The story of  Don Juan could be handled in many different
            ways.  The modern tendency would be, I think to regard him
            with an attempt to be understanding and a sympathetic eye,
            meanwhile with attempts to personally keep a respectable
            distance.  He would get the occasional suggestion that he
            seek therapy or join a twelve step program.  But in the
            stricter theological circles of Mozart's times, he would be
            regarded as an embodiment of  evil, a demon made flesh.
            But, from the same era, the memoirs of Casanova, have a sort
            of naive, 1960s feel to them - "If it feels good, do it."
            Yet another possible approach is to treat the whole thing as
            a joke, doing for sexual obsession what "Arsenic and Old
            Lace" does for serial murder.  And this last approach is, at
            least some of the time, what Mozart apparently had in mind.
            In his correspondence, he refers to "Don Giovanni" as an
            opera buffa, though starting a comic opera with a murder
            seems like a bit of a strain.  The opera does have it's
            serious moments, too, in which one or other of the
            possibilities above leaps to the forefront.  A lessor artist
            might be accused of being unable to make up his mind which
            approach to take; with Mozart, you know it is because the
            Don is real enough and complex enough to incorporate all
            these aspects.

            I suspect this Santa Fe production emphasizes the opera
            buffa much more than most; given any opportunity, they
            played it for laughs.  Perhaps the nicest touch is at the
            party at Don Giovanni's palazzo, he is casually leaning
            against a wall, and absentmindedly reaches out to a nude
            statue and fondles its butt.

            Don Giovanni's intemperate womanizing gets a lot of people
            mad at him, and he continually has to use his wits to keep
            from being punched out.  But his real sin is the murder of
            the Commendatore.  A woman becomes distressed by the masked
            Don's advances (or, viewed alternately, attempted rape), and
            calls for help.  The Commendatore hears and comes to her
            rescue.  Swords are drawn, and the Commendatore is slain.
            Since he was masked, even the woman doesn't know who it was,
            or at least isn't sure.

            As well as his lasciviousness, the Don is an amazing fop,
            and possessed of lots of other traits that have given the
            aristocracy a bad name.  So we're pretty ready for him to
            get his.  The start of this is when he encounters a statue
            of the Commendatore and, when his servant is nonplused by
            the nasty inscription on the base referring to the murder,
            mockingly invites the statue to come to supper.

            An aside at this point on the staging, which, as usual at
            Santa Fe, was superb.  Large chunks of Italian architecture
            wandered at will about the stage, to create the front of the
            Comandatore's palazzo, the piazza, or the interior of  Don
            Giovanni's palazzo.  They even accomplished the remarkable
            feat of getting the twelve foot high statue of the
            Commendatore out on stage through an eight foot door.  The
            architecture was baroque in the extreme, and just very well
            done.

            In the final scene, the statue, as bidden, shows up for
            supper.  The servants are terrified, and even the mocking
            Don Giovani is somewhat put out.  In a moment of bravado he
            offers to shake hands.  The statue then illustrates that it
            is not a good idea to have an arm wrestling contest across
            such a range of chemical composition.  The shattered Don is
            flung to the floor.  Then occurs one of the most dramatic
            scenes I've ever seen staged; within seconds, the stage is
            filled with smoke and capering demons.  The Old Man with a
            Scythe appears on a cart, which is pulled to the front of
            the stage, and Don Giovanni was bound to the cart, and the
            whole crowd processed off to Hell.

            There was an anticlimax (slightly too long) in which Mozart
            says that Don Giovanni deserved what he got and vice versa.