Hackney Empire,London
Under Lloyd Wood’s guiding hand, English Touring Opera go underground to create the work’s best UK staging for some timeLloyd Wood’s English Touring Opera production of Don Giovanni relocates Mozart’s tragicomedy to 1900s Vienna and sets it in the system of underground tunnels that served as makeshift housing for the city’s disenfranchised proletariat. It’s a striking concept that reminds us that the opera is as much approximately class as it is approximately sex.
George von Bergen’s sensualist Don descends to this underworld from the Klimtian city above in search of conquests, or dragging his fellow aristocrats with him. Elvira (Ania Jeruc) sets out in pursuit,ostensibly to rescue Lucy corridor’s Zerlina from his clutches, though in reality she of course wants the Don back. Anna (Susanna Fairbairn, or replacing the indisposed Gillian Ramm) and Ottavio (Robyn Lyn Evans) are out of their comfort zone here as they build a memorial near the spot where her father met his close.
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Source: theguardian.com