Chamber Orchestra's "Don Giovanni" Mesmerizes

The Cincicnnati Chamber Orchestra's "Don Giovanni" is so immediate and intimate you can see the steel in the Commendatore's eyes as he challenges the incredulous Don to repent for the destruction his liberta has wrought in the lives of others.
   Indeed so drawn into the action was the audience in Patricia Corbett Theater at the University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music Saturday night (June 20) that they became the virtual world in which Mozart and librettist Lorenzo da Ponte's morality play took place.  Entrances and exits were made along the aisles of the theater, and the organ loft beside the stage served as the entrance to Don Giovanni's castle and Donna Elvira's balcony in Seville.  Norwegian bass Gustav Andreassen's stentorian voice issuing from the top of the hall penetrated more than Giovanni and Leporello's sensibilities as the Commendatore's statue accepted Giovanni's flip invitation to dinner. 
   You could feel the singers' immersion in the music as energy flowed between them and CCO music director Mischa Santora.  The 36-piece orchestra occupied a third of the stage, positioned on the left with the action transpiring in front and to the right of them.  Santora led with large gestures and razor sharp focus, keeping the ensemble as precise as one could wish, considering that there was rarely direct eye contact between him and the singers.
   It was a tip-top cast of young singing actors, many of them CCM graduates, headed by Crider, an artist diploma alumnus who sang Giovanni for CCM Opera in 2006.  With his reptilian leather shoes, fringed neck scarf and dark cowboy shirt, he was a menace on two feet as he barked commands at Leporello and whispered sweet nothings into the ears of his female victims.
   Jason Hardy as Leporello was the conflicted, comedic everyman who despises the cruel master upon whom he depends, wielding his hefty bass with remarkable flexibility.  Soprano Melody Moore's spinto voice transmitted the stricken Donna Anna's grief powerfully as she rued her disgrace by Don Giovanni and her father's murder.  Lush-voiced soprano Megan Monaghan was both an eyeful and an earful as Donna Elvira, the one woman Giovanni cannot shed since she actually loves him. (Both Moore and Monaghan are CCM graduates.)
   Soprano Angela Mannino displayed a girlish voice and kittenish spirit as the peasant girl Zerlina with whom Giovanni dabbles unsuccessfully.  Baritone Jonathan Lasch, a splendid Falstaff at CCM last month, radiated both strength and wry wit as the flighty Zerlina's intended groom.  The sole tenor in the cast, Steven Sanders, handled the ungrateful role of Don Ottavio, Donna Anna's cuckolded fiance, with grace and a flexible, pewter-edged voice.
   As Santora and the CCO have repeatedly demonstrated, concert opera can be as mesmerizing as the fully staged variety.  The concept for Saturday's "Giovanni," second and final concert of the CCO's "Spanish Legends" mini-series and conclusion of its 2008-09, 35th anniversary season, was Santora's and it worked beautifully.  Characters carried cell phones, including Leporello, who delivered his aria cataloguing the Don's hundreds of conquests by reference to his phone, lending it to Donna Elvira for confirmation.
   Costumes spoke a lot, Leporello in punkish black leather, Donna Elvira in a purple strapless gown with pearl necklace and earrings, Donna Anna in sober black and Zerlina in pedal pushers and peasant blouse.  The Spanish touches in Crider's outfit gave it just enough of a Spanish look ("Don Giovanni" is set in and around Seville).  
   The evening sped by, so engrossing was the drama.  And yet Mozart's brilliant music remained paramount.  There were highlights too numerous to mention.  Among them:  Donna Anna's punishingly high "Or sai chi l'onore," in which she swears vengeance after recognizing Giovanni on the street.  Giovanni's "champagne aria" ("Fin ch'han dal vino"), sung at a clip by Crider, who dashed onstage with Leporello preceded by evil laughter.  Zerlina's aria "Batti, batti," in which she reassures Masetto than nothing amiss has happened with Giovanni.  Any scene in which Hardy appeared, so vivid was his characterization of the trapped Leporello.  This was never so hilarious (and poignant) as when he exchanged jackets with Crider for a mimed serenade of Donna Elvira sung by a concealed Giovanni so that he can attempt to seduce her maid servant.
  Tenor Sanders delivered a powerful "Il mio tesoro," Don Ottavio's moment to assert himself in the face of Giovanni's testosterone-fueled rampages.  And even the CCO got into the stage action -- or was it the other way around -- when Hardy ogled double bassist Deborah Taylor in the first act.
   Stagecraft itself became a potent element in the final scene where Donna Elvira tries to save the Don from himself (unsuccessfully) and the Commendatore makes his promised visit.  A spotlight projected Andreassen's shadow onto the surtitle board -- a large one positioned just above and behind the orchestra -- as he gave Giovanni his last chance to repent.
   With Hardy crouching terror-stricken to one side, Crider pranced his defiance and accepted the Commendatore's fatal handshake.  Red lighting flooded the right-most exit from the stage, a chorus of demons (men of the Vocal Arts Ensemble) appeared at the top of the aisle, and Mozart's doom-laden music swept Giovanni into the flames of Hell.
   With all remaining tickets priced at $10, today's repeat -- at 2 p.m. in PCT -- is a bargain it would be unforgivable to reject.  Be there or else.  Cincinnati Opera artistic director Evans Mirageas will give pre-concert remarks at 1 p.m.