MUSIC : A Trimmed ‘Don Giovanni’ Opens Tonight

Is Mozart’s “Don Giovanni” a comedy or a tragedy? The composer and his librettist Lorenzo da Ponte hedged, describing the work--which opens today at the Orange County Performing Arts Center--as a “ dramma giocoso “ or “jocular drama.”

In Opera Pacific’s new staging of the work, the company’s forces have tipped the scales toward tragedy by ending the opera with the death of Giovanni instead of concluding with the final sextet in which the surviving characters tie up loose ends in the plot and point up the moral of the opera: that libertines die alone and suffer eternal punishment.

“Almost everybody knows the happy end,” conductor Klaus Donath said in a recent interview. “We now present the sad end. That way everybody can check what he feels: Do they like the death of Giovanni or like the happy end more?”

“ ‘To be or not to be?’ ” he added with a laugh.

More seriously, Donath cites historical precedence for dropping the final scene.

“When Mozart conducted his last performances of ‘Don Giovanni’ in Vienna in 1788--he died in 1791--he cut that scene,” he said.

“Later in 1791, after his death, they opened it again. But he himself conducted many performance in Vienna after the premiere in Prague, and he cut it. I don’t know why he dropped it. But I like it very much. I like the dramatic thing.”

Donath will attempt to adhere to certain period practices, specifically the chamber-size orchestra of 22 members.

“I don’t like Mozart too heavy, even ‘Giovanni,’ ” he said. “Too often you hear strings, strings, strings. But where are the woodwinds? Mozart wrote very rich wind parts. But they’re really lost (in larger ensembles).”

He also will favor speedy tempos because “I don’t like to bore the people.”

“I try to go as fast as I can--but not too fast,” he said.

Ironically, when it comes to the custom of Mozart’s day calling for singers to embellish their lines, Donath is quick to turn his back on tradition.

“I don’t like it so much,” he said. “It softens very much the music. For me, the music is very dramatic.”

Better known in this country as a pianist who accompanies his wife, soprano Helen Donath, Klaus Donath is making his U.S. debut as a conductor with Opera Pacific’s “Don Giovanni.” He estimates that his conducting now occupies roughly 30% of his activities.

Donath said that getting the dynamic levels correct is a big challenge in the score.

“Mozart writes very often ‘fortepiano’ (loud then suddenly soft),” he said. “That’s very important and difficult for the orchestra to realize. Very often they play forte and stay on the forte. . . . And also crescendos: Very often they are too early in forte and then ruin the voices.”

Although he feels that American singers are “much better than German singers,” he says that singers who approach Mozart “have no style sometimes.

“They have wonderful voices but don’t do anything with the voices. They don’t know how to phrase. They sing every note, and that is all. (Of course) they have to sing every note, but they should sing each note always in a different way.”

In that respect, Donath said that he is not certain he can get what he wants because rehearsal time with the orchestra and singers is limited.

“We have only one rehearsal on stage, then the dress rehearsal, where there is even an audience, then the performance,” he said.

“When you practice with the orchestra, there is always a lot to do. . . . You can always work. Even now I could work (with the singers, too), but it’s too much for them, too. . . .

“Maybe the most complicated thing is that the music is not like Puccini where you can always change tempo a little bit without anyone noticing it,” he said.

“When you see that the singer goes a little bit faster, you go with the orchestra and they change immediately. But you have Mozart, . . . if it’s too slow and you go faster, it could be ruined. It has to be clear from the beginning. It’s very difficult to change. With Puccini you can do it. With Mozart, everybody notices it.”

Klaus Donath will conduct Opera Pacific’s new production of Mozart’s “Don Giovanni” at 8 p.m. today, Friday, March 1 and 3 at the Orange County Performing Arts Center, 600 Town Center Drive, in Costa Mesa. The cast includes Stephen West as the Don, Renee Fleming as Donna Elvira, Susan Patterson as Donna Anna, Bruce Ford as Don Ottavio, Michael Gallup as Leporello, Maryanne Telese as Zerlina, and Kevin Short as Masetto. Staging is by John Pascoe. Tickets: $20 to $50. Information: (714) 979-7000.