Only the title character appears to be prospering: With his manservant, Leporello, on hand to assist with the particulars, the Don is free to pursue his insatiable quest to seduce every woman he meets.Īs Act I begins, the wreckage he's already left in his wake - and the production's allusions to modern-day sexual predators - are everywhere. (All three productions were conceived by Cavanagh and designed by Erhard Rom.)īut where the 'Figaro' house was an 18th century model of stately elegance, and 'Cosi' was situated in a 1930s seaside resort, Saturday's opening unfolded on a crumbling ruin about to go up in flames (lighting by Jane Cox) - a place, a few anguished aristocrats aside, that's peopled by a ragged troupe of townspeople in a mix-and-match array of rustic grubbies and steampunk garb (Constance Hoffman designed the costumes). The third in the company's multiyear Mozart trilogy that began with 'The Marriage of Figaro' in 2019 and continued with 'Cosi fan tutte' in 2021, 'Don Giovanni,' like those earlier productions, is set in and around a great manor house.

Under the direction of Michael Cavanagh, Mozart's opera returned to the War Memorial Opera House Saturday night in a dramatic staging that mines the darkness at the center of one of the composer's most enduring works - and suggests the ways that one man's despicable deeds can corrupt an entire society.

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