Aix Festival, Aix-en-Provence, France

Call it the Belgian connection. When The Ring and the Berlin Philharmonic’s four-year residency ended last year, the 2010 edition of the Aix Festival looked destined to be an anti-climax. Instead, Bernard Foccroulle’s first real season got off to a scorching start with a thrillingly accomplished Don Giovanni that caught us off guard and generated a lively festival buzz.

Foccroulle’s style harks back to his stewardship at La Monnaie in Brussels and ultimately to the trail-blazing approach of his predecessor Gerard Mortier. This year’s two flagship productions, Dmitri Cherniakov’s Don Giovanni and Christof Loy’s Alceste, are typical of this opera-as-theatre approach. Cherniakov was introduced to France by Mortier when he was in charge of the Paris Opera, and Loy was a regular Foccroulle hire in Brussels.

Cherniakov warned the well-heeled Aix audience to “forget nice costumes and pleasant voices”. This was a red rag to a bull for festival regulars who like to think of Aix as an appellation contrôlée for pretty costumes and choice Mozartian warbling.

To be fair to the purists, Cherniakov, the newest enfant terrible on the block, hijacks the story, presenting Don Giovanni as Elvira’s husband, Zerlina as Donna Anna’s daughter and the Commendatore as the family patriarch.

Clearly influenced by films on dysfunctional dynasties such as Festen, the story is played out as a dance of death as Don Giovanni gradually self-destructs. This necessarily involves replacing the opera’s usual quicksilver pace with drop curtains announcing time shifts – “one week later” and so on – that initially grate. And the handsome single set means that other aspects of the plot tend to be shoehorned into the thesis. But the sheer coherence and acute sense of psychological observation of this approach make this a price well worth paying.

Crucially, Cherniakov’s anatomy of disintegration also keys into the libretto’s biting wit. Zerlina kicks off as a dead ringer for Bubbles, Edina’s airhead PA in Absolutely Fabulous, Don Ottavio awkwardly snogs macho Masetto, and the anti-Don clan collapse on the carpet when plans go awry in a hilarious tableau vivant of total desolation. To finish, the Commendatore’s return from beyond the grave is a masquerade.

Past his vocal best, Bo Skovhus still turns in a neurotically gripping performance as the Don. Marlis Petersen’s Anna and Kristine Opolais as Elvira are a trifle lightweight but perfect in this context. Kerstin Avemo’s Zerlina, on the other hand, needs more soubrettish piquancy in the voice and Colin Balzer’s stylishy sung Ottavio is too slender for the open air. The two performances everyone agrees on are Kyle Ketelsen’s robust, gum-chewing Leporello and Louis Langrée’s inspired conducting of the Freiburger Barockorchester. Langrée displays a broad palette of colours, gives tutti resonant body and never needs to rush the music to take our breath away.

The same orchestra sounds rather less nuanced in Ivor Bolton’s conducting of Gluck’s Alceste, which tends to motor into regimental gusto. The real interest is on stage, where Loy dresses the exemplary English Voices chorus in pre-war shorts for the boys and nursery dresses for the girls. The people are orphaned children, Alceste their matriarchal figurehead.

As usual with Loy, the Konzept is thought-provoking and rigorously engineered. It also comes to the rescue of Alceste’s anaemic dramatic framework. The snag is that these “children” look severely disturbed and autistic, giving proceedings a sinister feel that tends to belittle the august, central theme of self-sacrifice.

Véronique Gens’ Alceste nevertheless sets new standards for tragic intent, patrolling her space with dignity and singing nobly to the heart. Joseph Kaiser is an ardent Admetus and Andrew Schroeder gives his all as the High Priest, thrashing a child with a prayer book and eliciting loud protests from someone in the audience at Loy’s blatant anti-clericalism.

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