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Don Giovanni
Columbia/Tri-Star // Unrated // February 26, 2002
List Price: $29.95 [Buy now and save at Amazon]
Don Juan is one of the most famous, or rather infamous, characters in the history of folklore and literature. His earliest known appearance in a work of literature is in the 1630 play El burlador de Sevilla by the Spanish playwright Tirso de Molina; since then, this dastardly seducer of women has inspired further legends, stories, plays, and operas. When Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart decided to write an opera about this colorful character, he gave him an Italian name to match the Italian libretto: Don Giovanni.
As an aficionado of classical music and historical dramas, I found the premise of the Don Giovanni DVD attractive. A filmed version of Mozart's opera would be able to use the technical capabilities of the film media to present the opera in a variety of settings, both indoor and outdoor, along with many trappings that would be difficult or impossible to present on a theater stage. Since the music also tells a story, along with being beautiful to listen to in its own right, the idea of seeing it played out on the screen is appealing.
Unfortunately, Don Giovanni ends up falling flat as an opera film, mainly for technical reasons. As I'll explain in more detail in the "audio" section of this review, the sound quality of the DVD is less than what I would expect, much less hope for. That means that if there's to be any point to viewing the DVD, it has to lie in the visual/theatrical presentation of the opera, not in the music.
Considered as a film, and not as a piece of music, Don Giovanni isn't terrible, but it's nothing to write home about, either. The centerpiece of the film is clearly Mozart's music; by one way of thinking, the actors, sets, and costumes are really only there to give the viewer something nice to look at while listening to the opera. Don Giovanni had the opportunity to rise above this level and present a noteworthy film to accompany the score, but it just doesn't quite happen. The sets and costumes are attractive, but the acting and cinematography are no more than ordinary; it's interesting to see the events of the score acted out, but there's not a whole lot of life to them. Considering, then, that the sound quality is less than stellar, there's not a whole lot of reason to watch Don Giovanni on DVD instead of listening to it on CD.
Video
Don Giovanni weighs in at just above average in the video category; reasonably good, but not impressive. The anamorphically-enhanced 2.35:1 widescreen image is fairly bright, with reasonably faithful colors and decent contrast. Detracting from the quality of the image is the presence of edge enhancement and a fairly large amount of noise, which is particularly evident in dimly-lit scenes.
The English subtitles are optional.
Audio
What on earth was Columbia thinking, to use only Dolby 2.0 sound for an opera DVD, of all things? Mozart's music deserves a DTS track or at the very least a finely-tuned Dolby 5.1 track... but two channels just doesn't cut it, especially when the sound quality of that Dolby 2.0 track isn't even as good as it ought to be.
My overall impression of the sound is that it has a slightly dull tone to it; it certainly doesn't create the impression of clarity. The instrumental portion of the music is fairly heavy and tends to drown out the singers' voices; they're audible, but they don't stand out particularly clearly.
Don Giovanni is precisely the sort of DVD that could have replay value for its music alone, apart from the film... if the sound quality made listening to it worthwhile. As is, the overall sound quality of this disc is inferior to that of a well-mastered CD.
Extras
Don Giovanni is almost a bare-bones disc, with only theatrical trailers as the special feature.
Final thoughts
If you're interested in Mozart's music, I regretfully recommend that you buy a high-quality CD version of Don Giovanni to listen to, instead of this DVD. It's a worthwhile idea, but in order for it to fly, the DVD really needed to have not just good, but outstanding audio quality, an area in which this disc falls short.
As an aficionado of classical music and historical dramas, I found the premise of the Don Giovanni DVD attractive. A filmed version of Mozart's opera would be able to use the technical capabilities of the film media to present the opera in a variety of settings, both indoor and outdoor, along with many trappings that would be difficult or impossible to present on a theater stage. Since the music also tells a story, along with being beautiful to listen to in its own right, the idea of seeing it played out on the screen is appealing.
Unfortunately, Don Giovanni ends up falling flat as an opera film, mainly for technical reasons. As I'll explain in more detail in the "audio" section of this review, the sound quality of the DVD is less than what I would expect, much less hope for. That means that if there's to be any point to viewing the DVD, it has to lie in the visual/theatrical presentation of the opera, not in the music.
Considered as a film, and not as a piece of music, Don Giovanni isn't terrible, but it's nothing to write home about, either. The centerpiece of the film is clearly Mozart's music; by one way of thinking, the actors, sets, and costumes are really only there to give the viewer something nice to look at while listening to the opera. Don Giovanni had the opportunity to rise above this level and present a noteworthy film to accompany the score, but it just doesn't quite happen. The sets and costumes are attractive, but the acting and cinematography are no more than ordinary; it's interesting to see the events of the score acted out, but there's not a whole lot of life to them. Considering, then, that the sound quality is less than stellar, there's not a whole lot of reason to watch Don Giovanni on DVD instead of listening to it on CD.
Video
Don Giovanni weighs in at just above average in the video category; reasonably good, but not impressive. The anamorphically-enhanced 2.35:1 widescreen image is fairly bright, with reasonably faithful colors and decent contrast. Detracting from the quality of the image is the presence of edge enhancement and a fairly large amount of noise, which is particularly evident in dimly-lit scenes.
The English subtitles are optional.
Audio
What on earth was Columbia thinking, to use only Dolby 2.0 sound for an opera DVD, of all things? Mozart's music deserves a DTS track or at the very least a finely-tuned Dolby 5.1 track... but two channels just doesn't cut it, especially when the sound quality of that Dolby 2.0 track isn't even as good as it ought to be.
My overall impression of the sound is that it has a slightly dull tone to it; it certainly doesn't create the impression of clarity. The instrumental portion of the music is fairly heavy and tends to drown out the singers' voices; they're audible, but they don't stand out particularly clearly.
Don Giovanni is precisely the sort of DVD that could have replay value for its music alone, apart from the film... if the sound quality made listening to it worthwhile. As is, the overall sound quality of this disc is inferior to that of a well-mastered CD.
Extras
Don Giovanni is almost a bare-bones disc, with only theatrical trailers as the special feature.
Final thoughts
If you're interested in Mozart's music, I regretfully recommend that you buy a high-quality CD version of Don Giovanni to listen to, instead of this DVD. It's a worthwhile idea, but in order for it to fly, the DVD really needed to have not just good, but outstanding audio quality, an area in which this disc falls short.
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