The Canadian Opera Company's 2014/2015 winter season opens with a game-changing new production of Mozart's Don Giovanni. Internationally acclaimed Russian director Dmitri Tcherniakov defies convention with this dark and witty masterpiece inspired by literature's most famous womanizer, Don Juan. His vision is brought to blistering life by a dream cast led by renowned Canadian baritoneRussell Braun and German maestro Michael Hofstetter conducting Mozart's glorious score of irresistible melodies. Sung in Italian with English SURTITLESTM, Don Giovanni runs for 10 performances on January 24, 27, 30,February 1, 3, 6, 12, 14, 18, 21, 2015 at the Four Seasons Centre for the Performing Arts.
Named Best Director at London's inaugural International Opera Awards in 2013, Dmitri Tcherniakov makes his COC debut with a deeply considered, unconventional and piercingly honest production that the
Financial Times hailed as "a thrillingly accomplished
Don Giovanni that caught us off guard." Described as "an artist whose work is on the edge of the cutting edge" (
Opera News), Tcherniakov plumbs the psychological depths of this work about a driven and aggressive seducer, Don Giovanni, who goes too far and kills the father of one of his victims, while those whom he has hurt seek vengeance.
Deemed "the greatest opera ever written" by George Bernard Shaw, part of
Don Giovanni's enduring appeal in the years since its 1787 premiere is the scope for endless interpretation on the drives and meanings behind the story of Don Juan and Mozart's opera. Originally,
Don Giovanni takes place over a day or two and in several different locations. In this production, the tale unfolds over several weeks with the action confined to one room within a wildly luxurious home. Tcherniakov's vision also reimagines the characters as one extended family who are, in one way or another, brought into the thrall of the mesmerizing title character. The result is a more tightly woven web where the characters' relationships are intensified by their familial and physical closeness.
Renowned for his luminous voice "capable of the most powerful explosions as well as the gentlest covered notes" (
Toronto Star), Canadian baritone Russell Braun rightfully claims his place on the concert, opera and recital stages of the world. As Don Giovanni, Braunreunites with Tcherniakov to reprise the role he sang for Teatro Real Madrid in 2013, and once again take on one of opera's most intense and dramatically challenging characters. A regular at the COC in recent seasons (2014's
Falstaff and
Roberto Devereux, 2012's
Il Trovatore and
Love from Afar), Braun, as the mythical seducer, is the beloved baritone as COC audiences have never seen him before.
Internationally acclaimed Canadian Jane Archibald makes a role debut as Donna Anna, one of Don Giovanni's conquests. The superstar coloratura soprano last appeared with the COC to popular and critical acclaim in 2012's
Semele and 2011's
Ariadne auf Naxos, delighting Toronto audiences with an "unbelievable mastery of singing, controlled with apparent ease... [and] technical ease combined with a remarkable dramatic presence" (
Le Figaro, FR), that has won her admiration the world over.
Canadian Michael Schade, one of the leading Mozart tenors on the stage today, is Don Ottavio, Donna Anna's fiancé. Last with the COC in 2013's
La clemenza di Tito, 2012's
Die Fledermaus and 2011's
The Magic Flute, Schade returns in a role that has won him international acclaim since delivering his first Ottavio in 1996 at the Vienna State Opera.
Lauded for her "nuanced dramatic impulses" (
Opera News) and a "voice that is liquid, lambent, and lit from within" (
Classical Review), American mezzo-soprano Jennifer Holloway makes her Canadian and role debut as Donna Elvira, Don Giovanni's wife. American Kyle Ketelsen is Leporello, Don Giovanni's relative. Last seen at the COC in 2011's
Cinderella, "the appealing and hardy-voiced bass-baritone" (
New York Times) reprises the role following performances of this production with Teatro Real Madrid and Festival d'Aix-en-Provence.
Singing some of
Don Giovanni's most well-known and treasured music is young Canadian lyric soprano, and COC Ensemble Studio graduate, Sasha Djihanian as the flirtatious Zerlina, Donna Anna's daughter. Rising American baritone Zachary Nelson is Masetto, Zerlina's fiancé. Il Commendatore, Donna Anna's murdered father, is sung by one of the most sought-after basses on the international stage, Italian Andrea Silvestrelli.
Leading the COC Orchestra and Chorus for the first time is highly lauded Munich-born conductor Michael Hofstetter. A multiple nominee for "Conductor of the Year" by
Opernwelt magazine, Hofstetter has been met with acclaim conducting with the premier orchestras of opera houses and festivals around the world, repeatedly praised for his style and musical insight.
Don Giovanni was last presented by the COC in 2008 and returns in a new COC co-production with Teatro Real Madrid, Festival d'Aix-en-Provence and Bolshoi Theatre. Sets are by Dmitri Tcherniakov with costume design shared between Tcherniakov and Elena Zaytseva. The lighting design is by Gleb Filshtinsky, recreated in Toronto by Ayvar Salikhov.
Ticket Information
Single tickets for Don Giovanni range from $49 - $424 and are available online atcoc.ca, by calling 416-363-8231, or in person at the Four Seasons Centre for the Performing Arts Box Office (145 Queen St. W.)
For more information on specially priced tickets available to young people under the age of 15, standing room, Opera Under 30 presented by TD Bank Group, student groups and rush seating, visit coc.ca.
Photo credit: Russell Braun as Don Giovanni in the Canadian Opera Company/Teatro Real Madrid (TRM)/Festival d'Aix-en-Provence/Bolshoi Theatre co-production of Don Giovanni, 2013, TRM, photo: Javier del Real
