Mozart - Don Giovanni / James Conlon, Opernhaus Köln

Rating:
Summary: Keep far away from this one
Review: The sound quality on this DVD is simply atrocious. Having bought a number of excellent opera and classical DVDs in the past from this label, Arthaus Musik (including Marriage of Figaro and Mahler's 5th Symphony), I thought this would be another DVD produced in high-quality sound. I could not have been more wrong. The audio track is patchy and muffled throughout, and it even skips in a couple of key spots. It is incredibly aggravating to listen to if you like to listen to the music closely.

This performance from the early 1990s is actually quite good -- James Conlon conducts with verve, Carol Vaness (here in her prime) sings Donna Elvira brilliantly, and Thomas Allen is still a commanding Don Giovanni (though he looks and sounds noticeably older here than he did in the La Scala performance conducted by Riccardo Muti, also available on DVD). Unfortunately, the truly horrible sound destroys any enjoyment one might derive from this performance. Buyer beware.

Rating:
Summary: Awkward death scene
Review: Unfortunately, I just can't share my colleague reviewers'general enthusiasm for this Don Giovanni DVD. It appears to combine live segments (that is, with an audience present) with what I take to be patch-ups (standard practice, no qualms about that) and even so, something very odd happens in the last-but-one scene, when the statue shows up for dinner. Something must have gone very awry during the performance that altogether prevented the using of whatever was filmed for this scene and thus a very clumsily made patch-up is inserted, devoid of decor and with very crude "effects", as if filmed much later, when decor & costumes were no longer available to the producers and money usage had been stretched to the limit, as if in a last-minute effort to salvage the project. When the statue enters, all stage decor disappears and Thomas Allen acts and sings in front of a white cloth which apperas to go to hell with him, as once he's gone we're immediately transported back to the theatre for Leporello's recounting to all the characters that burst in then. This is unacceptable, and in any case ought to be stated in the package.