Beware: Seduction is afoot

Paul Whelan plays Don Giovanni, who he says is genuinely unaware of the selfishness of his actions. Picture / Stephen A'court

Mothers, husbands and other interested parties beware, the most ruthless of operatic reprobates is in town.

Tomorrow night sees the opening of NBR New Zealand Opera's season of Mozart's Don Giovanni.

With Stanley M. Garner re-staging Jonathan Miller's original production and newly appointed music director Wyn Davies presiding on the podium, seduction is promised on all levels.

The best news of all is that it has a predominantly New Zealand cast, led by Paul Whelan. Richard Green plays the Commendatore in the Auckland season, Patricia Wright his daughter Anna, Jaewoo Kim her beloved Don Ottavio, Conal Coad Don Giovanni's servant Leporello, and Marie-Adele McArthur is Donna Elvira.

I cut to the chase when I catch up with Whelan just before a rehearsal call and ask him whether he sees Mozart's anti-hero as rapist or swashbuckler.

"I could go either way," says the singer, weighing his words carefully. "But I tend more towards the swashbuckling side, because it's the best way, understanding his point of view all the time and finding it perfectly logical.

"I think he is genuinely unaware of the selfishness of his actions and doesn't see what's wrong with living life the way he does."

Obviously Donna Anna, Donna Elvira and the many victims listed in Leporello's catalogue aria would feel differently, but Whelan has appreciated director Stanley letting the singers develop their characters at rehearsals, because "that's what the rehearsal process is all about".

"When Elvira tells Giovanni it's his last chance and time to turn a new leaf, in a lot of productions he throws his food at her. Or you can just charmingly say, 'Thanks for telling me.' That's the range of choices."

Stanley "maintains classical elegance, not going into a romantic, over-emotive mode. He sticks with ideas and reason, the sophistication of the text".

Very different from Whelan's experiences as Giovanni in the 1997 Australian Opera production which was "wonderful, but very dark and really a descent into madness. Giovanni just became an animal in the end".

For Whelan "playing baddies" can be more effective if done with subtlety.

"To a certain extent the more charming the better, because it's more disturbing," he points out. "If the audience is just repulsed by you, they want the evening to be over pretty quickly."

Ironically, Whelan has made the strongest reputation for himself on the other side of the moral divide playing the ultimate goodie. In 2002, he was Christ in Deborah Warner's controversial staging of Bach's St John Passion and, earlier this year, repeated the role in Lindy Hume's presentation of the composer's St Matthew Passion at the Perth International Arts Festival.

For someone who once handled guitar and backing vocals in a band called The Dry Horrors ("I wasn't the main voice because you needed a guy with a high voice who could scream and I just sounded very bad doing that"), the future has a Wagnerian glow. Perhaps it's an inevitable career move for a singer who, in his own words, is a "bass baritone, six foot six and makes a reasonable amount of noise".

Next year he will come home for a major Wagnerian project that is still under wraps. New Zealand is, above all, a place to rekindle energies and, as an international artist, Whelan sees advantages in hailing from this side of the world.

"It means you don't have to fully take on everything about the country you're in. You've always got this mental escape route, coming from somewhere that is so far away, so laid-back and normal. It gives you a healthy detachment from whatever is happening around you and you can take the best and worst from each culture you find yourself in."

* NBR New Zealand Opera's Don Giovanni is at the Aotea Centre, tomorrow 7.30pm, 16, 21 & 23 at same time, July 19 at 1pm