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It’s tempting to imagine {that a} model of Don Giovanni that highlights the power of its feminine characters would require some main updates.
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s beloved opera a couple of lecherous nobleman who wrongs ladies and men alike was first carried out in 1787 when the mannequin for robust females differed tremendously from immediately’s. Nevertheless it seems Mozart and librettist Lorenzo Da Ponte created potent feminine characters from the get-go. There isn’t a want for a contemporary, feminist reboot of the opera, it’s all there within the unique textual content.
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“The best way that Mozart wrote these girls, they’re very robust and highly effective,” says director Anna Theodosakis, who’s making her Calgary Opera debut with Don Giovanni. “For some cause, typically that goes by the wayside in conventional productions. So I used to be actually eager to convey out extra of their power, construct the relationships between the ladies themselves, and simply guarantee that they as survivors have quite a lot of company and that each the singers and the characters really feel empowered.”
So, Theodosakis, who beforehand directed a web-based pandemic model of Don Giovanni in 2020, didn’t should basically change something for this manufacturing. No scenes have been added to emphasise the shift in focus from Giovanni to the ladies who survive him. Theodosakis and conductor Jonathan Brandani, who can also be Calgary Opera’s inventive director, needed the manufacturing to be beneath three hours, so cuts needed to be made. It was only a matter of what to chop.
“Jonathan and I have been very acutely aware to ensure we weren’t chopping issues away from the feminine characters, so leaving them extra intact so they might have extra character growth, which typically with cuts is one thing we lose,” she says. “In order that was necessary when chopping the fabric. In any other case, I’m relying so much on the staging and the stage actions to point out how robust they combat, to additionally present how they assist one another in several scenes and there are a few incidences the place usually among the girls wouldn’t be collectively in a scene however I’ve put them collectively to assist one another construct that sense of group.”
Don Giovanni is predicated on the story of Don Juan, a dashing anti-hero who victimizes girls. By the 18th century, the character was already well-known throughout Europe.
Within the Opera and Context part of Calgary Opera’s web site, the corporate acknowledges that the motivations of the three feminine characters – Donna Anna, Donna Elvira and Zerlina – have “traditionally been interpreted problematically. Their struggling and trauma have usually been downplayed, their technique of resistance missed or ridiculed.”
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Nonetheless, whereas the opera balances some intense components – assault, abuse, homicide, deception – with comedy, the unique actually didn’t downplay Giovanni’s comeuppance. The unique Italian title was Il dissoluto punito, ossia il Don Giovanni, which interprets into The Rake Punished, or Don Giovanni. And, sure – spoiler alert – the well-known scene when Giovanni is actually dragged to hell might be dropped at spectacular life on the Jubilee Auditorium when the opera premieres on Nov. 2.
Phillip Addis, who performed Giovanni within the on-line Brott Opera manufacturing that Theodosakis directed, might be joined by Italian bass-baritone Guido Loconsolo because the nobleman’s servant Leporello; Calgary-born soprano Aviva Fortunata performs Donna Elvira, a noblewoman whose social standing is compromised after being seduced by Giovanni; soprano Christina Thanisch-Smith, who’s a member of Calgary Opera’s McPhee Artist Growth program, performs the peasant newlywed Zerlina who’s vulnerable to being seduced by Giovanni; baritone Neil Craighead, who performs each Zerlina’s husband Masetto and Donna Anna’s father, the Commendatore; and tenor Chuan Wang, who performs Donna Anna’s fiancee Don Ottavio.
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The Vancouver-born, Toronto-based Theodosakis was first launched to Don Giovanni when finding out voice on the College of British Columbia. She carried out within the refrain for a manufacturing on the college throughout her undergrad yr. As a choreographer, she labored with the College of Toronto on a manufacturing of Don Giovanni which shifted the motion to the Nineteen Forties and Theodosakis created foxtrot and swing-dance numbers quite than minuets.
When she approached the opera as a director, Theodosakis started finding out the unique 1630 play by Tirso de Molina and Moliere’s 1665 play Don Juan to get a way of the “unique delusion and man of Don Juan,” she says. The Calgary Opera manufacturing modifications the interval from the 18th century to the late seventeenth century, which permits for vibrant caps-and-capes costumes that recall the Three Musketeers.
“I assumed it could be nice to set it historically as a result of we are able to nonetheless see the relevance of this story from again then throughout immediately’s political local weather,” she says. “I feel it’s each attractive and a deal with for the eyes whereas additionally highlighting how this sort of story prevails by time. Sadly, themes of home abuse and assault have all the time been related because the starting of time. However the truth that we at the moment are brazenly speaking about it and listening to extra from survivors makes it further poignant for immediately’s audiences.”
Don Giovanni might be carried out on Nov. 2, 6 and eight at 7:30 p.m. at The Southern Jubilee Auditorium.
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