The Metropolitan Opera has revived Ivo van Hove’s austere 2023 production of Mozart’s Don Giovanni. Van Hove’s unforgiving approach strips away the baroque ornamentation typically associated with this opera; and opts instead for a set that is bleak, monochromatic, and architecturally brutalist. Indeed, the influence of brutalist architecture is unmistakable in the stern concrete monoliths, the impersonal edifices, shaping not just the visual identity but the psychological core of the production. The architecture itself becomes a metaphor for isolation, alienation, and powerlessness.

From the very opening of Mozart’s overture, Yannick Nézet-Séguin’s sense of tempo, dynamics, and orchestral coloration sets a tone of taut tension: the D minor opening becomes a visceral declaration rather than a mere introduction. In short, Nézet-Séguin brings to Don Giovanni a blend of disciplined musical grounding, expressive freedom, and leadership that seeks not just precision, but emotional truth.

The modern-day dress and staging allows for some interesting surprises, as when the Don simply guns down the Commendatore in the opening scene rather than engages in a deadly duel as is typically done. The flagrant and peremptory murder of the Commendatore immediately introduces us to a darker, more violent Don: his use of a firearm to kill the Commendatore rings of premeditation and technological power – it is not a moment of passion or error, but a cold, deliberate act of murder. In the van Hove production, this modernization underlines a kind of moral realism: that violence in our era is rarely dignified, but often cold, calculated, and mechanized. The gun – far more than just a prop – also allows Giovanni to refrain from putting himself at personal risk. In fact, he weaves through the stage’s angular corridors and unembellished spaces with an air of unchecked entitlement and moral nihilism.

Adam Plachetka’s Leporello emerges not simply as a comic servant but as a deeply conflicted moral witness to his master’s depravity. From his opening “Notte e giorno faticar,” he projects fatigue and obligation, conveying the weight of a life lived in the shadow of someone else’s hubris. His Catalogue aria is paced with precision and empathy: each statistic of Giovanni’s conquests becomes more than a punch line, but a moment of exposed power, delivered with a sense of irony and resignation that speaks to the mechanics of complicity. Leporello is not........

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