The two most famous operas of Mozart are about cruel, lecherous aristocrats.  The Marriage of Figaro and Don Giovanni came out just before the fall of the Bastille.  Each was therefore tricky.  But the aristocrats laughed their heads off, and then they literally lost them. 

The latter opera is my favourite.  The drama is high and sustained, and embodied in the music, while peppered with great songs.  In a note published in 2015, I said:

Don Giovanni, which was first produced in 1787, is altogether different.  The hero is a serial seducer and abuser of power, a totally amoral person, whose real evil is that he remains a source of fascination even to his victims.  He starts with an attempted rape and a cold-blooded murder, and he never looks back or shows any regret.  He does not repent and he literally goes to blazes before our eyes.  That end was stated in the first chord of the opera, which one learned critic called ‘the most magically evocative chord in the history of music…’.

When Tchaikovsky got his hands on the score of Don Giovanni, he said that he was in the presence of God.  Flaubert said that God had made three things – the sea, Hamlet, and Don Giovanni.  You would have to have balls or a lot of Brownie points to say something like that.  No wonder that poor old Salieri just went crackers.

The Gramophone magazine gave a very good review to a recent production.  I now have it on DVD.  It comes from the Royal Opera at Versailles.  Their title caught my eye.  The last royals at Versailles went out the hard way.  But having now seen and heard the show. I can say I enjoyed it as much as any show I have seen on the stage.

The orchestra and setting are baroque – which is as it should be for this work.  The cast is what may be called ‘ensemble’, but led unerringly by the lead (Robert Gleadow).  He packs a real engine room, and that leering laugh bounces right off the back wall.  The show, and the music, proceed at a tight clip, again as it should, and is worth seeing for the costumes and choreography alone.  It does lag a little in the second act, and the finale , the arrival of the stone guest, is not as crushing as I have seen, but the show as a whole is just stunning.  (The set comes with full sleeve notes and libretto.)

Above all, from go to woe – literally – it is a celebration of the roots of opera in Commedia d’ell arte.  This was the popular theatre that evolved in Europe in the 16^th century.  ‘Strolling players’ put on shows for the people involving stock characters , like Harlequin and Columbine, in masks , with plenty of ad lib.  (Some who are old may compare In Melbourne Tonight, or World of Sport.) 

A well-known theme was that of the oppressed servant – like Leporello, or Figaro.  The comedies of Shakespeare are shot through with references to this art form – and it was as much a form of art as the tragedies of Aeschylus.  And we get it here from the start with costumes, masques, and a prosthetic nose on the Commendatore.  That is the main reason that I found this show so engrossing.

In Figaro, the Countess is a tragic figure.  There is nothing like that here.  Donna Anna takes it all out on poor Don Ottavio (who gets two of the best hits of the show); Donna Elvira is accident prone; and Zerlina chances her arm in her caste role.  Between them, they show the misery of both chastity and celibacy.  (Mozart was a devout Catholic and a devoted Mason.)  Leporello is indispensable as the comic link.  Masetto is a kind of Figaro. 

Some ponder whether this opera is comic.  The answer is that you don’t put genius in boxes.  The greatness of the show is its vivacious mood shifts – like in Casablanca and The Third Man.

But we are left with the same question as we are with Falstaff and Richard III.  What on earth are we laughing at?  Anthony Quayle said Falstaff was ‘frankly vicious’.  Don Giovanni is candidly cruel, a force of evil on the stage that calls to mind the Satanic Rothbart from Swan Lake.  Putting Trump to one side, it is hard to imagine a more repellent villain.  Indeed, by the end, when Don Giovanni holds fast, he resembles Rasputin in this mighty production – and God knows he took some killing.

All this comes with the score of a genius, one that drove Tchaikovsky to God – and Tchaikovsky knew all about making great shows from old art forms.

The French have been up and down since 1789, but when they decide to do a big number, as they did with The Hunchback of Notre Dame at the Bastille opera some years back, they are all style.  For the avoidance of doubt, this is a rave review.  Miss it at your peril.