Over the past 47 years, San Diego Opera has staged Mozart's 1787 opera "Don Giovanni" five times.
The last time was in 2015, when it was presented in a minimalist production dominated by oversize framed paintings by European masters from the 17th and 18th centuries.
Next weekend "Don Giovanni" returns again to the San Diego Civic Theatre in a production that stage director Kyle Lang describes as both modern and immersive.
In this staging, the story of the infamous Spanish libertine will be presented in modern dress and times, and the costumed singers will move in front of, beside and behind the San Diego Symphony musicians, who will be performing at the audience's eye level.
Projections will create the sleek and elegant world of the wealthy nobleman and the singers may possibly move off the stage and into the auditorium to deliver some verses from their arias.
"We found a way for it to be a little more in your face and more personal," said Lang, who recently moved to San Diego full time. He lives in Hillcrest with his husband, Christopher K. Morgan, and their two "Chipit" puppies (a mix of Chihuahua and pit bull). Morgan was recently hired as the new artistic director of Malashock Dance at Liberty Station.
Lang, whose past directorial credits with San Diego Opera include "Carmen" in 2019 and "As One" in 2017, said he has never staged an opera production like this without traditional scenery and the orchestra front and center. But it won't be his last. Opera companies all over the country are reimagining how they present traditional operas on reduced budgets as the industry works to both rebuild and expand its audience post-pandemic.
"I don't know what the solution is, but we have to try things. We have to find new and younger audiences," he said. "People who were born in the '80s are different than people born in 2000. We should explore doing immersive things. We should cater to people who grew up with video games and iPhones because they take in information differently. This is a moment where there's not the funding we used to have. If people want to see operas in huge productions, then there needs to be more funding."
A timeless story
Mozart and his librettist Lorenzo Da Ponte based "Don Giovanni" on the tale of Don Juan, an unrepentant womanizer who gets dragged to hell for his sins. The character first appeared in a Spanish play in 1630 and different versions of Don Juan's story proliferated over the next 150 years.
In the Mozart-Da Ponte version, the amoral Don Giovanni — the Italian translation for "Don Juan" — spends most of his time seducing and accosting women, from engaged noblewomen to peasant girls, with the help of his faithful servant Leporello. One of the women successfully fights Don Giovanni off, but when her father, the Commendatore (commander), later confronts her attacker to defend her honor, Don Giovanni kills him.
Eventually, Don Giovanni is forced to pay for his exploits in dramatic fashion, but not before some of the most famous arias, duets and ensembles in the opera canon are performed. These include Leporello's comic "catalog aria," where he goes through his notebook to list all of the women the Don has seduced, and two show pieces by Don Giovanni: the ultra-fast Champagne Aria and the seductive ballad "La ci darem la mano" ("there we will take each other's hands"), among others.
The era of libertinism — a philosophy devoted to the pursuit of pleasure — died out in the 19th century. And the depiction of women in this opera — powerless, unsophisticated and easily duped — is out of step with today's times.
Or is it?
Lang said there are many contemporary parallels to the characters in this opera.
Men in positions of power still make the headlines regularly for sexually abusing women. Former president Donald Trump bragged on tape in 2005 about how easy it was to assault women because he's famous, and just last May, a jury found him liable for assaulting a woman in 1996 and ordered him to pay her $5 million.
In Lang's opera production, Don Giovanni is able to attract women because he's a celebrity.
"Giovanni has such a rock star vibe," Lang said. "It turned into finding in a way to present it with a rock concert look, with the lighting, in a way."
And the three women characters in "Don Giovanni" also turn up regularly in contemporary society. For example, the peasant girl Zerlina is a textbook domestic abuse survivor who allows, and even encourages, her boyfriend Masetto to take out his aggressions on her.
Although Don Giovanni is a classic villain in the opera, Lang said in his production he wants to find the dark and light shades of every character.
"All the characters are good and bad," he said. "There are operas where there are bad guys and good guys, but that is not at all 'Giovanni.' They all have multiple facets. If no, then how will you relate to them (as an audience member). The point of this art form is to make people think."
Lang said he has strong ideas about what he wants to say in this production, but he also wants to leave some things open to the audience's interpretation. Just what he's keeping a secret until opening night.
Born to entertain
Lang grew up in Louisiana, where he started playing piano at age 4 and was a natural storyteller. He described his childhood as "very vibrant."
"I love making people laugh and happy," he said. "I think performing arts for me has always been about sharing something. There's this unspoken feeling that when we're seeing or performing a show that we get to be part of something bigger than us."
Lang studied piano performance in college, but realized quickly he didn't want to play music. Instead, he moved to California and performed in musical theater in Orange County and San Francisco for a year before discovering a new passion for ballet. He went back to college to study dance. After finishing his degree at NYU's Tisch School of the Arts in his mid-20s, he went right to work dancing at the Metropolitan Opera in Manhattan.
Over the next decade, Lang alternated between dancing in operas at the Met and at Santa Fe Opera in New Mexico and touring with a ballet company. Eventually, he expanded his expertise into choreographing and assistant directing opera. In recent years he has become a full-time opera director and choreographer.
"As a director, I found my voice," he said. "I see myself more as a director who choreographs than a choreographer who directs."
Lang's first work with San Diego Opera was during the 2014-15 season, when he assistant directed the last "Don Giovanni," as well as "La Boheme" and "Nixon in China." Then he returned to assistant direct "Tosca" in 2016 and "Falstaff" in 2017. Lang said he booked the job to direct this year's "Don Giovanni" before his husband, Christopher, was hired last fall to run Malashock Dance.
Lang and Morgan met 19 years ago in New York. Lang was a member of a dance company in the summer of 2005 when Morgan was hired to fill in for a dancer who was out. They've been together ever since, supporting each other by traveling to each other's gigs whenever possible from home bases in New York, Washington, D.C., and, most recently, Hawaii.
"We make time for each other," Lang said. "Since COVID I don't like being apart as much. I like being crowded with him all the time."
This interview with Lang took place just before the "Don Giovanni" singers were scheduled to arrive in San Diego for rehearsals.
The cast includes Argentine baritone Germán Enrique Alcántara in his company debut as Don Giovanni; baritone Ethan Vincent as Leporello; soprano Tasha Koontz as Donna Anna; mezzo-soprano Megan Moore as Donna Elvira; tenor Alexander McKissick as Don Ottavio; soprano Ashley Fabian as Zerlina; bass Stefan Egerstrom as Masetto; and bass Brent Michael Smith as Il Commendatore. San Diego Opera principal conductor Yves Abel will conduct the San Diego Symphony and Bruce Stasyna will conduct the San Diego Opera Chorus.
Lang said he finds opening nights "a groan-fest" because he's usually too nervous to thoroughly enjoy the show. Instead, his favorite part of directing opera is being in the rehearsal room with the singers as they all work together to develop and craft the characters and story.
"It's an honor to be in the room with these artists who have worked to so long to become who they are, and there's this magical moment when it all comes together onstage," he said.
Because of this production's short rehearsal period and its unique new staging concept, Lang said he believes a lot of new ideas will be sparked in the rehearsal room as he and the cast talk, block out the scenes and find the core of their characters in this modern setting.
"I'm excited to be finding a new voice and finding a different way of telling the story. It's really stretching me," he said. "It feels good to be exploring a different part of myself and dealing with these very deep characters."
'Don Giovanni'
When: 7:30 p.m. Feb. 2 and 2 p.m. Sunday, Feb. 4
Where: San Diego Opera at the San Diego Civic Theatre, 1100 B St., downtown
Tickets: $13 to $335
Online: sdopera.org
This story originally appeared in San Diego Union-Tribune.
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