Don Giovanni
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

Set design........Rifail Ajdarpasic
Costume design........Christof Cremer
Light design........Thomas Maerker
Choreography........Tom Baert
Conductor........Marc Piollet

première: 6 September 2008, Wiesbaden, Germany
company: Hessisches Staatstheater

Reviews

Tattoo
In Carlos Wagner's new production of Mozart's "Dramma giocoso" at the State Opera of Wiesbaden there is no doubt, right from the start, that Donna Ana knows very well whom she let herself in with. She is not victim but perpetrator, when she allows the slaying of her Father who arrives at an untimely moment, and later urges the killing of the murderer. The role of the avenger that is usually assigned to Donna Ana is delegated to the also notoriously conciliatory Donna Elvira. The betrayed bride rides onstage on a real horse, seems to be ready for anything, mustering shotgun and cartridge belt. There is no lack of such wittily playful details. At the masked ball, for example, the two ladies dress up as cleaning women, Don Ottavio as gardener. Seemingly casual, these pranks possess a deeper meaning. Nobility wants to hunt down the host through a temporary fraternization with the people. The concerted mission is doomed from the start, since he only registers the populace as more female material. Mozart's sublime art of apparently unobtrusively anticipating future events , finds several such congenial parallels in this seemingly effortless staging. The music undergoes an exact appreciation.  In the case of Donna Anna with convincing shifts of focus, in the case of Don Ottavio Mozart wins.
Jud Perry can act as refined and sensitive as he likes, giving a tenors sensual mellifluousness to the soul of a husband in the waiting room: the lover stays caught in a melodic-harmonic net, which denies him the necessary energy to act. Also the punky Masetto, threatened of losing his bride to Don Giovanni, rages in vain, and the serfdom of factotum Leporello becomes palpable: the notorious catalogue of the conquests of his master has been tattooed into his skin. The main role is exclusive powerhouse, and comes off in this function in a peculiar way. Notwithstanding the strong vocal and scenic presence, Don Giovanni stays ungraspable as a person. He is the driving force, and therefore the final ride to hell is confiscated. The Commendatore challenges the lady-killer to a game of  Russian roulette. Giovanni spins the revolver magazine und pulls the trigger without consequence, spins and pulls the trigger, again and again, until the curtain drops.

Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung

Don Giovanni entices Wiesbaden
--- the production proves to be totally successful. CW keeps a constant watchful eye on his characters and guides them unerringly through the opera, without ever allowing for unclear or inactive moments. Flowing scene changes fit excellently into the outline of the musical framework, even if this means sometimes leaving a character on stage even if his scenic presence is no longer required. Wagner's staging leaves an agreeably timeless impression, without forced contemporary or historical allusions. Particularly poignant is the clash of two worlds, when nobility meets the people impersonated by Masetto, Zerlina and their clique.

Rheinzeitung

Whippersnapper in the gangland - Carlos Wagner opens the season at Wiesbaden State Opera with an intelligently staged DG
The angel of death is omnipresent, however no one can see him.
Still Don Giovanni's crime, which he commits at the beginning of the opera, stands ominously above everything that happens later. In the Wiesbaden State Opera the first opening night of the season was intelligently, sensitively, seductively and straightforwardly staged by director Carlos Wagner.
From the beginning it is clear that he knows what to do with the story and the characters. There are no tired moments, no unintentional ruptures, and most of all, no slack scenic moments. The transitions flow, it works flawlessly when he keeps characters onstage even though their scene is over.
The director lets the rich whippersnapper meet a gang of hooligans, from which he picks the seemingly willing Zerlina, and where he finds in Masetto a proletarian and therefore unworthy opponent. The thunderous Ball of the first act becomes a schematic disco entertainment, in which the high-class society seems appropriately displaced.
For the whole opera Rifail Ajdarpasic and Ariane Isabell Unfried have created an agreeable stony single set. Thomas J Mayer bursts with self-confidence and egomania in Don Giovanni's skin.

Frankfurter Neue Presse

Mixed response of first-night-audience to Carlos Wagner's Don Giovanni
Death, Mozart writes in a letter to his father dated 1787, is the ultimate purpose of life, and man's best friend. One is reminded of this when the Commendatore haunts the stage as an angel of death in Carlos Wagner's new production of DG for the Wiesbaden State Opera. Less a spooky ghost, than a relentless memento mori with large wings.

Don Giovanni too defies death. He, who in Carlos Wagner's staging in no way stabs Donna Anna's father in cold blood, but rather accidentally wounds him mortally in a wrestling match, virtually shows himself as an existential hero at the end, who affirms his freedom in refusing repentance - even if it means the freedom to choose death. The stone guest doesn't therefore force Don Giovanni with an icy hand into hell, but rather hands the gambler who usually specializes on playing with women, a revolver for his last game: Russian Roulette. The following moralizing end-scene is cut in Mahler tradition.
A strong image full of tension stands at the end of a production who's opening reception was nonetheless disputed amongst the audience. Carlos Wagner has to "pocket" a few boo's, whereas the conductor Marc Piollet, the precisely accentuated orchestra and the outstanding cast are unanimously celebrated.

Wiesbadener Kurier