I have never anticipated a production of any Mozart opera as much as I did this one – except once. It was the first time I saw it in Prague, where it premiered in the same theater with Mozart conducting. Actually it wasn’t very good, but that conductor’s hands could have been Mozart’s.  This time, Mozart’s most magnificent creation has fallen into the loving hands of Iván Fischer, and from everything I had heard about its first appearance at the Mostly Mozart Festival in 2011, I knew that it would be unforgettable. And so it is.

Fischer chooses the seldom performed Prague version of the opera --the version as Mozart conceived it before the changes for the Vienna staging.  We lose “Mi tradi” and also “Dalla sua pace” but we get the final sextet that reveals how life goes on after the Don is removed from it. Fischer views the Prague version as “a dramaturgical masterpiece.” And he’s very keen that we understand the dramatic and musical advantages of mounting this opera as a staged concert. In his program note he writes of “complete harmony and coordination between music and theater.” He speaks of the danger of competing visions of conductors and stage directors with singers trapped in between them. There is no issue with that here as Fischer both conducts and directs.

His radically simple set, designed by Edit Zeke  with lighting by Andrew Hill, consists of just two black boxes, one on either side of the stage. Zeke also designed the costumes. Donna Elvira wears a red evening dress; Donna Anna a long black ensemble; Zerlina is in white befitting a bride.  Giovanni, Leporello, Masetto, Ottavio, and the Commendatore (when first seen)  are in street clothes. What startles is the appearance of the other members of the company. These are young men and women made up to resemble marble sculpture with pasty grey/white skin and classical costumes for the women. They first appear as Greco-Roman statues standing impossibly still on the two black boxes. Subsequently, they assume remarkably diversified roles – dancers, chorus, extras (the women are very effectively used in Leporello’s catalogue aria), and even tables, benches, and a window frame. In a lovely touch, they metamorphose into horse and carriage to transport Zerlina to her wedding. Fischer has said that these human statues depict Don Giovanni’s world – which is a world of bodies. But as they are also denizens from the world of the stone guest the Commendatore becomes in Act 2, they connote the omnipresence of death on this Don Giovanni’s last day on earth.

In his choice of radical simplicity and stylization Fischer creates the immediacy of theater. The characters interact with each other, not with the audience. They sing to each other and not to us. There are few ovations and the scene changes are fast and fluid as the statues merely need to change position. In his program note Fischer describes Mozart’s music as “extremely theatrical and express[ing] every detail of the characters, the story and the subtext.” For three and a half hours they live as Mozart created them in his score.

Every aspect of the musical performance is perfectly judged.  All too often the overture is performed as if the conductor has a train to catch. Rushing does not convey excitement, energy, or dynamism; it’s just rushing. Under Fischer’s baton, his orchestra plays with just the right tempi – brisk when called for but never hurried. The music has drive and energy. And it also has great transparency, revealing every detail of the musical texture. We hear the shifts in harmony and changing instrumental colors. The trombones in the death scene always jolt but never as much as here.  The podium is high enough so that we can see Fischer’s hands drawing out his musicians, pointing at a singer. He is almost like a pianist and the orchestra his instrument.

The singers are not performing as stars – except possibly Maltman. His gruff baritone is a good fit for his characterization of Don Giovanni as a charmless sociopath, always plotting and scheming but utterly joyless. Laura Akin as Donna Anna has a velvety voice with lovely floating high notes. She is a marvelous actress, making Anna much more than an opera seria relic. Lucy Crowe as Elvira is outstanding vocally and also a convincing actress. Her Elvira is not, as she is in some productions, a stalking hysteric but a conflicted and confused woman who evokes sympathy. Zoltán Megyesi sings a beautiful "Il mio tesoro," Ottavio's only aria in the Prague version. José Fardilha as Leporello plays up the buffo aspect of his character. He has superb comic instincts and a fine deep baritone.  He plays off Maltman’s arrogance very well. Sylvia Schwartz makes a lovely lyrical Zerlina, creating a character who is innocent and demure yet clearly dominant in her interactions with Matteo Peirone’s fine Masetto. He is much older than Zerlina but they fit well together as a lovable and loving couple. Kristinn Sigmundsson,  as the Commendatore ,is excellent in his act one incarnation as Anna’s elderly father, leaning heavily on his cane, and in act two as the deliverer of society’s – or God’s – judgment on Don Giovanni.

And it is that final reckoning for Don Giovanni that produces the most stunning image of the evening. The Commendatore and his marble associates form a pyramid of interlocking bodies with extended arms. Their hands grasp Don Giovanni and render him dead as well. The classical poses of act one are no more. Whether it was Fischer’s intention or not, I have no idea but the shattering image reminds me of Michelangelo’s Florentine Pieta,  with its pyramidal shape, giant figure of Nicodemus at the top, and overlapping limbs. In this image Fischer, squarely in the realm of the metaphysical, gives us the Last Judgment of scoundrel so evil that Mozart cannot even forgive him. That said, Fischer and his wonderful musicians ensure that the final measures of the score, solely for the orchestra, cannot be overlooked:  Don Giovanni’s defiant cry “Viva la libertà.”  Indeed.