Mozart: Don Giovanni - Salzburg Festival (2014) [Blu-ray]

The first D minor chords thunder ominously from the orchestra pit, while on the stage, the entrance hall of an elegant hotel appears, symbolic of a place of non-committal encounters. Luxury seeps from every pore of the stairs, galleries and mysterious doors - the perfect place for Don Giovanni’s exercises in seduction

Director Sven-Eric Bechtolf pulls off a brilliant coup with the high aesthetics of his intrigue, a masterful parody of the “everything is possible” of our time - flanked by an ensemble of exquisite vocal talents.

Ildebrando D’Arcangelo, testosterone-charged Latin lover, amounts “with his splendid timbre and his stunningly virile magnetism to what must be an ideal realization of Don Giovanni” (Neue Zürcher Zeitung). With his finely balanced voice, Luca Pisaroni as an intellectually bespectacled Leporello. “The powerful bass of Commendatore Tomasz Konieczny is a true sensation” (Frankfurter Rundschau). The female roles are all realized with elegantly lean voices: Anett Fritsch highly dramatic as Elvira, the Donna Anna of Lenneke Ruitens supple in her vocal line and Valentina Naforniţa “a wonderful Zerlina who radiates strong vocal sensuality” (Opernnetz).