"Phew," exclaims Don Giovanni as, amid jets of flame, he is dragged to damnation in Mozart's opera. "What a scorcher!" Maybe it's a loose translation, but it fitted the mood as the Royal Opera gave over the opening night of its season to an audience recruited through the Sun, a welcome return of the subsidised Hamlyn nights for first-time opera-goers.
The plan to coax in a genuinely new audience seemed to have worked. A younger, less hairsprayed crowd greeted Da Ponte's jokes with genuine laughter, having already received the news that the Donna Anna, Marina Poplavskaya, "wanted us to know" she had a cold with the baffled amusement such announcements probably deserve.
Poplavskaya was not at her best, sounding squally, and her subdued bow showed she knew as much. Otherwise, if there was the suspicion that this cast has been put together with an eye to the simultaneous cinema relays - the ROH finally getting in on the Met's game - it was impossible to mind. Simon Keenlyside's mercurial Giovanni is a tour de force, but Kyle Ketelsen's vivid Leporello matches him, and even Masetto makes an impression as sung by Robert Gleadow. The real star, though, is Joyce DiDonato, singing her first Elvira and nailing even the topmost notes.
Francesca Zambello's 2002 production is monumental but dull, clunky and even frustrating - the huge pointing finger that swings as the dead Commendatore speaks is invisible to most of the audience. The real guiding hand is that of Charles Mackerras: the orchestra he conducts is, surprisingly, occasionally rough-edged but as invigorated as the singers, and he paces the long score irresistibly. Tonight, Covent Garden opens its doors again to its regulars. But its moment in the Sun? A super soaraway success.
