Rating: 
Summary: a cold, dark production
Review: Karajan seems to have cast a cold, unemotional spell over the performers and had the assistance of costumers and set designers in their using blue and black as virtually the only colors under bright white light I also found, as does another reviewer, that the technical recording has unpleasant distortions in the high registers of the sopranos. The Met production with the Ramey is far better and more human
Rating:
Summary: This is Karajan, not Mozart
Review: Like in almost every other recording of HvKarajan during the 80's, what we have here is not even a glimpse of what the composer originally intended, but the gigantic ego of the director instead.I can really say that in this case it is a great shame, since the singers are all great and I think they could not have been better. Specially Samuel Ramey and Ferrucio Furlanetto. Kathleen Battle is also a lovely Zerlina. However, in spite of the singers, I would only recommend this opera if you like to think of opera as a series of "separate" arias or pieces (which seems to me is what the other reviewers like). Because this is exactly what Karajan does here. The opera is never remotely fluid, seeming to drag on forever, and full of Karajan's mannerisms. In fact, if you turn it off at the middle of an act and return to it later, you'll find there's no problem, nothing is lost, because there was never anything to begin with! Believe me, there are better versions available, even if the singers are not as good as here. But then again, if you're one of the people who likes Karajan's egocentrical recordings during the 80's, or if you think of opera as separate pieces which don't necessarily have to be connected to the rest, then you might like this one. You might like it very much in fact.
Rating: 
Summary: Mostly Fantastic.. with a couple exceptions.
Review: Mozart's darkest opera in a mostly-masterful performance. Don Giovanni, Leporello (my personal favorite), Zerlina, Maseto, and even Donna Elvira are wonderful. However, Donna Anna is ill-chosen for the part; she is an incompetent actress (or acts like one in this production), her primary fault being an utter lack of any sincerity-- and that goes for her singing as well, which lacks any apparent emotion. The audience is unconvinced. However, Don Ottavio is worse. I have always been under the impression that opera is a stage performance, and that it is possible to act and sing at the same time. Don Ottavio's only evident means of expression is varied degrees of eyebrow furrowing (he doesn't even smile when he takes his bow at the end, so it is this author's opinion that he may have botox or something around the rest of his face and mouth, although he is not prevented from opening his mouth loud enough to sing). That said, the rest of the cast is extremely well chosen and performs beautifully-- Donna Elvira is occasionally a little over-the-top, but as a stock character she probably should be. The costumes and scenery are amazing in detail; their basic dark palate is fitting for the dark opera but highlighted by incredible lighting and details of other colors. Watch for connections being made between characters by their costumes. As for the music, it's Mozart-- what can one begin to say? Gorgeous. Bravo!
Rating: 
Summary: Hoggamus Higgamus
Review: Oh my. This is my first DVD and my favorite production of "Don Giovanni." I have a video of the same 1987 Salzburg Festival production, taped from the TV but the technical quality of the DVD is an order of magnitude better. I can see a mute at the Commendatore's funeral who I never noticed before--most of the scenery looks like it was built out of black marble and he just blended right into a wall in the video version. I can also now see some of the singers sneaking peeks at the prompter, especially Ferruccio Furlanetto (Leporello) as he catalogues his master's 2,065 conquests in 'Madamina.'
The role of Donna Anna is sung by the Bulgarian soprano, Anna Tomowa-Sintow. Her association with the Salzburg Festival and Maestro Karajan has been long and fruitful. In the years from 1973 to 1991 she was a permanent guest at the Salzburg Festivals and was one of Karajan's favorite singers. You'll know why when you listen to this DVD. Tomowa's soprano is big but never out-of-control, and it rings like fine crystal in spite of its size and the heavy demands of Mozart's music. She acts the role of the rape (or near-rape) victim whose father was killed by her attacker, with the glassy, thousand-yard stare of a trauma survivor (very glassy--after watching the DVD, I wondered whether she was wearing contact lenses for the first time). The basso buffo role of Don Giovanni's servant, Leporello fits Italian bass Ferruccio Furlanetto as closely as a pair of his master's discarded unmentionables. He is by turn angrily aware of his inferior position (a sort of embryonic Figaro), slavishly obedient (suspiciously so), lecherous, or primly lecturing his master, for whom he seems to harbor a real fondness. I understand that Furlanetto and Ramey alternated the roles of master and servant, but I have trouble imagining the former as a Giovanni. He's such a perfect Leporello. According to Peter Conrad, Don Giovanni is an archetype, not entirely human, and the singer must display his own personality while inhabiting the role. If so, Sam Ramey is a pantherish, mercurial, but ultimately friendly lover. When the festivities in the ballroom are in full swing and he drags Zerlina off to ravish her, it's as though he were only teasing. What he really means to do is dunk her in the fountain or throw her slipper over the wall. Ruggero Raimondi was a joyless, scowling satyr in Joseph Losey's movie of the opera. Most of the dons I've seen on stage at the Michigan Opera Theatre were ribald Errol Flynn types who mounted a servant girl or two just before the Stone Guest rumbled onto them (Dang it, the Don is supposed to be eating dinner in this scene, not rutting like a boar, although we know he does that, too!). However Ramey's Giovanni is elegant, beautifully sung, and somehow very American. The thankless role of Don Ottavio is sung by the Swedish tenor Gösta Winbergh, who studied structural engineering and played in a rock band, before pursuing his operatic career. I was sorry to hear of his unexpected death last year, because he is the perfect foil for the slightly hysterical Donna Anna of this performance--noble, kind, and stodgy. He propels his fiancé around the stage as though she were a sleepwalker. Julia Varady sings a thoroughly intelligent, elegant Donna Elvira who is desperately in love with the Don, even when she sings about killing him. I've heard this character described as an hysteric and have seen her played as a slut, but Varady's performance is light years beyond either of these characterizations. She is a real, anguished woman. Swiss bass-baritone, Alexander Malta is a dignified Masetto (I hate to see him played as a clownish simpleton) who seems older than his new bride and cynical about her motives for hanging around with the Don. Malta is a big teddy bear of a guy and you wonder how Zerlina could ever have been tempted by the false glamour of her aristocratic would-be seducer. Kathleen Battle's lyric soprano voice and her beautiful stage presence made me wonder if her character (Zerlina) were marrying beneath herself. She seemed slightly self-conscious (and over-dressed) to be playing the role of a peasant. The Don is dead-on about her in their initial scene together. Karajan's tempi were somewhat funereal, especially in the overture, but overall this is a world-class performance by the old maestro, fully worthy of being conducted in the city of Mozart. P.S. Raimondi's Don is out on DVD, too, but I'd buy this one first.
Rating: 
Summary: technical review
Review: Others who are more knowledgable than I have reviewed the content of this disk and I agree with them for the most part. Let me address the technical issues. First the picture is mediocre at best. This is a video source from several years back and it shows. Things get lost in the blacks and the picture is very soft. Second, the surround tracks are very disorienting with the voices occasionally issuing from the rear speakers for no reason that i can determine. I would love to see these companies start putting out disks that at least SOMEWHAT live up to the capabilities of the format.
Rating:
Summary: And Ramey *is* Don Giovanni
Review: Ramey is utterly convincing as the Don in this production!
Rating:
Summary: Il dissoluto punito, by Herr von Karajan
Review: Some faults on this DVD: you need to change the sides at the end of each act; it doesn't comes with a booklet about the production (only advertisings - Karajan, Sony, etc.); the picture quality is sometimes a little dark, with low definition, and the sound is only good. Otherwise, is a very good "Don Giovanni" to have.
Von Karajan's conducting may be controversial: in some parts, like in the recitativo before "Mi tradi quel'alma ingrata", is very slow. But this is a question of taste: in these times of "authentic fast tempi", some more "relaxed" conducting may be good for tired ears. And in moments that requires fast tempi, they are there, like in the supper.
And we have outstanding singers here: the very "macho" Don of Ramey is almost perfect. He can be a seductor with the ladies, a sadic "padrone"to Leporello, and a men full of fear in his final appointment with the Commendatore (the great bass Burchuladze). The role of Leporello is in charge of Ferrucio Furlanetto - good voice, very good acting. Windbergh is Ottavio: his voice can be excessively "lyric" for this role (more a Ferrando than an Ottavio), but he sounds good at all. Malta seems a little old for a Masetto, but sings well. The ladies are all very nice: a great Anna in Tomowa-Sintow, a outstanding Elvira in Varady (the portrait of a insane woman), a charming Zerlina in Battle.
The orchestra is the Wiener Philharmoniker - that's enough to say. The scenarios are sometimes very dark, but not necessarily unclear.
If you love this opera, this is a good choice: a very good cast (there are not a single bad or misscasted singer here); a good conducting (here, von Karajan is controversial in some tempi, but a master in orchestral balance and texture); outstanding orchestra and chorus; at last, a terrific statue scene.
Good picture and sound quality. And a nice price.
Rating:
Summary: Elderly females
Review: The main impression I come away from this performance with is one of elderly females attempting to play young characters. Julia Varaday looks as if she were in her late sixties, and Anna Tomowa-Sintow, her late seventies.
Kathleen Battle doesn't look so old, but she has pitch problems.
Even Samuel Ramey sounds much older than the Don should be.
Rating:
Summary: Wonderful performance, wonderful voices
Review: The only thing I did not like about it is the dark costumes and dark sets. I like Grand Opera to be Grand not sublte. I like the interpretation of the last Act the best.
Rating:
Summary: His Majesty Herbert Von Karajan!
Review: This DVD (or VHS) is outstanding and gives you an idea, how profound, superb and professional maestro Karajan is. This performane is taped in 80th, but still, the power and magic of my favourite conductor can be clearly seen. He is demanding, he is precise and unbelievable. First of all he is responsible for the staging of this "Don Giovanni" and one can see that the staging is superb. Nothing has espaced through Karajan's attention, every single detail is so correct. And watch to the scene when commendatore comes to Don Giovanni's house, the idea of taking Don Giovanni with him to the stars is new (we all know that Don Giovanni is going to burn in the hell, so he is not supposed to go up to the sky, he must go down to the hell), but really breathtaking, I wish I attended this performance live to see how it looks in the opera-house.
What about performers? They are outstanding. Samuel Ramey is splendid, perfect Don Giovanni, Furlanetto is terrific Leporello and of course Paata Burchuladze's voice is so great, I saw him singing Leporello, he was unbelievable, here he sings Commendatore and he is really great.
This is must have "Don Giovanni", you can not find "Don Giovanni" of the same level.
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