Don Giovanni, Tobacco Factory Theatres ★★★★

One of the great pleasures of autumn in Bristol is the return of Opera Project to Tobacco Factory Theatres. It has quietly become one of the city’s most reliable cultural fixtures, delivering opera of remarkable quality in a space where audiences sit close enough to catch every glance, every gesture and every intake of breath. Opera is often sold on scale. Huge choruses, vast orchestras and gilded auditoriums. Yet there is something equally thrilling about hearing Mozart in a room this intimate. In its own way, listening to musicians of this calibre a few feet away feels as special as a night at the Met. Don Giovanni is the final collaboration between Mozart and librettist Lorenzo Da Ponte, following The Marriage of Figaro and Così Fan Tutte. For me, it remains the richest of the three. Figaro is funnier, Così is cleverer, but Don Giovanni is the most alive. It constantly shifts beneath your feet. Comedy gives way to menace. Seduction turns into predation. A farce becomes a ghost…