The Metropolitan Opera: Don Giovanni | movie | 2016 | Official Featurette - video Dailymotion

Simon Keenlyside smolders dangerously in the title role of Mozart’s version of the legend of Don Juan, creating a vivi | dG1fNXgyZkJpQWktME0

Transcript

00:00 [Music]

00:10 Don Giovanni, for me, is somebody who is amoral.

00:14 You know, he has no morality. He has no ethics.

00:18 He is totally opportunistic in his relationships.

00:21 So therefore, he has also never a deep relationship with somebody.

00:24 You would call it with the modern word, a sociopath.

00:27 You know, somebody who has no real empathy for somebody else.

00:31 We never situate a production in a certain era.

00:34 We always try to make it into something that, if you see it in 10 years, it would be contemporary.

00:39 If you would have seen it 10 years ago, it would have been contemporary.

00:42 So also in the costumes and in the design, it's an attempt to make universal dramas.

00:47 What we see on stage is actually a street.

00:50 We are on the street, public life, outside.

00:52 You never see what's happening inside of the buildings.

00:55 So it's a street with five buildings on it.

00:57 The buildings pivot slowly so that what seems to be a street also can become a prison, a closed space.

01:04 And that's what happens at the famous moment at the end with the Commendatore

01:08 when he appears and suddenly this whole set closes and he is in his own prison.

01:12 You could say the prison that he created himself.

01:14 [Music]

01:18 I saw Pieter Matthijs already in two Don Giovanni's, which were famous productions.

01:22 He is a fabulous singer, of course, but also a fabulous actor.

01:26 He's the perfect mix and that's what you need for a Don Giovanni.

01:29 And he will bring all his knowledge to this production.

01:32 We shouldn't forget that the original title was not Don Giovanni.

01:37 That was in Italian, "Il Punito Disoluto," and that means "The Criminal Perished."

01:44 How clear can it be?

01:45 It was not this attractive, seductive Don Giovanni that was of interest to Mozart.

01:51 He made his verdict clear in his title.

01:54 The criminal should be punished.

01:56 [Music]