Wolfgang Amadeus MOZART (1756-1791)
Don Giovanni (1787) [173:13]
Don Giovanni - Ildebrando D’Arcangelo (baritone)
Donna Anna - Diana Damrau (soprano)
Leporello - Luca Pisaroni (bass)
Il Commendatore - Vitalij Kowaljow (bass)
Donna Elvira - Joyce DiDonato (soprano)
Don Ottavio - Rolando Villazón (tenor)
Masetto- Konstantin Wolff (bass)
Zerlina- Mojca Erdmann (soprano)
Vocalensemble Rastatt/Holger Speck
Mahler Chamber Orchestra/Yannick Nézet-Séguin
rec. July 2011, Festspielhaus Baden-Baden. DDD. stereo
DEUTSCHE GRAMMOPHON 477 9878 [3 CDs: 59:30 + 54:45 + 58:58]
A new recording of Mozart’s operatic masterpiece with this kind of pedigree
and casting must be welcomed and treated with respect. This especially because
it is the first in a planned series of seven recordings of concert performances
of major Mozart operas in the Festspielhaus Baden-Baden. In these days of
austerity it is rare to find the kind of sponsorship required for such an
undertaking. Whereas recordings of Don Giovanni were once frequent
it is a good while since we had a new one of any real quality. Many of us
are abashed to confess that we return to recordings forty, fifty and even
sixty years old when we want to hear it.
Nonetheless, I find my reaction to it to be very mixed indeed, a response
most dictated by some anomalies and peculiarities in the conception. These
arise not least from the mismatch between Nézet-Séguin’s
direction and his singers’ style. It is immediately apparent in the
cleanly articulated overture that, in line with the modern fashion, the Mahler
Chamber Orchestra is a reduced band that employs very little vibrato. By contrast,
the sopranos, especially Diana Damrau, all employ fruity vibrato verging on
a wobble - perhaps not by choice but more because their voices cannot adapt
to the smaller-scale idiom the conductor applies. This is a recording full
of incongruities: even while he requires the strings to eschew vibrato, Nézet-Séguin
frequently employs rubato. The result is more of an etiolated whine than is
entirely pleasing. Nor is there much drive or excitement in this performance.
I miss the febrile, even hysterical, quality that should characterise the
Don’s sex-obsession and the outraged responses it generates. “Deh
vieni” is absurdly lugubrious with no spark at all, so slow and restrained
that an incipient tremolo intrudes into D’Arcangelo’s tone. Conversely,
the Champagne Aria is taken so fast - as if the conductor vaguely sensed he
needed to take the opportunity to inject some spark in the generally staid
proceedings - that the singer can barely get his sizeable voice around the
divisions. There is a general atmosphere of carefulness about the reading
which is perhaps inevitable in a mere concert performance. It lacks the spark
and brio of a fully staged version.
A further oddity: the Don has a much richer, basso-coloured tone than the
Leporello who is essentially a light baritone without a hint of the buffo
weight desirable in the role. This although Pisaroni has a fleet and engaging
way with the words and it is a pleasure to hear two Italians make so much
of their exchanges, joshing one another idiomatically. We have enjoyed great
chocolate-voiced Dons such as Siepi and Ghiaurov in previous celebrated recordings
and there is certainly nothing inappropriate about D’Arcangelo’s
big, black, handsome-brute of a bass to portray the Don’s cocksure brutality.
Yet for all that I very much appreciate D’Arcangelo’s saturnine
characterisation, for me the stars of the recording are Villazon and DiDonato.
He is the surprise of the recording and a very welcome one, too, not just
because we all want to hear such a lovely voice back in form after its vocal
crises. He offers us something really different and convincing in his Don
Ottavio. This is no wimpish pi-boy but an ardent flesh-and-blood lover who
persuades us of his determination to defend and avenge the woman he loves.
His dark, husky beauty of tone, fine gradations of dynamic and poised, virile
top notes are all a delight, while his long-breathed “Il mio tesoro”
may stand comparison for elegance and legato with any predecessor. It is to
his Ottavio I shall return as a model of its kind.
The shock of Damrau’s wobble when she joins Villazon in “Soa,
sola, in buio loco” is really unpleasant. She squeezes and flaps, and
the vocal security which marked her 2008 solo Mozart recital album has mutated
into a decidedly self-conscious struggle with the notes. The power in “Or
sai” is still there but the basic tone is now strident and harsh - qualities
accentuated by the beat. This compromises her ability to make Donna Anna sound
poignant and vulnerable. She is simply shrill. In the context of 110 years
of recorded Donna Annas she isn’t in the running.
Mojca Erdmann as Zerlina is similarly unimpressive: a very ordinary, thin-toned,
rather charmless singer, again afflicted by an exaggerated vibrato and one
who cannot stand comparison with previous exponents such as Freni, Sciutti,
Gueden and Seefried. Her attempt to interpolate a high C in “Vedrai,
carino” is ill-advised.
DiDonato by comparison is so much more agreeable on the ear. She manages the
awkward tessitura of Donna Elvira’s music with triumphant ease. She
is a rich-voiced spitfire in the Schwarzkopf mode. Whether she is the great
singer many acclaim her as, I am not sure but she is certainly impressive
here.
The Masetto is perfectly adequate. The Commendatore is somewhat given to -
yes, you’ve guessed it - wobble and a slightly nasal, throttled vocal
production. He has a good low D. A pity that he doesn’t command and
chill in the manner of the most impressive Stone Guests; the final scene doesn’t
really catch fire.
All in all, a mixed bag: an admirable trio of singers in D’Arcangelo,
DiDonato and Villazon but otherwise too low-key to stir the blood.
Ralph Moore
All in all, a mixed bag: admirable D’Arcangelo, DiDonato and Villazon
but otherwise too low-key to stir the blood.
| Support
us financially by purchasing this disc from: |
|
 |
 |
 |
 |
| |
|