Music Christopher Alden, an elderly enfant terrible among operatic iconoclasts, always toys with brilliant inventions. Some of them relate to the work at hand.
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| Stefania Dovhan as Donna Anna |
According to a blurb, Alden’s concept “explores the intersection of dark eroticism and strict Spanish-Catholic tradition in the early 20th century”. Translation: liberated from the narrative confines of 16th-century mock-Seville, angst-ridden characters can grope, stalk, stroke, stagger, pose, strip, mate and roll on the floor, like zombies on acid.
There is much skin on view (masculine). The Commendatore comes to dinner in a coffin, eventually ceded to Don Giovanni for his descent to hell. Donna Anna usurps the florid half of “Non mi dir” for a mad scene. Leporello, an Adonis who could pass for his master’s twin, juggles dinner rolls and balances a chair on his head (Alden loves chairs, also shoes).
The innovations, never dull, make theatrical sense on their own. Too bad they often trample the wit, elegance, grace and, yes, the profundity of Mozart’s music.
The music, not incidentally, was projected with crude ardour by the conductor, Gary Thor Wedow, some stylish embellishments notwithstanding. Daniel Okulitch looked suave and sounded tough in the title role. Jason Hardy matched him lustily as Leporello. Gregory Turay made Ottavio prim and raspy. Stefania Dovhan introduced a rather wild Anna and Keri Alkema a rather strained Elvira, with Joélle Harvey sweet against all odds as Zerlina. Brian Kontes grumbled darkly as the casketed Commendatore, while Kelly Markgraf did what he could as a statuesque Masetto.
Incidental intelligence: experienced from an aisle seat downstairs, the unamplified sound in the renovated David H. Koch Theater (formerly New York State Theater) boomed with almost unnatural reverberance. And the orchestra-level seat turned out to be more commodious than one in the First Ring. 
