There is something odd about it, though, that the element of class is so important, and yet it is not set in any definite society, other than Early Modern Europe.  And Don Giovanni in the middle, which is why he sings strophic songs, which Anna and Ottavio would no more do than cook their own meals. 

It doesn't tell you much about C17 Spain which doesn't apply to C18 Vienna, I would have thought.

Here's Zerlina and Masetto



I used to get the impressions from radio and recordings that Masetto was a bass heavy and a bumpkin.  Here he was a cute bit of rough, and probably more fun than Giovanni in bed.  I feel Zerlina singing Batti batti (I thought I caught the words "Spank me, spank me")  is the most beautiful music in the work, and it shows a clever and sophisticated girl getting her way round her dim boyfriend.  Here she sang it from one end of the catwalk, and Masetto was kneeling on the floor at the other end, elbows on the platform, gazing adoringly at her.  At the end, she came to him and they kissed, and I felt there was real tenderness on both their parts - an emotion which that bastard Don G never felt towards anyone.

As well as carrying off wearing red PVC trousers, Ross McInroy as Masetto deserves praise for singing his first aria with impeccable diction AND in Estuary English complete with glottal stops.  And he carried on singing as Leporello lifted him up by the waist to carry him off.

(Zerlina managed her glottal stops as well: "Beat me, beat me, dear Mas'tto.)

Eru and I could have poked Don Ottavio with a walking stick, had we one to hand.  He did not sing Il mio tesoro in Act 2, which given he had a very distinctive tenor was a pity.

Elvira sang Mi tradi in Act 2 and I noticed she took her bow after Donna Anna, making her more the prima donna.  Anna was heavily pregnant, which I learnt later was not so much a production concept as her off stage condition.  Maybe that effects her top notes, which eru had pointed out to me in the interval before I persuaded him to share some modest refreshment.

I am sorry if I dulled his considerable critical faculties.

No sooner asked than supplied, Madam.  Here is Donna Elvira.  She made her first entrance walking the cat walk as a model, with Don G and Leporello crouching either side of the walkway.

And here are Donna Anna and Don Ottavio (his transparent vest over his tie is not clear here.  I thought it was even more odd than his Rupert Bear trousers.  But then poor old Ottavio never has a chance in the sex appeal department, despite two of the loveliest tenor arias in Mozart.)

No!! This was the grapes (I had the apples later, courtesy of mounsieur tinners).


So transparent that I missed it.

But you noticed the PVC trousers?  I found the vest quite distracting, except when he was singing Dalla sua pace.

The staging of the damnation was incredibly simple but telling.  I noticed at the curtain call, that the Commendatore has white powder on his face, but it didn't register during the scene. Don G was carried off to hell on the shoulders of four extras, including a stalwart board member.