Don Giovanni, Royal Opera House

★★★★☆

When Don Giovanni received its premiere in Prague in 1787, Mozart reportedly completed the overture at extraordinary speed immediately before the first performance. Whether every detail of that famous story is true or not, the overture captures the opera's strange duality perfectly: terrifying chords associated with death give way almost immediately to restless comic energy. Kasper Holten's 2014 Royal Opera production, now revived by Greg Eldridge, similarly treats Don Giovanni as a collision between pleasure and nightmare, although its extraordinary visual imagination is not always matched by psychological clarity.

Es Devlin's monumental revolving house remains the production's greatest achievement. Staircases lead towards uncertain destinations, rooms appear and disappear, and the building increasingly resembles the inside of Giovanni's mind. Luke Halls' projections transform its surfaces continually. During the overture, women's names multiply across the walls, turning Giovanni's sexual history into something oppressively physical. Later, ink, blood-like stains and rapidly shifting architectural images suggest his confidence beginning to fracture.

It is technically dazzling, particularly when projections, movement and Bruno Poet's lighting combine with the rotating structure. Yet there are moments when one watches the machinery rather than the people. Anja Vang Kragh's extravagant costumes fare better, establishing a vaguely nineteenth-century society while allowing the masked festivities an appropriately decadent theatricality.

Gordon Bintner avoids making Giovanni a dangerously magnetic romantic hero. His Don is privileged, entitled and increasingly bored by his own appetites. The bass-baritone has authority and smoothness, although the performance could occasionally use more vocal menace. Roberto Tagliavini makes a strong foil as Leporello, his substantial voice matched by an appealingly weary comic presence.

The evening's finest individual performance comes from Aigul Akhmetshina. Her Donna Elvira is neither comic abandoned lover nor straightforward victim. Anger, desire and humiliation seem constantly to fight for control, and Akhmetshina's rich, powerful mezzo gives those contradictions thrilling immediacy. She creates drama whenever she appears.

Rachel Willis-Sørensen brings considerable vocal strength to Donna Anna, although Holten's suggestion that Anna initially desires Giovanni complicates the character without entirely illuminating her. It also leaves Bogdan Volkov's elegantly sung Ottavio somewhat stranded dramatically. Giulia Semenzato's bright, agile Zerlina is more convincing as a woman capable of controlling her own destiny, while Dingle Yandell gives Masetto welcome personality. Andreas Bauer Kanabas supplies the Commendatore with the necessary grave authority.

Stefano Montanari favours energy over reverence in the pit. The Royal Opera orchestra responds with crisp, colourful playing, particularly in Mozart's darker passages, although occasional coordination between stage and orchestra prevents the musical performance from feeling completely effortless.

Holten's most controversial decision comes at the end. Rather than delivering the familiar spectacle of Giovanni being swallowed by hell, the production leaves him psychologically destroyed and surrounded by the ghosts of his conquests. It is clever and consistent with the staging's central idea, but strangely less overwhelming than Mozart's music demands. The omission of the final ensemble also deprives the evening of the opera's unsettling return to normality after catastrophe.

For originality and technical complexity, this remains impressive theatre. Storytelling is less consistent, particularly in its treatment of Donna Anna, but the sheer competency of the stagecraft and strength of the cast are undeniable. The magic moments are visual as much as musical: the names consuming Giovanni's house, Akhmetshina's fiercely human Elvira and the architecture apparently spinning out of control around its master.

A fascinating and frequently spectacular Don Giovanni, then, but one that stimulates the eye more consistently than it chills the blood.

Image credit: Mihaela Bodlovic

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