‘Don Giovanni’--as Perplexing as Ever

Perhaps it’s because Mozart and his librettist, Lorenzo da Ponte, presented us with such an incomparably complex set of characters in their “Don Giovanni” that it has become the property of conductors, the place where every baton twirler of consequence has sought to make a statement rather than to make music.

Riccardo Muti, who leads the Vienna Philharmonic in the latest recorded “Don Giovanni” (Angel/EMI Classics 54255, three CDs), seems unconcerned with such trivia as character delineation or motivation. He is more interested in projecting his curious notion of style, which translates into speed and the application (inconsistent, at best) of vocal appoggiaturas.

If the singers have trouble keeping pace with Muti’s supercharged baton, that’s their problem, he would seem to be saying. But it is then also Mozart’s, Da Ponte’s and, of course, ours.

The blistering pace and angry, razor-edge inflections for the jolly entrance of the rustics in Act I, Scene 3, is an extreme example of the Muti method, but here at least the singers keep pace. What he does to the Don’s Champagne Aria or Elvira’s “Mi tradi” is contrary both to musico-dramatic logic and the abilities of human vocal cords.

Britisher William Shimell seems a Don of the elegantly subtle-sinister school, rather in the vein of Thomas Allen, Bernard Haitink’s Don--also on Angel/EMI, and to be heard both in the Music Center Opera’s upcoming production and in yet another soon-to-be-released recording, conducted by Neville Marriner.

One gets the feeling that Shimell would be capable of projecting a strong characterization if Muti weren’t always at his back, pushing, pushing, pushing.

The conductor is kinder to Samuel Ramey, usually cast as Don Giovanni but here a lush-voiced, rather too orotund Leporello, and Frank Lopardo, a tight-voiced Don Ottavio nonetheless effective in employing the appoggiatura as an expressive, rather than merely decorative, device.

A strange thing happens to Carol Vaness, Haitink’s regally venomous Donna Anna, in switching here to the putatively sympathetic Donna Elvira. With Muti, she sounds even more like Anna, and desperately in need of tranquilizing. Luckily Cheryl Studer, the present, dramatically compelling Donna Anna, is a singer who can take anything a conductor dishes out and emerge with both voice and dignity intact.

Muti’s “Don Giovanni” misfires because of conductorial hubris and single-mindedness. Arnold Ostman’s fails for seeming lack of interest (L’Oiseau-Lyre 425 943, three CDs).

Sluggishly leading the thin-toned period instrument players of Sweden’s Drottningholm Court Theatre, Ostman employs the Prague Urtext --which is to say that Mozart’s final thoughts are ignored--and banishes all variants and Vienna additions to a separate CD.

As the titular sex machine, Hakan Hagegard, who is capable of better things, lacks charm, charisma and menace while refusing to produce anything beyond a mezzo-forte. One suspects that this Don Giovanni employs surrogate lechers to fill Leporello’s catalogue.

There is nothing to engage our attention in Nico van der Meel’s choirboy Ottavio, while Arleen Auger seemingly finds Donna Anna’s antics distasteful and Mozart’s writing beyond her present vocal estate.

Gilles Cachemaille is, however, a worldly, rich-voiced Leporello and Barbara Bonney a quicksilver Zerlina. But Della Jones--the only singer in the cast of this “authentic” presentation consistently interested in applying ornaments--is, alas, vocally wobbly.

It is refreshing after these clunkers to turn to the handsomely remastered 1966 recording in which Otto Klemperer leads the New Philharmonia Orchestra (EMI 63841, three CDs, mid-price).

Unlike his lumpish “Figaro” and “Cosi fan Tutte,” Klemperer, while hardly a speed demon here either, paces the action with suitable rhythmic lift. This is “Don Giovanni” as music drama.

Nicolai Ghiaurov is splendidly virile in the title role, his lusty interpretation coupled to singing of power and grace. And rarely has Don Ottavio seemed more an integral part of the drama than in Nicolai Gedda’s manly, strongly sung portrayal.

Walter Berry is a knowing, determined and genuinely funny Leporello, and there are strong contributions from Mirella Freni, a feisty Zerlina, and a tender Elvira from Christa Ludwig, although her downward transposition of “Mi tradi” is regrettable. Every recorded “Don Giovanni” has its weak link, and here it’s Claire Watson, whose noncommittal portrayal of Donna Anna is disappointing.

In all, however, Klemperer and associates score as high as any competing team, which is to say their effort ranks beside those led by Carlo Maria Giulini (Angel/EMI again, but at full-price) and Josef Krips (London, mid-price).