Winter 1997

Mozart: Don Giovanni

Bryn Terfel (bass-bar) Don Giovanni; Renée Fleming (sop) Donna Anna; Ann Murray (mez) Donna Elvira; Monica Groop (mez) Zerlina; Herbert Lippert (ten) Don Ottavio; Michele Pertusi (bass) Leporello; Roberto Scaltriti (bar) Masetto; Mario Luperi (bass) Commendatore; London Voices; London Philharmonic Orchestra / Sir Georg Solti

Decca 455 500-2DHO3 (three discs: 163 minutes: DDD). Notes, text and translation included. Recorded at performances in the Royal Festival Hall, London on October 5th and 7th, 1996

Don Giovanni is a bully. There can be no doubt about that; he attempts to take both Donna Anna and Zerlina by force, killing the aged father of the one and thrashing the peasant bridegroom of the other, and he has no qualms about putting Leporello in danger to save him own skin. So there is a good dramatic reason for casting a hard man in the role or, in vocal terms, a baritone with the dramatic edge and dark coloring of a Bryn Terfel. That, clearly, is what Sir Georg Solti wanted, to match his fundamentally severe concept of the work, and that is what he has most definitely got.

It is far from certain that this is what Mozart wanted, however. The distribution of the other male voices -- with a lyrical tenor in Don Ottavio, and surly baritone in Masetto, and two basses in Leporello and the Commendatore -- surely suggest that, to complete the spectrum, the composer had a comparatively light or at least elegant kind of baritone in mind. There is also the fairly obvious point that the great seducer must be seductive. Once thousand and three Spanish women -- not to mention the other thousand conquests in Italy, Germany, France and Turkey -- cannot be wrong.

The unctuously flattering but evidently successful recitative addressed to Zerlina before "Lá ci darem la mano" is presumably intended as a representative example of Giovanni's technique. But Bryn Terfel's tone and attitude in the duet itself are bordering on the aggressive and his final "andiam" is a barked command. The canzonetta (with mandolin) addressed to Elvira's maid, "Deh vieni alla finestra," is oddly loud in the first half and oddly whispered in the second. Much of what else Terfel does is not only highly accomplished, however, but also thoroughly convincing. His "Fin ch'han dal vino" is thrillingly dangerous, his dramatic resource in recitative apparently inexhaustible, his final show-down with the Commendatore impressively heroic.

Another problem associated with casting Terfel as Giovanni on disc -- and it would be an interesting interpretation on stage -- is the danger that is might be difficult to tell the lower male voices apart. So, in recompense, alongside a conventionally cavernous Commendatore in Mario Luperi we get a gruff Masetto is Roberto Scaltriti and an over-characterized Leporello in Michele Pertusi, excellent singers though they all are. Herbert Lippert's Ottavio, on the other hand, is in his own aristocratic tenor world, very slightly insecure in pitch at times but always well bred in phrasing.

As for the three sopranos, they accommodate the Solti approach in different ways. Ann Murray as Donna Elvira gives her all in responding to it and if that means pressurizing the upper register, producing the occasionally intrusive vibrato, that is part of the characterization. Without the pressure, as in the Act 2 trio "Ah taci, ingiusto core," she sings as attractively as ever. Renée Fleming as Donna Anna seems to resist the pressure -- her top As in "Or sai chi l'onore," for example, are approached with discretion -- but she never fails in either beauty of line of effectiveness in expression in what is surely the most successful performance of all. Her "Non mi dir" is particularly beautiful. Monica Groop's Zerlina is well sung but, in its slightly mezzoish way, too ladylike.

Conducting a conflation on the Prague and Vienna versions (including the two Ottavio arias and Elvira's "Mi tradi") Solti begins at high tension and, by means of a characteristic and utterly masterful combination or rhythmic intensity and brisk tempos, sustains it irresistibly. In a recording as clear as it is vivid the London Philharmonic plays for his with due precision, firmly drawn lines and an effective, strictly classical economy in coloring.

The audience present at the love performance in the Royal Festival Hall, where the recording was made, can be heard to laugh from time to time. But what we experience on the disc is Mozart and Da Ponte's dramma giocoso with much drama, little comedy, and not enough charm.

- Gerald Larner