Heather Mac Donald Nails It Yet Again

Heather Mac Donald (no, that's not a typo; that's how she spells her name) — perhaps the best writer on opera on the planet and an inveterate enemy of Regietheater as it's mostly practiced today in opera houses worldwide (see her previously S&F-linked 2007 article, "The Abduction of Opera") — has nailed the critical idiocy surrounding the Met's new production of Don Giovanni and given what is easily the most detailed and trenchant review of that production extant.

The Metropolitan Opera has just opened a searingly erotic Don Giovanni, yet the New York Times has dismissed the new production for its “timidity.” Other members of the New York press corps are even more contemptuous. The New York Observer sneers that the “new Don Giovanni is worse than bad: it’s nothing.” And the New York Post calls the staging “dreck.” What has inspired such critical contumely? The riveting production is a faithful rendering of the opera’s music and libretto.

RTWT here.