Don Giovanni

Composer: Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Librettist: Lorenzo da Ponte
Venue and Dates: Gran Teatre del Liceu, Barcelona
22, 25, 27, 30 July 2008
Conductor: Friedrich Haider
Director: Calixto Bieito
Sets: Alfons Flores
Costumes: Mercé Paloma
Lighting: Alan Burrett
Performers:
Don Giovanni: Simon Keenlyside
Donna Anna: Angeles Blancas
Don Ottavio: Christoph Strehl
Donna Elvira: Véronique Gens
Commendatore: Günther Groissböck
Leporello: Kyle Ketelsen
Masetto: David Menéndez
Zerlina: Juanita Lascarro
Notes: Joint production with English National Opera and Staatsoper Hannover

From the Liceu website:

http://www.liceubarcelona.com/operes/presentacio.asp?i=264&a=437

Calixto Bieito’s Don Giovanni lives in a perpetual stupor brought on by drink, sex and drugs, oblivious of any ethical barrier that could prevent him from sacrificing his own safety, and that of others, to this frenzy of the senses. These two themes -the protagonist’s amorality and the self-destruction towards which his conduct drives him- are pivotal to Mozart’s Don Giovanni. By shifting the action from 18th century Seville to present-day Barcelona and turning the aristocratic Don Giovanni into a man on the fringes of society, Bieito seeks to conjure up images that will cause an impact on his audience by revealing the full stark horror of his lifestyle, without the mitigating or distancing effect of 18th century costumes and gallantries.
Bieito’s Don Giovanni is a man whose physical magnetism enables him to enlist the complicity of his gang of cronies; a man who breaks the rules, not in order to conquer his chosen sexual victims, but out of the sheer pleasure of destructive transgression; a man who burns out his life almost without realizing it, whose awareness is numbed by a state of stupor he cannot control, who seeks new sensations in order to escape, not to assert himself..

Rehearsal Photos

Soundbites

Jorge Binaghi, Mundoclasico, 22 July 2008

http://www.mundoclasico.com/critica/vercritica.aspx?id=43d0b6b7-1bc4-47a7-bc8b-3fbe317a853f

Che maschere galanti?

Xavier Cester, Opera, November 2008

After the pretty inaction of this [Luisa Miller] performance, the return of Calixto Bieito’s what-a-hell-of-a-night Don Giovanni (July 22) came as a shock. You can argue about his (feeble) affinity with Mozart’s masterpiece, but you cannot deny Bieito’s theatrical wizardry. Although Friedrich Haider’s conducting didn’t help either, this time the Catalan director had a cast that adhered body and soul to his conception, especially Simon Keenlyside in the title role, perfectly matched by Kyle Ketelsen as Leporello, and Angeles Blancas, a Donna Anna who loved to live-and sing-on the edge.

Photo Gallery

All photos by Antoni Bofill

Curtain Calls