My Love Affair with Don Giovanni

by Jen Dragon, Guest Blogger

The first time I ever saw Don Giovanni it was under the direction of Peter Maag and I was 11 on a class trip to the Metropolitan Opera. I had many preconceived notions about opera then: corny love stories, lots of incomprehensible singing, static production. But I returned on the school bus completely changed as this opera was anything but that! Yes, the language of the singing would not become clear to me until many years later after I learned Italian, but the language of Mozart's music grabbed my heart! The story was unlike anything I had ever read before and worlds different from the hokey musicals I had seen on Broadway. And the dynamics of voice, orchestra and drama was like something I had never imagined. It became clear to me that Opera was the culmination of all the arts, working together in some magnificent whole: music, voice, painting, sculpture, dance, theater- there is absolutely nothing else like it!

Peter Maag's Don Giovanni at the Metropolitan Opera

The next break through I experienced with opera was about 10 years later when I was attending SUNY Purchase and Peter Sellers directed Don Giovanni at Pepsi Summerscape. As a student, I could get a ticket for 1.00 and I was introduced to a kind of opera that was pulled off of the stage and recast on the streets. Mr. Sellers had taken the story of the Don and had set it in late 20^th century Harlem with two African American twin brother baritones, Eugene and Herbert Perry. This casting underlined the ambiguity between the characters of Leporello and Don Giovanni and setting the production in Harlem gave the opera a heightened sense of danger and power. Most importantly, it made Mozart's opera more real, more contemporary, than the Baroque costumes and sets that were usually associated with more traditional productions. Sellar's Don Giovanni changed forever what I thought about opera- it was no longer an experience that I appreciated- but became a visceral, passionate, moving experience that I lived.

Peter Sellar's Don Giovanni at Purchase College

Since then I have seen various versions of Don Giovanni and no matter how they are handled, set in the past or moved up to today, the music and the story tranfixes me. The only way I have not seen Don Giovanni is about to happen this summer at the Phoenicia International Festival of the Voice. This outdoor presentation will be under the stars on a grassy field encircled by the Catskill Mountains. The unique venue offers the amazing experience of hearing operatic singing echo off the surrounding mountains in a most wonderful acoustic phenomenon that I have never heard anywhere else in the world. Since it is early August, there will be shooting stars throughout the evening, the mountain night will be cool and refreshing and the performing artists have all sung in the greatest opera houses in the world! To hear Mozart's Don Giovanni this way, outside of a concert hall, not via film or broadcast, but pure singing with a full orchestra in the night air will be my third greatest experience with the Don. To buy tickets to this magical evening, please go to: http://bit.ly/ndNJXY Be sure to pack a blanket or lawn chair, bring a picnic and enjoy the magic!