You gotta have a lotta nerve to write an opera based on the Don Juan legend, given that it makes comparisons with one of the most famous and best operas ever written unavoidable. But I can tell you why it happened: it's because the libretto here is a play by Pushkin. If there's one thing I know about Russians, it's that they like composing operas based on Pushkin material. It couldn't have been avoided.
Like Borodin's Prince Igorand Mussorgsky's Khovanshchina, this was completed after the composer's death by Rimsky-Korsakov. Don't you think there's something a little suspicious about all this posthumous opera-completion? Am I saying that he was in the habit of bumping off composers so he could have his way with their unfinished works? Well...I'm not not saying that. It's just something to keep in mind.
Yes well so. It's not exactly fair to compare this to Don Giovanni,but at least for the non-Russians among us, it's pretty inevitable that the whole thing will come across as a distorted, fun-house-mirror version thereof. There are plenty of similarities: there's a Leporello, a Donna Anna, and a Commendatore who wreaks his vengeance (though here, he's Donna Anna's husband instead of her father--no Don Ottavio is in evidence). It's kind of interesting to see, really, but...I dunno. I think the differences between the story here and in Mozart are kind of universally for the worse. Take--just as one example--the climax, which, in Don Giovanni, is probably the single most dramatic moment in opera. And part of what gives it so much power is that, even after everything, he's still given multiple opportunities to repent before it's too late. But there's nothing like that here; the statue just takes him by the hand and HUUUUGH! DEAD! And it's not even clear here whether he "deserves" this death, or whether he's supposed, in fact, to have been shown to be redeemed by love for Donna Anna, which is kind of glurgh compared to the other version. OH WELL.
The music: there are a fewpretty good dramatic crescendos, but...I mean, in general it's nothing to get that excited about. Almost the entirety of the singing is recitative, which gets a bit monotonous and, I think, precludes dramatic possibilities. Apparently this was considered to have had a strong influence on Russian opera, but as an amateur, I don't really see it. If you want to see it outside of Russia, you're pretty much limited to this,a 1979 recording from the Bolshoi Theatre that I think was produced for Soviet television. As such, the video quality isn't brilliant, but I think it's fine. Plenty good enough to give you the idea. I'd say the same thing about the cast, honestly (that probably sounds meaner than I intended it). But really, Vladimir Atlantov is, you know, fine in the title role, but he certainly doesn't project much in the way of power or menace. Well, that might be down to the opera itself as much as the singer. As I say, IT'S FINE. It's just...probably more of academic than popular interest.
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