Simon Keenlyside makes his Met role debut as the unrepentant seducer in Tony Award winner Michael Grandage’s staging of Mozart’s masterpiece. Met Principal Conductor Fabio Luisi leads a cast that includes Hibla Gerzmava as Donna Anna, Malin Byström as Donna Elvira, Serena Malfi as Zerlina, Adam Plachetka as Leporello, Matthew Rose as Masetto, Kwangchul Youn as the Commendatore, and the young tenor Paul Appleby as Don Ottavio.

The director Michael Grandage keeps to the original setting. He does not succumb to the temptation to translate into modern language the themes of love, betrayal and faithfulness, of pleasure, power and seduction. He rather focuses the viewer’s attention on Mozart’s true genius. An interesting detail is the fact that the librettist Lorenzo da Ponte had spent the last 30 years of his life in New York where he even managed to make an opera company and to put “Don Giovanni” on the stage. 200 years later the audiences keep being thrilled by this work of a genius.

Simon Keenlyside’s Don Giovanni is a virtuoso performance. 

Agnes Kory, Musicalcriticism.com