MUSIC REVIEW : Prince Stages ‘Giovanni’ in N.Y.

Harold Prince is a canny, inventive, stylish director. Anyone who has seen “Phantom of the Opera,” not to mention “Sweeney Todd” or “Pacific Overtures,” knows that.

He didn’t win 16 Tony Awards for nothing. Moreover, his work in the opera house--”Ashmedai” in New York, “La Fanciulla del West” in Chicago, “Turandot” in Vienna--has proven that he is more than a Broadway baby.

So what went so achingly wrong with the “Don Giovanni” he just produced for the New York City Opera?

Did he confront this incredibly complex challenge without the right budget, the right cast, the right designer and the right conductor?

Seems that way.

Did he lack sufficient time to translate his ideas from abstraction to practicality?

Probably.

Did he come to the project without the benefit of any really interesting ideas?

If he entertained any interesting ideas, they weren’t apparent at the State Theater, Lincoln Center, on Wednesday. It was a very long, very grim, very dull night at the opera.

One wouldn’t have minded quite so much if the traffic cop had been just another hack, some tired veteran of too many foreign lyrical wars. One has grown accustomed, alas, to opera by rote and direction by number. One has learned to contend with performances populated by singing robots, rituals dispatched on automatic pilot.

One encounters this sort of trial all the time, even in companies more glamorous and more prestigious than the City Opera. Still, one had a right to expect more from Prince.

The problem wasn’t that he chose merely to concentrate on traditional values. Novelty for its own sake can be just as dreary as blind operatic faith. The problem was more basic and more vexing: The director listened to Mozart’s glorious music, looked at Da Ponte’s multifaceted libretto, and reverted to lazy cliches.

For the setting, Prince and his designer, Rolf Langenfass, chose a rearrangeable, eminently prosaic network of all-purpose pedestals and stylized trees on a relentlessly dark stage. For some picturesque but illogical reason, the memorial statue of the Commendatore haunted the scene even before the nobleman was slain.

The decors created no illusion. Often as not, they reinforced the wrong atmosphere. At least they facilitated quick scene changes.

Langenfass’ costumes, a far cry from his “Ring” rags at the Met, moved the playing time to the early 18th Century. The reason for the modest updating remained obscure. The stubborn program, incidentally, placed the inaction in “the middle of the 17th Century.”

Within the drab visual milieu that he favored, Prince toyed efficiently with stereotypes. The would-be rake pretended dutifully to be dashing. His lowly sidekick mustered old buffo tricks. The women struck basic prima-donna poses, either comic/passionate (Elvira), heroic/tragic (Anna) or cute-cute-cute (Zerlina).

For Don Giovanni’s ultimate descent to hell, Prince could think of nothing more pertinent than red lights and smoke. Such quaint diversionary tactics gave banality a bad name 50 years ago.

The pallid drama might not have seemed quite so distressing if strong expressive impulses had emanated from the pit. Unfortunately, Sergiu Comissiona’s brisk baton-waving encouraged little passion, no elegance and hardly a trace of musicological enlightenment.

Left essentially to their own dubious devices, most of the singers resorted to screaming and scurrying for impact. It didn’t help.

Elizabeth Holleque was the strident Donna Anna, counterbalanced by Frances Ginsberg’s astringent Elvira. Erie Mills literally squeaked her way through Zerlina’s soubrette rhetoric.

In the crucial title role, John Cheek merely looked pleasant and sounded pleasant. Forget about charisma.

Jan Opalach complemented him as a competent Leporello whose basso proved insufficiently profondo. Nikita Storojev, formerly with the Bolshoi, introduced a loud and unsteady Commendatore. Jon Garrison lacked the technique to capitalize on his tasteful intentions as Ottavio. Dean Peterson mustered a stock Masetto.

Meanwhile, 40 miles and several worlds away in Purchase, N.Y., Peter Sellars enlivened the tenth and last PepsiCo Summerfare with a very different, very provocative “Don Giovanni” of his own. It wasn’t boring.

The verismo plot--only vaguely familiar--unfolded in bleakest Harlem. The anti-hero became a street punk, Anna a dope addict and Ottavio a narc. There was much agony, no ecstasy, endless grime, matching gore, even a little nudity. The score, however, was reproduced with fastidious period authenticity.

Read all about it on Sunday.