Don Giovanni has a picaresque plot in eight separate scenes. If the opera is entirely presented in a empty room the audience has no change of understanding what is going on. This is what we get from Australian Opera. The lack of a set suggests that it was designed, if that is not too kind a word to be presented at village halls throughout Australia. Perhaps it was. The graveyard scene is particularly silly with just a coffin in the middle of the stage and the Commendatore's ghost standing next to it. In the final banqueting scene the coffin has to double as the Don's table.
The singing is as undistinguished as the set. I personally find Teddy Tahu Rhodes' booming baritone quite unpleasant to listen to. Conal Coad and Rachelle Durkin are an elderly Leporello and Donna Elvira and both look and sound as if they should have been performing these roles 20 years ago. Maybe they were. The rest of the cast are young but equally unimpressive. I shall not name names because these young performers may want to put this feeble production behind them.
The scene where the Don and Leporello change clothes often does not work in an updated production. In this production the Don does indeed have fine clothes and Leporello has a servant's dress. The scene still does not work though because tall, thin Tahu Rhodes changes clothes with small, fat Conal Coad and the effect is unintentionally ridiculous.
