Levine leads triumphant `Giovanni'

July 24, 2006|Richard Dyer, Globe Staff

LENOX -- Mozart's ``Don Giovanni" kept 7,649 people up past their bedtime Saturday night at Tanglewood. The magnificent performance by James Levine, the Boston Symphony Orchestra, and a prestigious international cast ended just before midnight. Most of the audience was still there at the close to experience the damnation of the Don, and remained long afterward to cheer the performers.

There were two late changes of cast. Luca Pisaroni , who came in to sing Don Giovanni's servant Leporello , proved a major discovery. The Italian bass is young, tall , and handsome, thereby dispelling many of the tiresome cliches that surround this role. His voice is light, but his singing was lithe, witty, responsive , and imaginative; Leporello became an alter ego for Don Giovanni. Tamar Iveri was fiery as Donna Anna, the aristocratic lady who starts off a very bad day for Don Giovanni -- the last day of his life. The soprano from the republic of Georgia has a gleaming, focused voice that created excitement as it cleaved the air in the vengeance aria. She was skating on thin ice in the second aria, but she managed the spins and turns cautiously. Her pluck earned her a big hand.

Finnish soprano Soile Isokoski is probably unmatched as Donna Elvira today -- her dark, lovely timbre has haunted me since her BSO debut in the Faure Requiem a dozen years ago. She sings with sophisticated elegance and made the abandoned woman who won't give up both amusing and touching. Soprano Heidi Grant Murphy's delicate voice cannot communicate Zerlina's peasant earthiness and country smarts, but she sang with exquisite sweetness.

Patrick Carfizzi offered a sturdy baritone and strong basic feelings as Zerlina's intended, and bass Morris Robinson , once a Boston University football player, poured out steady, burly tone as the Commendatore whose statue drags Don Giovanni off to hell. Tenor Matthew Polenzani was less wimpy than most Don Ottavios, and sang his first aria with mellifluous tone and elegant line, graced with stylish ornamentation; it won one of the biggest ovations of the evening.

There's a big buzz about charismatic Mariusz Kwiecien , who took the title role. He's in his early 30s, looks like Matthew McConaughey , and sings in a honeyed baritone propelled by musical and theatrical intelligence. But the talented Pole is not yet a Don Giovanni -- he's more a cuddly scamp than a daredevil; so far, he lacks edge and danger, and sometimes pushes his voice awfully hard.