Komische Oper Berlin, season 2024/2025
“DON GIOVANNI/REQUIEM”
Dramma giocoso in two acts, libretto by Lorenzo Da Ponte
Music by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Don Giovanni HUBERT ZAPIÓR
Leporello TOMMASO BAREA
Donna Anna ADELA ZAHARIA
Don Ottavio/Tenor AGUSTÍN GÓMEZ
Don Elviro BRUNO DE SÁ
Zerlina/Soprano PENNY SOFRONIADOU
Masetto PHILIPP MEIERHÖFER
Commendatore/Bass TIJL FAVEYTS
Young woman/Contralto VIRGINIE VERREZ
The soul of the Commendatore NORBERT STÖß
The soul of Don Giovanni FERNANDO SUELS MENDOZA
Chorsolisten & Orchester der Komischen Oper Berlin
Conductor James Gaffigan
Chorus master David Cavelius
Choreography Evgeny Kulagin
Director, stage and costumes Kirill Serebrennikov
Co-stage design Olga Pavlyuk
Co-costume design Tatiana Dolmatovskaya
Light Olaf Freese, Johannes Scherfling
Video Ilya Shagalov
Berlin, 27th April 2025
I admit that the unusual casting of Bruno de Sá as Don Elviro was the main reason why I went to see the new production of Don Giovanni by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart at the Komische Oper Berlin. Musically, it was a successful evening whose length of almost four hours came close to Wagner. This was also due to the fact that James Gaffigan initially had the orchestra of the Komische Oper Berlin play somewhat broadly and brittlely. Later it became more dynamic, picking up speed so that the young singers could excel with their fresh voices. Hubert Zapiór as Don Giovanni and Tommaso Barea as Leporello look like brothers, so that the change of clothes in Act 2 is perfectly believable. At the same time, their baritone voices are different, Zapiór’s is brighter and softer, Barea’s more distinctive and darker, a charming contrast. Zapiór masters both the fast-paced Fin ch’han dal vino and the serenade Deh, vieni alla finestra, while the seductiveness of Là ci darem la mano does not materialise, presumably because the scene takes place between the intensive care patient Giovanni and the heavily pregnant nurse Zerlina. The young singer still has enough stamina for the tour de force of the finale. Barea is in no way inferior to him, does a great job with Madamina, il catalogo è questo, is extremely present in the ensembles and his attractive looks leave little doubt that he occasionally stands in for Don Giovanni in the affairs. Adela Zaharia is a glamorous Donna Anna; already experienced at the MET, she sings Or sai chi l’onore accordingly, but in Non mi dir at the latest, she is in top stylistic form. Her fiancé Don Ottavio, who is sung quite well by Agustín Gómez, remains in her shadow. Unfortunately, his original aria Il mio tesoro, one of the most beautiful that Mozart wrote, was cancelled. Instead, he is allowed to take on the tenor part in the movements of the Requiem that Mozart still had on paper. They replace the usual five-minute Giovanni finale, making the evening half an hour longer. The conductor justifies this with the shared sombre D minor sound world of the two works, which I think is a bit of a stretch. Penny Sofroniadou takes over the soprano part in the Requiem with her beautiful lyric soprano, after having sung a self-confident Zerlina, heavily pregnant in the first Act. Tijl Faveyts leaves a stronger impression in the bass solo than as Commendatore, which he sings dressed in a strangely Far Eastern way, while the actor Norbert Stöß plays him as his soul, reciting somewhat soullessly from the Tibetan Book of the Dead. Virginie Verrez sings the contralto solo in the Requiem rather inconspicuously, after she was allowed to mime a young woman in Giovanni. Philipp Meierhöfer as Masetto scores with Ho capito! Signor, sì in the first act. The Chorsolisten der Komischen Oper Berlin, rehearsed by David Cavelius, really come into their own in the Requiem, a beautifully homogeneous performance! As mentioned at the beginning: a world first, or should I say: welcome to our new world of diversity? A man, Don Elviro, sings Donna Elvira. Bruno de Sá is the first and only superstar in the newly invented field of the male soprano; after all, the Brazilian does not want to be confused with countertenors. His voice, trained and accustomed to baroque music, is childlike and delicate, almost fragile even for Mozart and may take some getting used to in the large auditorium. I had to completely forget the voices of my favourites Leontyne Price, Ilva Ligabue and Teresa Żylis-Gara, which I managed to do surprisingly well. It probably speaks in favour of Gaffigan’s skilful conducting, because de Sá would do well not to allow himself to be tempted to force: the timbre of the voice is too delicate and valuable! The conductor gives Mi tradì quell’alma ingrata the right tempo to show off de Sá’s voice to its best advantage after a cultivated entrance with Ah, chi mi dice mai and an attacking Ah, fuggi il traditor! The metamorphosis into Don Elviro is still the most successful trick of Kirill Serebrennikov’s production, interpreted as an expression of Don Giovanni’s polyamourous tendencies. What the hyped director, set and costume designer brings to the stage with the support of his large staff is actually three things: the theatre performance of a modern play, accompanied by Mozart’s Don Giovanni and a Pina Pausch-style ballet to the music of the Requiem. The director tells the story from behind, which is common nowadays: the overture accompanies a funeral in which the lovers of the dead Don Giovanni mourn at the coffin. The use of the Tibetan Book of the Dead (Bardo Thodol) to set the scenes of the play as a bardo between life and death is actually ingenious, but is garnished with a confetti shower of original and entertaining ideas that simply overwhelms the audience and invites them to put together their own individual interpretation. Today’s Regietheater, which began twenty years ago with provocative but stringently thought-out productions by Calixto Bieito at the Komische Oper Berlin (Die Entführung aus dem Serail, Madama Butterfly), has thus reached an absurd low point. The director knows his craft, but often wants too much, for example when he thinks that the audience might get bored listening to an aria and that there should therefore be a subplot on the other half of the stage. It becomes extremely ambiguous when a banner claims that the tenor aria Il mio tesoro has been cancelled due to the austerity measures of the Berlin cultural senate. What does a single aria cost compared to a lavish new production by an overrated director with a bloated staff of co-assistants? Photo Frol Podlesnyi