There's no doubting the good intentions of Welsh National Opera's new production of Don Giovanni. But fixing on Rodin's The Gates of Hell as the central design inspiration and making the Don an Allen Jones-style sculpture-collector when he's not chasing women doesn't extend much beyond the initial visual impact. It's a long time before the Don is engulfed by the smoke billowing from the portals' inferno. In between, there's a lot of feeling round in the dark, and a lot of shunting walls, doors, balconies and the sexy figures posing as tables.
Director John Caird and designer John Napier may have had fun, but the comic element is less buffo – David Soar's Leporello is quite staid – than laughable: Don Giovanni's opening foray into Donna Anna's bedroom is more chocolate advert than sinister, while the omnipresent demons are a cross between masonic sentinels and Darth Vader.
Conducted by Lothar Koenigs, Mozart's music goes most of the way to redeeming matters, the singing not far enough. Curiously, the quartet cast from the summer's dismal Cosi Fan Tutte reverse their form here: Camilla Roberts's Donna Anna and Gary Griffiths's Masetto are much better; Claire Ormshaw's Zerlina is weaker, as is Robin Tritschler's Ottavio. Like the clarity of Carlo Malinverno's chilling Commendatore, Nuccia Focile's native Italian makes Elvira's recitatives the sparkiest, but the histrionics get in the way of the arias. David Kempster's Don, moustached like an 18th-century Lord Lucan, has some of the vocal swagger but doesn't steal the show as he might.
