The 2023 video recording of Mozart’s Don Giovanni recorded at L’Opéra Royal de Versailles features a significant chunk of Canadian content. The Opera Atelier team of Marshall Pynkoski and Jeannette Lajeunesse Zingg are the director and choreographer, and Robert Gleadow sings the title role with Florie Valiquette as Donna Anna.

So, probably the first question many people will ask is “Is this (just) an Opera Atelier production transplanted to Versailles?” The answer is “Not really.” There are definitely OA-like features. The overall production concept is rooted in Pynkoski’s long-held and frequently expressed view that the work should be seen through the lens of the commedia dell’arte, so it’s fairly light, with no attempt to present the Don as some kind of monster. The formality of much of the choreography will also seem familiar, and there are prancing servants in skin-tight tights.

That said, the rest of the designs are not very OA at all. There are no painted flats – it’s a solid 3D set. The costumes, by Christian Lacroix no less, are not particularly period appropriate. Stylistically, they seem to range from a fantasy 16th century to an equally fantastic 18th and are cut from fabrics that could not have seen the light of day before the 20th century. Add to that the fact that all of the dancers (and they are excellent) are in pointe shoes and the acting style, while allowing of a few baroque gestures, is fairly naturalistic, the production gives an overall effect that’s more Zeffirelli than Opera Atelier.

There’s nothing gimmicky in the staging. The statue is a statue. Don Giovanni is engulfed in “flames” and dragged down to hell. The epilogue is sung at the audience from in front of the curtain. It’s the sort of straightforward/traditional take that will please a broad range of viewers, though not perhaps those hoping for new insights. This is not Martin Kušej or Claus Guth.

Robert Gleadow  (Don Giovanni) and Commendatore (Nicolas Certenai)

The performances are very good indeed. Gleadow is physically imposing, with a bushy black beard that looks like it escaped from a pirate movie. He sings extremely solidly and is clearly having fun, especially when there’s a female within reach. Riccardo Novaro’s Leporello is definitely in the “cheeky chappy” mode as one might expect. He is funny and he sings the catalogue aria rather well. Enguerrand de Hys is a really good Don Ottavio. He produces some wonderfully smooth tenor singing with very clean high notes. “Dalla sua pace” and “Il mio tesoro” are both very fine.

Both the donnas are excellent. Florie Valiquette sings Donna Anna and Arianna Vendittelli is Donna Elvira. They both sing their big arias stylishly and with feeling, and they both look extremely elegant. One might perhaps ask for more contrast between the two, since they are both sopranos of similar timbre, but, when they sing as well as they do here, that would be churlish. The rest of the cast – Jean-Gabriel Saint Martin as Masetto, Éléonore Pancrazi as Zerlina and Nicolas Certenais as the Commendatore – are all perfectly adequate.

The house orchestra is appropriately sized, about 40 players, but playing (I think) modern instruments. With Gaétan Jarry conducting at fairly conventional tempos everything sounds fine, but it tends to reinforce the sense of a performance from the 1980s rather than the 1780s.

And so to technical aspects. The publicity material had led me to expect a DVD with a Dolby 2.0 soundtrack which was a bit disturbing in 2024. In fact, it’s a dual format package. There is the aforesaid DVD, but there’s also a Blu-ray disk with what appears to be a PCM 2.0 24 bit soundtrack. The Blu-ray is fine – able to cope with the often dark scenes and video director Colin Laurent’s fondness for shooting from way back and high up. The sound is good, too. Based on a few minutes watching the DVD, I would be unable to recommend it. The picture is not great, and the sound has a weird boomy quality. Documentation includes a track listing, director’s notes and a full libretto in Italian, French, German and English!

All in all, I think this production and its translation to disk do what the company intended. There’s a sense in which it’s more spectacle than music drama but, after all, it is a product of Château de Versailles Spectacles.

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