Four days after seeing the Met’s Don Giovanni on Met HD Live, it’s into San Francisco for SF Opera’s “for real” live performance of the same opera. Compared to the Met’s, it was rather much a disappointment. The predominant stage element was a set of very large (four feet by twelve, or thereabouts) “mirrors” that weren’t very reflective and were a bit transparent—you could see characters walking behind them. Individual mirrors would sit on the stage, or be hoisted out of sight, or positioned somewhere in between on the director’s whim. There were also a large number of 18th-century style chairs lined up along the side walls and the back wall; Leporello used three of them to take a short nap as Act 1 proper (after the overture) began. Act 2 opened with three large hedges to the left, right, and upstage center. In the graveyard scene there were a number of massive stone blocks; the Commendatore’s depicted him as slouched in an wrought-iron chair. The most impressive set was the final one, where the statue arrived for dinner: the back wall was hung with what must have been hundreds of square yards of a rich dark-red fabric, draped in such a fashion as to present concentric semicircles with their center at the top center of the back wall. Don Giovanni disappeared through a trap door in front of the long dining table, with only smoke or steam to suggest the horrors of hell—no flames or even any red lights shining on the clouds.
Our cast:
Leporello: Marco Vinco
Donna Anna: Ellie Dehn
Don Giovanni: Lucas Meachem
The Commendatore: Morris Robinson
Don Ottavio: Shawn Mathey
Donna Elvira: Serena Farnocchia
Zerlina: Kate Lindsey
Masetto: Ryan Kuster
Conductor: Nicola Luisotti
Director: Gabriele Lavia
Set designer: Alessandro Camera
I found the singing to be competent but undistinguished all the way around, except for Marco Vinco’s Leporello, who displayed a nicely sonorous bass voice. The acting was the weak spot. Don Giovanni appeared to be something of a has-been who had enjoyed the dining table too much and for too long. Leporello was decidedly over-acted—either that, or he was making sure that the patrons in the back of the house could see his every move. Zerlina was less of an innocent country girl and more of a tart—she did not live up to the expectations created by her very fine portrayal of Niklaus in the Met HD broadcast of Les Contes d'Hoffmann. Overall, not much more than a gamma.
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