In opera, revivals are most often noteworthy for the singers performing in them. Especially somewhere like the Metropolitan Opera, a destination for stars and fans alike, which advertises its greatest strength with the slogan “The Voice Must Be Heard.”
That ad campaign rings absolutely true in “Don Giovanni,” which is onstage for its first revival since Ivo van Hove’s stark and sexy production opened in 2023. Mozart’s classic opera is an ensemble show, and here the Met has assembled a uniformly excellent cast, with Ryan Speedo Green making his house role debut as the titular lothario.
Green, a bass-baritone with a towering presence, has been a fixture at the Met for over a dozen years. With an increasingly high profile, and an instrument as capable of bellowing resonance as creamy lyricism, he has starred there in Terence Blanchard’s operas “Fire Shut Up in My Bones” and “Champion.” And, beginning in the 2027-28 season, he will stand under his biggest spotlight yet as Wotan in a new production of Wagner’s four-part “Ring.”
His Don Giovanni, appropriately and even chillingly, has a forceful sound that suggests a viciousness never far from the surface; what he may think of as gentle seduction looks more like violent coercion. Green, though, also has a distracting tic of abruptly shifting between his full voice and a kind of yawning sotto voce, and not to particularly dramatic effect.
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