Don Giovanni at the Met

By Peter Clark

When the Metropolitan Opera first opened its doors in 1883, only one opera by Mozart was included in the repertory: Don Giovanni. At the time, the work was generally regarded as the composer’s masterpiece, with critical esteem reflected in a contemporary New York Times review that elaborated, “The production of this opera is highly creditable to the management as an evidence of a desire to offer to the public something unusual and worthy of their deepest respect and admiration.” The two most popular prima donnas in that first season appeared in the premiere cast—Christine Nilsson as Donna Elvira and Marcella Sembrich as Zerlina—with Giuseppe Kaschmann as the titular scoundrel (pictured below).

Don Giovanni returned in the Met’s second season, this time in German. In 1889, the company’s reigning Brünnhilde, Lilli Lehmann, sang the role of Donna Anna in German and repeated her much-admired portrayal of the demanding part in the 1891–92 season, this time in Italian. The New York Times reviewer not only showered praise on Lehmann but frankly dubbed Don Giovanni “the greatest opera ever written.”

A decade after its opening season, the Met finally began to widen its repertory of Mozart works when it performed Le Nozze di Figaro in 1894. Die Zauberflöte (in Italian) followed in 1910, Così fan tutte in 1922, and Die Entführung aus dem Serail (in English) in 1946. His Idomeneo and La Clemenza di Tito had to wait until the 1980s to be heard at the Met, and his remaining 15 or so musical-dramatic works, mostly juvenilia, have not yet been produced.

The 150th anniversary of the composer’s birth was celebrated in 1906 with a new production of Don Giovanni featuring Italian baritone Antonio Scotti in the title role. Yet more significant was the 1908 revival conducted by Gustav Mahler, who brought authenticity by dividing the opera into two acts, as Mozart intended, instead of four acts as previous tradition had developed. Mahler also played the recitatives himself at a modified piano “that gave a somewhat exaggerated imitation of the tone of the harpsichord” (The New York Times).

Don Giovanni was absent from the Met repertory between 1908 and 1929, when it returned to the company’s stage in a new production designed by the Art Deco architect Joseph Urban. Tullio Serafin conducted, and Ezio Pinza (pictured above) sang the title role, one of his most famous portrayals and one that he would continue to interpret until his final Met performance in 1948. Other notable portrayals in the starry 1929 casts included Beniamino Gigli as Ottavio, Elisabeth Rethberg as Elvira, and Rosa Ponselle as Anna (although she was ill for the premiere but returned mid-season to great acclaim).

In the 1940s, Bruno Walter, widely renowned as a Mozart conductor, fled Nazi persecutions in Europe and led Don Giovanni at the Met to an enthusiastic response described by a World-Telegram writer as “a cheering, stamping, and generally wild audience.”

Another eminent refugee conductor, Fritz Reiner, led Don Giovanni in the early 1950s, including the surprise debut performance of 20-year-old soprano Roberta Peters (November 17, 1950) and the initial portrayals of the title role by Italian bass Cesare Siepi (November 26, 1952). Both Peters and Siepi (pictured below) would go on to sing their respective roles more than anyone in Met history, with Peters performing her Zerlina 61 times and Siepi his Giovanni 91 times.

By the 1950s, the old Urban production had become quite worn. An attempt to revise it adding new elements to the existing set in 1953–54 was widely disparaged, so an all-new staging opened in 1957–58 (pictured below) under the baton of the highly experienced Austrian conductor Karl Böhm with sets by designer Eugene Berman and stage direction by Herbert Graf. Critical reception bordered on the ecstatic. “Those who rate an opera house in terms of its Mozart—and what more demanding standard is there?—will have to assign the Metropolitan very close to the top of the list when it is doing its new Don Giovanni,” wrote Irving Kolodin in Saturday Review. The “finest cast in two decades” included Siepi as Giovanni and Peters as Zerlina, Eleanor Steber as Anna, Lisa della Casa as Elvira, Cesare Valletti as Ottavio, and Fernando Corena as Leporello.

The production was equally admired and would last even longer than its predecessor, more than 30 years. In that time, many famous singers cycled through the casts of its frequent revivals. Among others were George London, Sherrill Milnes, and Ruggero Raimondi as Giovanni; Leontyne Price and Joan Sutherland (pictured below) as Anna; Elisabeth Schwarzkopf and Kiri Te Kanawa as Elvira; and Nicolai Gedda and George Shirley as Ottavio. In 1978, Don Giovanni was telecast for the first time by the Met, with Richard Bonynge conducting, James Morris in the title role and Sutherland as Anna—the performance is available for streaming on Met Opera on Demand.

Franco Zeffirelli directed and designed the sets for a new production in 1990 (a set design from that staging is pictured below). James Levine conducted a cast that featured Samuel Ramey in the title role, with Carol Vaness as Anna, Karita Mattila (in her Met debut) as Elvira, Dawn Upshaw as Zerlina, Jerry Hadley as Ottavio, and Ferruccio Furlanetto as Leporello. The Zeffirelli production was twice telecast, first in 1990 and then in 2000, with Bryn Terfel in the title role and Renée Fleming in her first run of Donna Anna at the Met. Both performances are available to enjoy on Met Opera on Demand. The 2002 revival featured Russian baritone Dmitri Hvorostovsky in his Met role debut as Giovanni.

Levine conducted another new production of Don Giovanni in 2004, this one by Swiss actress Marthe Keller with sets by Michael Yeargan and starring Thomas Hampson in the title role. Russian bass Ildar Abdrazakov, who made his Met debut as Masetto in the production premiere, would go on to sing the title role in 2012.

Theatrical director Michael Grandage created a new production in 2011 (pictured below) with designer Christopher Oram. Fabio Luisi conducted and, for the first time since Mahler, played the recitatives himself from the harpsichord (but this time from a real one). The title role was taken by Swedish baritone Peter Mattei, who had first portrayed Don Giovanni at the Met in 2003, and who again interprets the role in the 2023 new production.

The Grandage production was featured in a Live in HD transmission into movie theatres worldwide in 2011, with Mariusz Kwiecien in the title role, and again in 2016, with Simon Keenlyside as Don Giovanni. Both performances are available for streaming on the Met on Demand.

Tony Award–winning director Ivo van Hove makes his Met debut with the 2023 new production (pictured above), which is conducted by Nathalie Stutzmann, also in her first performances with the debut. Three other members of the creative team make their debuts—set and lighting designer Jan Versweyveld, costume designer An D’Huys, and projection designer Christopher Ash—alongside choreographer Sara Erde. In addition to Mattei as Giovanni, the cast includes Federica Lombardi as Anna, Ana María Martínez as Elvira, Ying Fang as Zerlina, Ben Bliss as Ottavio, and Adam Plachetka as Leporello.

Pictured at top from left: James Melton as Don Ottavio, Zinka Milanov as Donna Anna, Bidú Sayao as Zerlina, Jarmila Novotna as Donna Elvira, Ezio Pinza as Don Giovanni, and Salvatore Baccaloni as Leporello 

Peter Clark is the Met’s Consultant Historian.