The Sferisterio Opera Festival is a summer music festival held in Macerata in the Marche region of Italy under the artistic direction of Pier Luigi Pizzi, popular with Italian audiences for his cool minimalist but determinedly non-regietheater direction. 

This 2011 production features star baritone Ildbrando D’Arcangelo surrounded by an ensemble of competent but unfamiliar names under the sprightly, if occasionally fussy, musical direction of Riccardo Frizza. D’Arcangelo is superb with a commanding presence; his dark tone carries a constant threat of violence and his portrayal is the very essence of Mediterranean misogeny. Andrea Concetti is a fine animated Leporello and his relationship with his superior is more intense bro-mance than the usual servant-master dynamic; they’re always playing footsies! He is also rather too familiar with the mentally unhinged Elvira as played by Carmela Remigio. Myrto Papatanasiu as Zerlina stands out for her fine vocalism and noble beauty but her beau is the usual weed and his pledges of revenge are unintentionally comic. 

Otherwise humour is a scarce commodity and Pizzi’s direction is drearily low key with one puzzling exception; after a conventional opening scene there was the potential of an interesting psycho-sexual dichotomy with Elvira paying no attention whatsoever to Leporello during the Catalogue Aria while allowing him to ravish her. However, I waited in vain for the idea to develop further – it was a one-off. The bold sexuality touted on the cover consists of the occasional bare male torso, heaving bodices and a brace of nude demons – oh, and Elvira nearly has a wardrobe malfunction during In quali eccessi. 

This is the sort of performance that would satisfy in the opera house; however, with some thirty performances currently available on DVD to choose from – why choose this? Maybe, if you’d been there or are a fan of D’Arcangelo.