Mozart – Don Giovanni
D’Arcangelo; Pisaroni; Damrau; DiDonato; Villazón; Erdmann; Mahler Chamber Orchestra; Yannick Nézet-Séguin
Deutsche Grammophon 477 9878
Deutsche Grammophon has always been at the cutting edge of recording technology and marketing strategy. Today, when we are inundated with DVDs of live performances, they decided to go back to basics and re-record all seven of Mozart’s greatest operas in state-of-the-art digital sound, superb acoustics and with the best modern casts available. To launch the series at the Baden-Baden festival, summer home of the Berlin Philharmonic, Don Giovanni was performed in concert form with the Mahler Chamber Orchestra (Claudio Abbado’s orchestra), taken over by Yannick Nézet-Séguin, the young firebrand Canadian maestro who has risen to astronomical heights in recent years. His intuition into Mozart is uncanny, tempi on the brisk side, and his control, concentration and intensity never flag. The demonic drive of the first act finale has a Furtwänglerian mastery and moves like a steamroller.
The cast is headed by Ildebrando D’Arcangelo, an incarnation of the Don Juan legend whose performance I’ve seen, admired and reviewed (The WholeNote, November 2014), a magnificent presence. (He sings the Champagne Aria in 70 seconds!) Exciting new basso Luca Pisaroni’s Leporello is a fascinating character with Italian charm and elegance. The two noble ladies are highly accomplished spectacular voices – Diana Damrau’s Donna Anna has superb musicianship and perfect vocal accuracy, Joyce DiDonato as Donna Elvira is an indignant and anguished powerhouse – but for me the most impressive was Mojca Erdmann’s (Zerlina) voice of heavenly beauty, soft and demure, with an edge of steel when necessary. Rolando Villazón, who rediscovers himself as a Mozart tenor, adds a new refreshing dimension, an erotic, Latin sentimentality to Don Ottavio. Vitalij Kowaljow’s Commendatore’s thunderbolts will chill your blood as he drags poor Don Juan into the fires of hell.
