STUMP » Articles » Opera not-a-nugget: the whole Don (and a little bit of Luca) » 8 August 2014, 10:22

In a prior post, I linked to a video of my favorite moment in Don Giovanni, when the Don is dragged to hell by the statue of the Commendatore.

Well, I found this great resource of live (and recorded) classical music performances, medici.tv, and got to watch via live streaming video the Salzburg Festival’s production of Don Giovanni. Now you can watch it, for free, on-demand.

It’s got one of my favorite barihunks in the production: Luca Pisaroni plays the Don’s servant Leporello.

Warnings: Don Giovanni is not a “family-friendly” opera to begin with, given that it starts out with a rape and a murder. And then the Don seducing a woman right as she’s going to get married. Then there is the catalog aria (from a different production)….but given that a completely naked woman, save a mask, shows up during the overture, you’ve been warned. (Note: most productions don’t have naked ladies. This one doesn’t have a huge number of them, either, but the point is: it’s a little racy.)

I had seen him in a different production of Don Giovanni with Luca Pisaroni as Leporello, and I think he does even better in this one (also, they figured out how to make him a little less hot… the problem with the Met production of Don Giovanni with Luca was that even grunged up a bit, he was still more hot and masculine than the lead. You can’t have Leporello hotter than the Don. That just won’t do.)

Anyway, here is Luca doing the Catalog Aria in a modern way: (checking the phone, as opposed to unscrolling a list on parchment)

…but in Spain, there are a thousand and three….

hmmmm.