Don Giovanni

Published Friday 28 March 2008 at 12:30 by Edward Bhesania

Instead of being engulfed in flames and dragged down to hell by his Stone Guest, the titular serial seducer of English Touring Opera’s new Don Giovanni ends up in some subterranean limbo praying for forgiveness.

It’s actually a more fitting, less theatrical, comeuppance for the Don’s misdemeanours, and in Roland Wood we have a Don so cocksure of himself, so spiritedly dedicated to his life’s work, that you almost want to cheer as he defiantly refuses to repent to the Commendatore, in the climactic final supper scene.

If Wood’s voice is as strong and agile as his physical presence, his long-suffering servant Leporello, sung by Jonathan Gunthorpe, takes a short while to assert himself on stage - although the two share a strong rapport. Julia Sporsen’s Donna Anna slightly out-sings her Don Ottavio, sung by Eyjolfur Eyjolfsson, and Laura Parfitt makes for a feisty Donna Elvira, the vengeful, spurned lover from Burgos.

The updating to Franco’s postwar Seville is done relatively subtlety, mainly evidenced by a few handguns and by placing the Don in military uniform. Michael Rosewell directs a robust and tonally varied reading of the score, playing up the comic touches with flair and the dramatic moments with gothic immediacy. His orchestra is highly skilled and well prepared.

ETO does its fair share of outreach and community work, but through its main output - this spring it tours three varied productions across 15 venues - it is truly at the front line of converting new audiences to opera, and this it does with the highest ideals and the least air of stuffiness.