New Don Giovanni Shatters Clichés of Sex

Staging Don Giovanni in what is an era of extreme sensitivity to sexual domination seemingly requires one of two clichéd interpretations by the director: either the title character is a heartless lecher using his political power to control the helpless, or the title character is himself helpless, forced by a patriarchal society to channel his love for women into aggression against them.

Although those two perspectives sound like theses for particularly dull articles in an obscure journal of gender studies, they unfortunately represent most contemporary interpretations of Mozart's opera. Fortunately Marthe Keller, who helms the Metropolitan Opera's new production of Don Giovanni, breaks away from both of them.

To use what is fast becoming a contemporary cliché, she has found a third way.

At last, someone has paid attention to the complexity of Mozart's female characters. Yes, they may find themselves doing things their better judgment would not permit, but this is not a tale of prima nocte or of life in a harem; it is a tale of seduction.

Keller's astute reading of the opera permeates each aspect of the production. Set designer Michael Yeargan and costume designer Christine Rabot-Pinson base their creations on the 18th century, but loosely. The distinction is important: they attempt neither to excuse Don Giovanni's behavior by emphasizing the context of his era nor to marginalize him by emphasizing the context of ours.

That gives the cast the bulk of the responsibility of interpretation. For this production, that delegation of duty could not be more appropriate. Led by Thomas Hampson in his signature role as Don Giovanni, they convey the opera's nuance with a sensitivity matching Keller's own; they prove that the 17th-century morality play on which Don Giovanni was based is merely a relic of moral absolutism, and that Mozart's is an opera firmly rooted in a post-absolutist age.

Hampson portrays his character as a human being, albeit an extremely flawed one, who struggles to find the difference between lust and love without ever reaching a conclusion. The audience may laugh as he professes his love to the young Zerlina, with such lines as "Come my sweetheart, to remedy the torment of an innocent lover." But beneath such sinister charm there lies a faintly flickering hope that she will actually be able to save him. Still, his voice belies Don Giovanni's lack of moral clarity, for Hampson's lyrical baritone never wavers; his "Deh, vieni alla finestra" is enough to bring anyone not only to the window but out of it, over the balustrade, and into his arms.

The women Don Giovanni wants in his arms aren't always as easily moved as he might like, but the sopranos playing them are as moving as Mozart's score.

Anja Harteros gives a particularly wrenching performance as Donna Anna, who is less a dupe of his seduction than a victim of his lust. In fact, when Don Giovanni opens, she is screaming for aid as he attempts to force himself on her. Yet she becomes ever more intrigued by him; Anna's wish to postpone her marriage to her fiancé Don Ottavio, expressed in her aria "Non mi dir, bel idol mio," is rendered by Harteros in a rich coloratura that reveals a dizzying mix of love, guilt, attraction, and revulsion.

Of course, Don Giovanni cannot wait for those emotions to resolve themselves, and he turns to a variety of other women for comfort in its most euphemistic sense: his past lover Donna Elvira, Donna Elvira's maid, and, on the day of her wedding, a young peasant girl named Zerlina. Zerlina, beautifully and coquettishly sung by Nicole Heaston (who alternates with Hei-Kyung Hong and Camilla Tilling), is a naïf who dearly loves her fiancé Masetto but is attracted to the suave Don. Mozart lets Giovanni and Zerlina's duet "La ci darem la mano" express the dynamic of seduction in song, but Keller adds a dash of visual humor by placing Giovanni at one end of the stage and Zerlina at the other, inching slowly toward him. The spectacle may provoke laughter, but is a far more complex and interesting way to present the seduction than having Don Giovanni clasp Zerlina to him.

Between the angered Donna Anna and the flattered Zerlina is the muddled Donna Elvira, who crusades against Don Giovanni and his rakish misogyny even as she secretly longs to be seduced by him again. Soprano Christine Goerke pulls off that conflict with aplomb, in one scene striding determinedly across the stage furiously declaring that she will "rip his heart out," and mourning his inevitable descent into the abyss in the next. Goerke's willful anger is powerfully beautiful, but her un-willful passion is masterfully moving; her "Mi tradi quell'alma ingrate" is one for the ages.

Caught in the midst of these dangerously passionate women is Don Giovanni's servant Leporello, who is entrusted by his master with everything from cataloguing the nobleman's sexual conquests to impersonating him when necessary. The role might easily be read as one of mere comic relief, but mere comic relief doesn't steal shows the way René Pape does. Pape's Leporello may be lumbering and graceless, but he balances the comic, the tragic, and the dramatic with the dexterity of a high-wire artist. His achievement is particularly surprising considering that he is best known for his roles in the bombastic operas of Richard Wagner. Perhaps it is that background in moral absolutism that lends his performance complexity, but whatever the reason, his Leporello convincingly expresses both distaste for and jealousy of Don Giovanni's serial seductions.

"My lady, this is the list of the beauties my master has loved," he wearily tells Donna Elvira, producing a large volume he wrote himself. The list is worthy of an Ottoman potentate: 640 in Italy, 231 in Germany, 100 in France, 91 in Turkey, and 1001 in Spain. But the size of it suggests exaggeration, as if Leporello had added in his own imaginary conquests; he tells of baronesses, princesses, servants, and peasants with a pride belying his peripheral role in their seduction by his master. In the end, despite his complaints about "slaving away for someone who is never satisfied," he tries desperately to save Don Giovanni from death.

The moment when Don Giovanni is dragged down into hell by the ghost of the Commendatore (Donna Anna's father) belongs, however, to the tradition of moral absolutism that Keller tries so hard to shatter, and, with the exception of Pape's performance, it comes off as bizarre and forced. Even the staging seems unsteady: the mirror to which Don Giovanni is frozen wobbles precariously and the traditional flames of hellfire are missing, bafflingly replaced by snowflakes. The closing scene, a reunion of the six characters remaining on terra firma, is equally false; Keller presents it as a drunken party in Don Giovanni's palace rather than a somber contemplation in a cemetery. Keller's "third way" is forgotten here and it is especially unfortunate to leave the audience with a scene that seems untouched by this production's greatest strength.

But even if this new Don Giovanni is not always in perfect form, it is always in perfect voice. In the end, that's enough.

If You're Going

Don Giovanni plays at the Metropolitan Opera House at Lincoln Center. Shows are April 15, 19, 28, 7:30 p.m.; April 21, May 7, 8 p.m. ; April 24, 8:15 p.m. For tickets call (212) 362-6000.