Mozart: Don Giovanni [2 DVD]

An all-star cast featuring Deutsche Grammophon artist Anna Netrebko, Bryn Terfel and Anna Prohaska, delivers a sensational new of Mozart s Don Giovanni, conducted by Daniel Barenboim at the start of his inaugural season as Music Director of La Scala. Recorded live at the opening of the 2011-12 La Scala season, Don Giovanni is now set to be released in time for Bryn Terfel s 50th birthday on 9 November 2015. It also ties in with the traditional opening of the new season at La Scala 7 December, the feast-day of St Ambrose, patron saint of Milan. It features stunning performances from Anna Netrebko as Donna Anna in her La Scala debut, Peter Mattei as a swaggering Don Giovanni, Bryn Terfel as his sidekick Leporello and Anna Prohaska as Zerlina. Anna Netrebko made her international breakthrough at the 2002 Salzburg Festival as Donna Anna, among the most powerful and moving of all soprano roles. Netrebko s Donna Anna was thrilling in her nobility and ease of execution, noted the Observer (London) following her La Scala debut. She is on grand form. The New York Times, meanwhile, hailed her compelling portrayal Director Robert Carsen s staging of Don Giovanni opens by turning a distorting mirror on the performers, the audience and the theatre itself, in what the Observer called a fabulous visual coup. Review ------ Anna Netrebko's richly resonant voice is heard to seething effect in the accompanied recitative when Donna Anna recognizes Don Giovanni as her her's killer, a powerful moment in a compelling portrayal. Later, Ms. Netrebko delivers a finely etched "Non mi dir" . . . Barbara Frittoli, an appealing voice as Donna Elvira, also rises to moments of intensity . . . Bryn Terfel's outstanding Leporello delivers the catalog aria with emphatic sternness, as if determined to teach Donna Elvira a lesson . . . [Giuseppe Filianoti's] voice has Italianate ring, and something can be said for Don Ottavio imbued with Mr. Filianoti's brand of ardor. As Zerlina and Masetto, Anna Prohaska and Stefan Kocan make an attractive pair of newlyweds, Mr. Kocan's deep tones reminding one that Mozart wrote Masetto and the Commendatore for the same singer . . . [the performance] had an imposing grandeur. --The New York Times Peter Mattei's seducer was undeniably likeable, and in Carsen's staging he regularly scores . . . The Swedish baritone knows how to command the stage and charm his audience, not least in a honeyed Serenade . . . [Terfel]: it's . . . a joy to hear him in Italian. Anna Netrebko's Donna Anna was a sumptuous, house-filling performance . . . --Financial Times . . . [Barenboim] chose steady, almost old-fashioned tempi and a majestic sound. The orchestra glowed in response and filled the large auditorium with muscular, full-blooded playing . . . the playing was unquestionably magnificent, emphasising the "seria" side of Mozart's elusive, dark-light opera . . . Netrebko's Donna Anna was thrilling in her nobility and ease of execution. She is on grand form. The role suits her vocally . . . The real histrionics are left to Donna Elvira, played with vivid neurosis by Barbara Frittoli who . . . gave a compelling performance. Bryn Terfel . . . found humour and despair, frustration and embarrassment, tenderness and blind fury in his convincing outsider Leporello. In the title role Mattei has the looks and the voice. He . . . [is] credible as the louche, aristocratic chameleon who is all things to all women . . . the applause was enthusiastic. Flowers rained down on the performers like stair rods. --The Observer

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