SMOOTH OPERATOR; `DON GIOVANNI' RESTAGED WITH POTENT RESULTS.

Byline: Reed Johnson Daily News Staff Writer

April has been a red-letter month so far for lustful old men. Last week a resurgent Hugh Hefner marked his 73rd birthday in high style at the bunny mansion. Now we have Dwayne Croft as the ultimate graying hare, Don Giovanni, sowing his wild notes and offering a master class in operatic acting in an 8-year-old revival that shows no need of Viagra supplements.

First staged at L.A. Opera in 1991, Jonathan Miller's production takes a subtly class-conscious approach to the story of the world's most notorious womanizer. Croft, an American baritone with hawk-nosed good looks, making his L.A. Opera debut, exudes a smarmy suavity when dealing with social equals, a condescending swagger and mock-sincerity around subordinates. When the Don makes his move on the naive peasant Zerlina (sweetly engaging mezzo-soprano Zheng Cao), Croft's casual ruthlessness insinuates that the girl would be a fool to pass up her one shot at material comfort.

When another of his would-be dupes falls prey to Giovanni's seductions, Croft seems to shrug vocally, as if to say, ``That was easy, huh?'' It's the aristocracy that calls the tune in this opera, of course, while the working stiffs like Giovanni's servant Leporello run around mopping up the damage.

That Croft never swamps his part with gratuitous attitude underlines the production's naturalistic ease, which extends to Evelino Pido's quietly assertive conducting. Miller's breadth of theatrical experience pays handsome dividends here, as he and his performers find characterizations whose emotional intricacies, for once, approach Mozart's musical complexity.

Perhaps the best example is Michael Schade's superb Don Ottavio, which the German-Canadian tenor plays as the antithesis of a puffed-up blueblood. Dignified, cultivated, virile without being macho, he provides a proto-Enlightenment counterpoint to Don Giovanni's baroque excesses.

While less startling in their portrayals, the remaining principals are tough to fault. Jane Eaglen sings beautifully as Donna Anna, though without quite the dynamic summit-scaling we might expect from this formidable British soprano. Sally Wolf gives a movingly tormented performance as Donna Elvira and is at her best in the great spleen-venting aria ``Mi tradi quell'alma ingrata.'' Homegrown bass-baritone Richard Bernstein locates a believably anxious humanity in Leporello's comic shtick, and Louis Lebherz is a solid, if not especially spooky, Commendatore.

The abstracted columns and pale stone facades of Robert Israel's set design suggest one of those Renaissance drawings of an ideal city. But there's a sepulchral cast to Duane Schuler's lighting, reminding us that Giovanni's erotic exploits are, in the end, a death wish in disguise. Playboys of the world, take note.

THE FACTS

What: ``Don Giovanni.''

Where: Dorothy Chandler Pavilion, Music Center of Los Angeles County, 135 N. Grand Ave.

When: 7:30 p.m. Wednesday, Saturday, April 27, 30 and May 2.

Tickets: $25 to $137. Call [phone].

Our rating: Three stars.

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Photo

Photo: Dwayne Croft plays the woman-chasing Don, with Sally Wolf as the tormented Donna Elvira, in L.A. Opera's ``Don Giovanni.''