Opera Philadelphia’s ‘Don Giovanni’ is a bit of a bumpy ride but with a fascinating set

Any operagoer who claims to have witnessed an ideal Don Giovanni production is most likely mistaken.

Mozart’s greatest opera is an elusive blend of morality tale and bedroom comedy, sometimes overwritten and sometimes underwritten, with the addition of mercilessly exposed high notes. It all requires miracles not common in opera, especially when the production at hand was created on relatively short notice.

What unfolded at the Academy of Music on Sunday was an eye-filling stage picture with symmetrical, inverted-pyramid staircases framed by Italian arches, a radiant crescent moon, a giant decapitated hand, all bathed in a lighting design with deeply-colored hues that I’ve never seen at the Academy. I would like to live there.

All of this was created after June 2024. The production was originally announced as a coproduction with Cincinnati Opera, but the Opera Philadelphia decided to go in a different direction last summer. Such switches aren’t unusual with the arrival of a new general director, such as Opera Philadelphia’s Anthony Roth Costanzo, who engineered a good-under-the circumstances show with more strengths than not (if just barely).

The good news: Beyond the visual knockout of the Jesse Wine/Cassandre Griffin production design and Jeanette Yew lighting, the other main strength was the strong ensemble and orchestral presence under Corrado Rovaris. Rovaris utilized the opera’s original version, which lets the audience out a bit early but lacks the great “Mi tradi” aria (among others).

The not-so-good news: Director Alison Moritz (who also staged in Cincinnati) shot the opera in the foot during the first scene. How could that happen to such a great piece? Easy.

Don Giovanni doesn’t have a plot so much as a chain reaction of events — ones that were staged here with lots of hot-moment effects, some amusing, some fatal. At the start, the legendary seducer crosses the line from predator to murderer when confronted by a father intervening to protect his daughter.

In this production, when Don Giovanni stabs the under-defended father in cold blood, it’s not a dueling accident among gentlemen, as in some other productions. It’s first-degree murder that robs this crucial moment of the mystery that comes with lurking ambiguity.

We immediately know the depths of the title character’s inner corruption, leaving the audience with minimal reason to connect with him. Luckily, the opera is filled out with strong characters — two wronged noblewomen, a pair of angry peasants, and Don Giovanni’s accomplice servant Leporello — but there remained a hole in the center of this dramaturgic ecosystem, made more obvious by the casting.

Sidney Outlaw was tapped only days before opening to replace Timothy Murray in the title role. And though his warm lyrical voice was good for some moments and his recitatives were especially articulate, stage charisma was utterly lacking. The rest of the cast was middling.

As the wronged Donna Elvira, Elizabeth Reiter was so commandingly aggressive in the early scenes — with a wiry edge to her voice — her recapitulation to Don Giovanni was a very steep fall. As Donna Anna, the other wronged woman, Olivia Smith had such vocal control that she skipped breathing opportunities — with a robust voice that’s bound for heavier repertoire.

As the peasants Zerlina and Masetto, Amanda Sheriff and especially Kevin Godínez were vocally and theatrically charming. Nicholas Newton has great Leporello performances ahead of him, but he’s not there yet. Khanyiso Gwenxane, heard here previously in the ultra-challenging title role of Rossini’s Otello, made the best of Don Ottavio, a thanklessly cardboard role made more so by losing one of his arias in the original edition.

The Don Giovanni journey was bumpy but not bad — until the final scene when the seducer literally goes to hell. It seems to have been better in Cincinnati: “Grim Reaper-like figures and winged ‘angels of death’ surrounded Giovanni and swept him away into Hell … The scene was positively bone-chilling,” wrote Janelle Gelfand of the Cincinnati Business Courier.

I won’t spoil the Opera Philadelphia version of the ending, except to say that no bones were chilled.

“Don Giovanni” plays again at 8 p.m. May 2, and 2 p.m. May 4 at the Academy of Music, 240 S. Broad St. Limited seats are available for current Opera Philadelphia Patron Program members. operaphila.org