San Francisco Classical Voice

When an audience hisses at Don Giovanni, you know something wonderful or terrible is happening. At the Western Opera Theater's performance of Mozart's opera in Stanford's Memorial Auditorium Saturday, the capacity audience was only reacting the right way. It was a good show, the ninth on WOT's national tour of this production, triple-cast, which will play 31 cities in 5 states by November 12.

Gales of laughter greeted the ribald jokes and by-play, the booing properly directed at Giovanni's more egregiously rakish remarks. Jose Maria Condemi's production featured plenty of physical comedy, paying enough attention to stage movement that one could follow the notoriously disjointed plot. Stage direction underlined the myriad charms of Mozart's orchestration, and conductor Steven Osgood brought out every scampering, sneaking, striding, and snickering flourish in the score.

Western Opera Theater is one of several programs that develop young talent for the San Francisco Opera Company. These singers, all in very early stages of their careers, had uniformly excellent voices, and some had still more to offer.

Part of the pleasure in such a production is watching young singers develop their own interpretations of familiar roles; it makes one appreciate how much more there is to opera than just the notes. Dana Beth Miller had worked up a wonderful Donna Elvira for Act I. She had a great big confident voice, and her comical-desperate energy provided a little thrill each time she swooped in to yank the plot in a new direction. But Miller didn't yet have the pathos, the sweetness that would make us care about Elvira's humiliations in Act II.

The famous arias and ensembles had clearly been polished to glossy perfection in years of voice lessons and opera workshops. Philip Horst, as Leporello, displayed a big rich tone and wonderful comic details in the "Catalogue" Aria. Twyla Robinson, as Donna Anna, was splendid in her showpiece "Or sai chi l'onore." But most of the singers hadn't yet worked their recitatives and arioso passages up to a similar level. Donna Anna was hard to hear in the busy and complicated opening scene, and Leporello's patter often got lost in ensembles. Elvira's brash vocalism was just right for her entrance aria, but when she used the same belting tone in the Maskers' trio with Anna and Ottavio, it rather wrecked the luminous effect.

The story was told in a straight-forward style, with no Romantic ambiguity, no elaborate concept laid on it. Even this classic approach didn't resolve the opera's inconsistencies. Ricardo Herrara made Don Giovanni a light-hearted playboy, a burlador quite lacking in demonic brio. Without a Romantic dark side, Don Giovanni was just too likeable for his demise to inspire awe or satisfaction. The Commendatore's murder happens so early, and so abruptly that one forgets all about it unless the staging keeps us conscious of the character's underlying violence. And so the final retribution seemed strangely uncalled for: all that divine wrath and dry ice directed at a rich and powerful man who likes to chase girls? A Clinton-era audience knows that the gods have bigger things to deal with.

The odd misfit between Don Giovanni's innocuous character and the final scene was symptomatic of a larger imbalance. Comic antics almost always overshadowed the most intense musical moments. In the trio "Ah taci ingiusto cor," Elvira might as well have been singing from off-stage, because the audience's attention was completely focused on Leporello's clowning with his borrowed cape and sword. This number should end with a radiant moment in which all three players - the clown, the schemer, and their dupe - are transfigured by music, touched by something bigger than themselves. But this didn't happen. Similarly, Zerlina's "Vedrai carino" seemed a parody of eroticism rather than a genuine erotic moment, thanks to Masetto's rolling, crawling, and limping around the stage after her.

Julie Bartholomew, as Zerlina, would get my vote for the truly demonic member of this production. The actors and director took literally Masetto's remark that "this witch can always make me do what she wants," and Zerlina came across as a diminutive Circe, with Masetto lurching or groveling after her like a dog. The casting of a mezzo-soprano, rather than the usual soubrette, added a touch of darkness to Zerlina's arias, a hint of cruelty to her teasing and baiting.

I did share Don Giovanni's incredulity that the exquisite Julie Bartholomew should be throwing herself away on this oaf, because Vladimir Shvets overdid Masetto's rough and dim qualities, playing him as a kind of half-wit. Then again, I might have felt more sympathy toward Masetto, had he been able to keep time with the orchestra and other singers.

The shining star of the evening was, ironically, a dark horse: John Tessier as Don Ottavio, whose "Il mio tesoro" was the production's only truly sublime moment. In this brief aria, late in the long second act, Tessier's performance endowed Don Ottavio with nobility, grace, and dignity, a true counterpoint to the clowning and anarchy around him. Tessier seems to be that rare jewel, a real Mozart tenor, with a light, pure tone and a refined technique that serves expressive ends. He exemplified the beauty and power of bel canto, with cadenzas that spun forth like silvery threads and a magnificent portamento.

The first act had only hinted at Tessier's gifts because his Act I aria "Dalla sua pace" had been cut. Admittedly, this is one of the opera's problem pieces; its wistful delicacy usually seems anti-climactic after Donna Anna's rafter-raising cries for vengeance. But I wish Tessier had been allowed to sing it. To be really perfect, the production should have offered more moments like "Il mio tesoro," more oases of transcendent musical beauty among the comic hubbub.

(Heather Hadlock is Assistant Professor of Music History at Stanford University)

©1999 Heather Hadlock, all rights reserved