Strakosch Italian Opera: Don Giovanni

“‘Don Giovanni’ was repeated at the Academy of Music last evening, the distribution of parts being the same as adverted to in our reference to Wednesday’s representation. The splendid trio ‘Protegga in cielo,’ M. Maurel’s ‘Fin chan dal vino’ and ‘Deh vieni’ had to be done twice. Mlle. Torriani’s ‘Batti, Batti’ was also sung anew, and if ‘Il mio tesoro’ escaped a second rendering, it was only because Signor Campanini positively refused to yield to the desire of the audience to hear it again. The general performance was good as usual.”

“Mozart’s great work, ‘Don Juan,’ was given for the second time this season at the Academy of Music last evening. The cast was precisely the same as on the first night of production, but there was considerable improvement in everything except Leporello and the mise en scène. The latter suffered badly from an attempt to improve it. The scene to which Leporello, disguised as Don Juan, leads Donna Elvira, and where Don Ottavio and Massetto [sic] are about to murder him in mistake for his master, was set last night in a wild mountain district of the Yellowstone park instead of in an inner court of a Spanish castle. It was painful to see Mme. Nilsson and Signor Nannetti go groping about among the trees looking for a door. In the last act the demons were introduced, an event which did not take place last Wednesday. There were two of them, and they came down from a door at the back as if heartily ashamed of themselves. Signor Maurel again achieved a fine success in his forcible and unstrained singing and acting of the part of the libertine, and Signor Campanini received well merited recalls in his rendition of the funereal Don Ottavio. His singing of ‘Il mio tesoro’ was particularly fine. Mme. Nilsson shared in the triumph of the trio, and gave her peculiar part more grace than is usually accorded it. The Zerlina of Mlle. Torriani is a subdued performance. ‘Batti, batti,’ rendered with charming sweetness, produced an encore. Her ‘Vedrai carino’ was a good deal drowned under a more vigorous accompaniment than it calls for. Mlle. Maresi, as Donna Anna, dealt with the difficult music of the trio with success, but her organ is thin and delicate. There is yet much room for improvement in chorus and orchestra in the performance of this trying work before they can claim for it anything like perfection.”