By ANNE MIDGETTE [NY Times, 1 April 2006]

"Don Giovanni" is as close as you're going to get to a perfect opera. That statement may draw forth a chorus of protests: it's long, it's sprawling, it hasn't figured out whether it's a comedy or a tragedy, and it lurches from one extreme to the other. But at the New York City Opera on Thursday night, at the second performance of the opera's run there, I was struck by how tightly and satisfyingly the sections fit together, each falling into place with an audible click, like some sort of aural Rubik's Cube.