Penna. Opera Theater Stages An Original 'Don Giovanni'

The Pennsylvania Opera Theater's new production of Mozart's Don Giovanni at the Shubert Theater is by no means perfect, but it certainly is marvelous.

Most productions of the opera for the last 100 years or so have presented

Giovanni as an aging roue who has lost his touch - readings that ignore the numerous double-entendres in Lorenzo Da Ponte's libretto, Mozart's musical reinforcement of them, and the fact that the role was composed for a 22-year- old.

Barbara Silverstein's production and English translation of Don Giovanni are unorthodox only in their fidelity to the composer's obvious intent. She and stage director Victoria Bussert have filled the action with numerous bold and original touches that vividly drive the story home. In Scene 1 alone,

Giovanni and Donna Anna are caught in flagrante, the Commendatore receives a shockingly realistic sword wound, and Anna presses her hand in his blood to seal her pact of vengeance with Don Ottavio.

If this white-hot level had been maintained throughout, the production literally would have been one for the books. Inspiration does flag somewhat during the second act, but the finale is once again remarkably imaginative and effective (thanks largely to Steven Friedlander's magnificent lighting), and the whole makes a highly satisfying evening of music theater.

Spirited and energetic acting has been elicited from the entire cast.

Lauren Flanigan's passionate Anna is a wonder, hysterical with guilt, clinging desperately to Ottavio and his weak promises of revenge. Phyllis Treigle plays Donna Elvira as an appropriately conservative soul, somewhat shell- shocked by the abuse to which she is subjected by Giovanni and his servant, Leporello.

In the Leporello role, Matthew Lau flings himself about the stage in a veritable fit of baggy-pants slapstick - and you should see where he keeps his famous catalogue of Giovanni's conquests. Oddly, though, he makes nothing at all of the character's timorousness (the name means bunny), ignoring the many spots where his own lines describe him as shaking with fear.