In today’s New York Times, critic James Oestreich write effusively about Spoleto’s Don Giovanni, as well as several of the festival’s other major productions:
June 7, 2005
A Don Giovanni Close to the Edge, Like Everyone Else
By JAMES R. OESTREICH
CHARLESTON, S.C., June 6 - In a wildly adventurous season of opera at the Spoleto Festival U.S.A. here, the hottest topic of discussion is not “The Kingdom of Desire,” a compelling Beijing opera version of “Macbeth.” Nor is it “Die Vögel,” a little-known, effusively tuneful work by Walter Braunfels, or “La Bella Dormente nel Bosco,” a charming puppet opera by Respighi, as hot as all those have been.
Instead it is the most standard of operas, Mozart’s “Don Giovanni,” in a staging by Günter Krämer. And rightly so.
This is, in fact, as much an installation as a production, and another triumph for the Memminger Auditorium, a dilapidated high school theater partly dismantled by Hurricane Hugo in 1989 and restored to use by the festival in 2000. The set designer, Ulrich Schulz, has removed the standard seating and turned most of the floor space into a stage, with 635 seats on the periphery.
The set is magnificent: undulating hills with trees, leaves, a pond and a few props. With the action dispersed everywhere, even into the orchestra and the audience, sight lines are sometimes distant or obstructed. Still, it is a magical place to stage an opera.
See the rest of the feature here.