Salzburg Festival

A great orgy of images against Mozart’s operatic lust

Not even Don Giovanni manages so many Salzburg women: Davide Luciano surrounded by extras

(Bild: Monika Rittershaus, Salzburger Festspiele)

Mozart's opera of all operas was revived at the Salzburg Festival in Romeo Castellucci's visually stunning production: Maestro Currentzis surprises with slowness in this first staged opera performance of the summer.

While Jedermann collects his works in front of the cathedral, Romeo Castellucci has Don Giovanni clear everything divine from his wide-screen church in the Festspielhaus. Christ is allowed to leave, and instead of love, the devil Eros moves in in the form of Mozart's libertine. The Festival has fished its 2021 production out of the pool.

Theater star Castellucci once again fills his gleaming white cathedral of lust with things and animals in a subtly revised version: A car floats down from the laced floor, a piano crashes out of the stage sky, the billy goat runs through the picture again and Ottavio leads his royal poodle Äußerln.

Don Giovanni fights with the Commendatore

(Bild: Monika Rittershaus, Salzburger Festspiele)

Zerlina has to give Giovanni her whole body in the "Give me your hand" duet - for a little bondage game. Elvira is all mom with two little Giovannis in her luggage.Donna Anna stands stoically in the scenery, which soon seems to dissolve between the white whale curtains, fog and gauze curtains. Until the women in flesh-colored negligees waft like sea anemones, sucking the lust for life out of Don Giovanni. But he disappears in the journey to hell anyway, smearing himself with white paint as he twitches on the floor, virtually dissolving in his hell of lust.

Give me your hand, my life?

(Bild: Monika Rittershaus, Salzburger Festspiele)

This can be understood as an ingenious storm of associations, or merely as a vain, puzzled orgy of images between mannerism and kitsch. In any case, Castellucci's interpretative power thins out considerably in the course of the first act. This is where the much-vaunted musical potency of Teodor Currentzis in the orchestra pit would be needed. This time, however, he was reluctant to be the driving force. He drags Mozart's hero to his doom at the podium of the Utopia Orchestra, whose sound is highly inconspicuous, with little tension and a cruelly lengthy performance.

All in white: Don Giovanni's journey to hell

(Bild: Monika Rittershaus, Salzburger Festspiele)

Not an easy task for the singers, although Davide Luciano as Giovanni is once again the virile powerhouse. Kyle Ketelsen's Leporello has to line up behind him as a devoted servant. Julian Prégardien's Ottavio puts up a noble fight until he has to make a fool of himself in "Il mio tesoro" with absurd ornamentation as a narrow-gauge tit.

Anna El-Khashem warbles Zerlina in a cute way, while Federica Lombardi overloads her Elvira with over-pressure. Nadeszhda Pavlovas creeps into your ears as Donna Anna with polished tones and turns her final aria into a grotesque bel canto number. Anything is possible under Currentzis, as the devoted cheers prove.

Herbert Blomstedt conducting the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra

(Bild: Salzburger Festspiele © Marco Borrelli)

Moving moments with Herbert Blomstedt 
The day before, Mendelssohn's "Lobgesang" and Brahms' "Schicksalslied" exuded true greatness. The 97-year-old Herbert Blomstedt, together with the magnificent Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra and the wonderful Vienna Singverein, provided a deeply moving hour of consecration.