W.A. Mozart's Don Giovanni presented by Pacific Opera Project

Another POP-up production for LA’s newest opera company:

Pacific Opera Project launches bold new production of Mozart’s Don Giovanni at the Miles Memorial Playhouse next month

Pacific Opera Project presents a bold new production of W. A. Mozart’s classic operatic drama, Don Giovanni in five performances at the beautiful and intimate Miles Memorial Playhouse in Santa Monica (September 23, 25, 30, October 1, 2). The artistic team that entertained sold-out crowds with Bernstein’s Trouble in Tahiti last month on the Main Stage at the Santa Monica Playhouse and Upstairs at Vitello’s in Studio City takes on its next mission to bring extraordinary artistic talent together with timeless masterpieces of the operatic repertoire, producing opera of the highest caliber for diverse Southern California audiences.

Artistic Director Joshua Shaw (Opera Fairbanks, Capitol Opera Sacramento, Opera Las Vegas) directs the stage action, in addition to designing the sets and costumes, while Music Director Stephen Karr (Palm Beach Opera, Opera New Jersey, Opera Santa Barbara) leads the cast and orchestra while doubling as continuo accompanist. The cast includes baritone Adam Meza (Opera San Jose, West Bay Opera, Opera New Jersey) as the beguiling and insatiable Don Giovanni and E. Scott Levin, who “displays his substantial comic skills” (Chuck Lavazzi for KDXH radio, St. Louis) in the role of the sidekick, the oft-abused Leporello. On October 1, Don Giovanni and Leporello are played by Ryan Thorn and Adrian Rosales respectively, leading the excellent alternate cast. Sopranos Courtney Taylor and Natalie Mann are double cast in the role of Donna Anna, the noblewoman whose bedroom is violated by Don Giovanni to begin the opera. Her fiancé and steadfast defender Don Ottavio is sung by tenors Robert Norman and Jon Lee Keenan. Donna Elvira (sopranos Daria Somers and Ariel Pisturino) introduces the sordid and lengthy history of the Don’s daring escapades in love as she chases him from town to town, seeking vengeance for his abandonment of her. The youthful Zerlina, sung by Renée Rulon Cortez and Jessica Mamey, is dragged from her own wedding with Masetto (portrayed by baritone Luvi Avendano) to thrill the Don’s appetite for available and — especially — unavailable ladies of all shapes and sizes, each one recorded in loving detail by Leporello in his list. The catalog makes for a musical mouthful in his first act aria “Madamina”. In true operatic fashion, a stone statue of Donna Anna’s murdered father, the Commendatore, drags Giovanni to hell in what seems an appropriate homecoming. For a man who did so much wrong to so many people, Don Giovanni offers a multitude of musical gems that will do right by any lover of music. In two acts with one intermission, the show runs two-and-a-half (2.5) hours.

Accompanied by chamber orchestra and harpsichord continuo, the opera is sung in the original Italian with projected English supertitles. Tickets from $20 available online through the POP website (www.pacificoperaproject.com). 

Who:            Pacific Opera Project: Los Angeles’s newest opera company; committed to fully             professional productions of worthy masterpieces and daring new works of opera and             musical theater produced with artists of the highest caliber in diverse venues. 

What:             Fully-staged production of W. A. Mozart’s opera Don Giovanni with orchestra,             sung in Italian with English supertitles.

Where: Miles Memorial Playhouse, 1130 Lincoln Blvd, Santa Monica, CA 90403

When: September 23 (8 P.M.), 25 (7:30 P.M.) and 30 (8 P.M.); October 1 and 2 at 3 P.M.

Pacific Opera Project is dedicated to presenting energetic, high-quality, accessible performances of a broad variety of operatic repertoire; to benefiting the larger artistic community of Southern California by providing a fully professional environment for our artists; and to cultivating and enriching a wide audience in venues both conventional and unconventional throughout the region with innovative performances that enliven and preserve the art form.

For more information please visit http://www.pacificoperaproject.com, contact info@pacificoperaproject.com or call the Pacific Opera Project hotline at 323-739-6122.  Tickets available through inticketing.com.