Don Giovanni dress reh, minus the Mozart

The nice thing about grand opera is, if the visuals suck, you can close your eyes and listen. If the singers suck, you can watch the stage action and listen to the orchestra. If the conductor, however, manages to somehow drain Mozart of all shape, crystalline structure, coherence, in sum, whatever it is that makes Mozart Mozart, and turns the music into Muzak, this is a profound problem. When it occurs in an ugly, ugly stage set than sees most of the action taking place in what seem to be brickwalled underground spaces, and a production that despises all the characters, well ... it makes for a long, sad night at the opera.