposal. Johannes Weisser, the 26 year old Norwegian baritone, as Don Giovanni is perfect for the role. His voice is yet to develop fully, and although there are times were he doesn't sound entirely suited to the part, his youthful energy, and his vocal acting, really bring something interesting to the character. His voice at times, has a tenorish timbre, which is expected of such as young baritone, and his sections with Regazzo sound fantastic with the blend of light and dark. Hearing a young man singing this role is great, instead of the older singers who take on the role, you believe that this young man could actually be this 'licentious young nobleman'... a sex crazed, socialite who will woo any woman, just to add them to his list. Other great performances come from Kenneth Tarver as Ottavio and Pendatchanska as Elvira.
This recording is a must for anyone who loves Mozart, or wants to experience this great opera for the first time.
Free Music Review: Masterful interpretation
Hit: 5 Stars
I love Don Giovanni, have seen it in Vienna, New York, Milano, Santa Fe and others through the last 35 years.
I have listened to many fine recordings, ( Giulini - my favorite ) until this last recording from maestro Rene Jacobs. I'm not going to review this recording in detail as I'm lost for words, all I can say is that I felt as if I am listening to a new found opera by Mozart, sounds and musical expressions I never heard before ( even the recitatives are amazingly musical and captivating ) the drama, the humor, the voices, the interpretation, the orchestra and especialy the conducting: a masterpiece in every way. 100 STARS
Free Music Review: Jacobs triumphs again with Don Giovanni
Hit: 5 Stars
Having heard Rene Jacob's mind-refreshing La Clemenza di Tito last year, I could hardly wait for his 2007 release of Mozart's Don Giovanni, an opera that has been my favourite since I learnt to love opera.
Many have already commented on the overall strength of this recording.
I would only share my marvel on Jacob's choice of the cast: there is virtually not one single weak link in the entire cast. Some singer surfaced over the rest - young Johannes Weisser in the title role is a real surprise for a 27 year-old. The three solo arias are not merely well sung, but novel and give the character a brand new dimension from the classic one set half a century ago by the great lyrical bass Cesare Siepi, and who has not been surpassed since. The Leporello indeed sounds peasant-like. None would ever mix him up with his boss, as in Giulini's all-time famous version. The only tenor Kenneth Tarver is a suave, courtier-like figure but with sufficient charisma to become the heroine's champion. Tarver in all respects equalled Alva in Giulini's version.
The real surprises come from the ladies - Olga Pasichnyk is a very satisfying Donna Anna. She isn't shrill or loud, but is full-voiced and pressing in her entrance, and dramatically effective in all the rest. Zerlina is a typical chirpy soubrette sung with charm and expressiveness that is seldom found in soubrettes. Sunhae Im rightfully claims to be the best Zerlina of her era.
The only slight disappointment in the trio of sopranos comes surprisingly from Alexandrina Pendatchanska, the singer who stood out reigning over the entire cast in Jacob's La Clemenza di Tito last year.
Donna Elvira sounds tired - yea, tired, right from the first aria. One misses the fiery outbursts of Elisabeth Schwarzkopf in the Giulini and Furtwangler versions. Perhaps Schwarzkopf's Donna Elvira is to be preserved in memories of opera lovers ad infinitum.
Finally, I must congratulate Harmonica Mundi in producing such ear-pleasing sonics in this all-time favourite opera.
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