Spring 2005:
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart's
Don Giovanni
Press:
"Don Giovanni and Don Ottavio, the fire and ice of the opera, show two of the many different facets of love."
Katrina Wilber, MN Daily
Production:
Presented by University of Minnesota Opera Theatre and UM Duluth Department of Music
APRIL 28, 29, 30, MAY 1: Ted Mann Concert Hall
LAWRENCE WELLER, conductor
DAVID WALSH, director
JIM WENTING, lighting & set design
JULIE ANN RITHALER, costume & hair design
Photos
The Opera:
Don Giovanni describes a world at the turning point between feudalism and modern urban civilization. The feudal world is both realistically and figuratively an anachronism. This world, and the values it represents, are about to disappear, engulfed in the flames of revolution and terror. The new world, characterized by the sterility and banality of the middle classes, will have no place for emancipated nature. The Don is no longer a potent force in a world that will become brutal and frigid, in which the tyranny of the elite will be supplanted by the tyranny of mediocrity.
Giovanni himself belongs to neither the past nor the future but to the historical moment between. He is the ultimate symbol of freewill in action, of human potential at its outer limits. But to society or civilization, he represents subversion and anarchy and his suppression must be arranged if the new order is to flourish.
The march of the demons at the end of Don Giovanni is nothing less than the advance of a new order to replace the old. In its rush to claim succession, in the frenzy of its triumph, the mob will trample the good with the bad as it always does. But the world will come to miss Giovanni’s enlightened sensuality.