Although Lorenzo Da Ponte’s reading of the character best known as Don Juan is that he is an unrepentant rake who deserves perdition with a capital P, today’s opera directors have a dilemma on their hands: How exactly are we to understand Don Giovanni? As the focus of one of Mozart’s finest operas, it’s a crucial question. I’ve seen him depicted as a Las Vegas crime lord in … [Read more...]
Singer searches for man inside the myth of Don Giovanni
By Robert Croan Mozart’s Don Giovanni was special from the time of its premiere in Prague in 1787: a great drama told in great music, with the combination amounting to something more than either would be on its own. Balancing comic and tragic elements in equal proportions, Mozart and his librettist Lorenzo Da Ponte called the opera a dramma giocoso (playful drama), … [Read more...]
Soprano Caballero subs beautifully as Mimi in FGO’s fine ‘Bohème’
By Robert Croan When the rock musical Rent opened on Broadway in 1996, the point of reference for many viewers was Giacomo Puccini’s opera – premiered a century earlier – La Bohème. Jonathan Larson’s musical was an updated version of the opera’s libretto, though with entirely new music. Fast forward two decades: at the Nov. 15 performance of Puccini’s La Bohème in the … [Read more...]
FGO’s ‘Before Night Falls’ an important work, strongly cast
The life of Cuba after the Revolution of 1959 has been the subject of endless amounts of prose and heated arguments, but it also makes a good subject for an opera. In May 2010, the Cuban-American composer Jorge Martín saw his opera on this subject, Before Night Falls, take the stage for the first time at the Fort Worth Opera in Texas. On Saturday night, he was on hand again … [Read more...]