This is not, I'm afraid, the Don Giovanni we've all been waiting for. The clashing of swords, obediently marking time to Mozart's first musical skirmish, is one of the recording's few concessions to dramatic vraisemblance. This is, of course, extra-musical: the score itself is kept doggedly free of any trace of sex or violence, safely guarded inside the walls of Berlin's Philharmonie.
It is not the recording acoustic, a characteristically live, close DG production, which makes this Don sound every bit as studio-bound as Solti's on Decca (LP only): it is a similarly stubborn deafness to the breath of rhythmic inflection and harmonic progress within Mozart's phrasing, which results in disappointingly leaden pacing. The first sign of unease comes just 10 bars into Act 1: Leporello's first word sounds premature: already Karajan miscalculates by a hairsbreadth the length of pause necessary to clear the dominant seventh and give impetus to the entry. This, needless to say, becomes really significant only in retrospect, when it is heard as the first of many details which gradually drain the work of its momentum. My catalogue, never fear, will not be so long as Leporello's. But one or two examples of an increasingly frustrating, ill-at-ease performance must be cited to substantiate what will no doubt seem unexpectedly harsh criticism.
Having cast Anna Tomowa-Sintow and Agnes Baltsa as an Anna and Elvira of considerable potential interest, Karajan progressively takes the wind out of their sails. Again it is very much a matter of the chemistry of tempo and phrasing; and it is Elvira who suffers most. Not only can ''Ah! chi mi dice mai'' in no way be considered any sort of Allegro, but Karajan here, and elsewhere throughout the opera, seems to ignore the fact that f and p are, for Mozart, indications of velocity as much as dynamic markings. For all the clear focus and nicely sharp edge of Baltsa's voice (compared, for instance, with Davis's soft-focus te Kanawa on Philips—again no CD yet), it is hard to believe that this woman, too, has vengeance on her mind. For that, one must look to Haitink's Ewing (HMV), possibly the most excitingly searching of all Elviras on record.
It is Baltsa, too, who has to suffer one of the performance's most painful moments: the uncomfortable introduction to ''Mi tradi'' is typical of the paunchy accompanied recitatives in which the orchestra elbows itself so far forward. Karajan goes on well nigh to kill the thing he loves by meting out similar treatment to Tomowa-Sintow. The distortion of her recitative to ''Non mi dir'', and, indeed, the aria's own extraordinary slow tempo, makes it a moment when the listener is inclined to ask heaven for mercy with Donna Anna herself. This though, is quite some Anna. In ''Or sai chi l'onore'' she actually gets the better of the orchestral juggernaut, and from her very first entry up to the scene of recognition and her searing action replay, this is a formidable and searching portrayal of distracted grief, more potent in terms of raw physicality than any of her rivals.
Underlying Karajan's choice of portentously slow tempos and heavy-handed pacing is, it seems, a desire for orchestral primacy. This becomes fully apparent in the Act 1 finale, when the weight of the bass line and the inelegant articulation of every semiquaver pull back the mounting tension of ensemble. Zerlina's cry, a spine-chilling moment in the hands of both Davis and Haitink, is all but drowned by the three 'orchestras', while deep-dug chords drag down the feet of her rescuers as in a bad dream.
A reading which seldom takes its cue from the inflection of the voice is not the place to look for lively, propulsive recitative. Jeffrey Tate is more restrained at the keyboard than he was under Solti in 1979; but if you believe that the recitative is the regulator of the breath and pulse of the entire work, then there is no better place to look than in Haitink's performance. Martin Isepp's witty continuo playing, and meticulously pointed musical preparation is very much the life-blood of this reading, just as it is Davis's own irresistible instinct for pace and texture, weight and measure, which gives such dramatic presence to his performance.
If voice were all, Samuel Ramey's Don would win hands down. Forcefully concentrated, elegant, and able to produce a real sotto voce at the death of the Commendatore, he nevertheless turns out a strangely deadpan performance, giving little away. He is neither the hunter with the ''barbaro appetito'' of Davis's Wixell, nor is he the chillingly sensuous seducer of Haitink's Thomas Allen, the only Don, by the way, to shudder at the Statue's icy grasp and make a truly bloodcurdling descent into hell.
Ramey's double-act with Furlanetto's Leporello is weakened by the fact that his comparatively light bass is insufficiently contrasted to Ramey's in timbre: he overcompensates by a tedious degree of verbalizing at the expense of working the role's musical wit. Paata Burchuladze is a gift of a Commendatore, though his inky depths are undercut by the context of tempos which cumulatively deprive his pronouncements of their isolating resonance.
Gosta Winbergh's Don Ottavio, firm and gritty-edged, makes a welcome change from the British benevolence of a Stuart Burrows (Solti and Davis) or a Keith Lewis (Haitink). But he, too, is to some extent a victim of Karajan's baton: his support is threatened by somewhat precious phrasing, and ''Il mio tesoro'' passes only falteringly on its way. Alexander Malta's barking, biting Masetto provides bracing impetus, but Kathleen Battle, initially appealing in her eager, childlike tones, is never encouraged to perfume her voice with so much as a hint of the erotic. The remedy offered in her ''Vedrai carino'' might well be honey and lemon, for all its melodic contour is made to imply.
I hurried back to Elizabeth Gale and Haitink, to Mirella Freni's deliciously highly-strung Zerlina for Davis, and to Lucia Popp, who, with Margaret Price's Donna Anna, redeems Solti's performance. The Desert Island choice would compel me to Davis for a vibrant and instinctively Mozartian response which incarnates the paradoxes of this dramma giocosa, and makes his performance so much more than the sum of its albeit variable parts. If that desert island had only a CD player, then I would be very happy with Haitink's unsurpassed ensemble of soloists and bold dramatic integrity.'