Review: DON GIOVANNI at The Vortex

On April 20, Pacific Opera Project (POP) presented Mozart's DON GIOVANNI at The Vortex in downtown Los Angeles's arts district. DON GIOVANNI is the perfect choice for a small opera company. Composer Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart wrote an opera that required few choristers and contained only eight solo parts because he knew the limitations of the Prague opera company which would premiere DON GIOVANNI.

None of these parts are easy to sing or to interpret, however, and POP had an excellent singing actor for each role. Most outstanding was E. Scott Levin as Leporello. He made Don Giovanni's servant a rich and humorous character strengthened by judicious use of gestures and facial expressions as he continually tried to excuse his employer's evil deeds. His comic acting kept the audience laughing to the end when his boss went to endure the fires of Hell leaving Leporello free to find a better employer. Levin has a resonant voice with bright burnished tones and his energetic performance gained him thunderous applause at the end of the evening.

Both Leporello and Donna Elvira, Daria Somers, made excellent use of her umbrella, first as a sunshade, later as an instrument to emulate as well as punish seduction. Like Levin, Somers has a gift for comedy as well as powerful, dramatic vocal tones. In the title role of Don Giovanni, Adrian Rosas looked like a coed's dream in his red suit. His suave manners and use of lyrical as well as dramatic tones made his attempts at seduction believable as long as his truly evil deeds had yet to be discovered.

Some of the most beautiful singing of the evening came from Saira Frank as Donna Anna. She was one of the few artists who were not at all taxed by Mozart's difficult score. She sang with clear tones that reminded me of exquisite pearls on a string. Her well-honed technique enabled her to meet all the challenges of the role with seeming ease. Anna wanted blood vengeance, but she knew that neither she nor Don Ottavio would ever kill Don Giovanni, so she turned to drink.

Robert Norman gave a well-thought-out interpretation of Don Ottavio. He sang "Il mio tesoro" with tastefully restrained, smoothly controlled tone. He did not sing "Dalla sua pace" which Mozart wrote to replace "Il mio tesoro" in a later performance. In this production, Ottavio committed suicide after Donna Anna postponed their nuptials for more than a year and continued to drink heavily.

Tiffany Ho was a sexy Zerlina who had trouble saying "No." Luvi Avendano as Masetto, her groom-to-be, tried to punish her for her infidelity, but her "Batti, batti," was a grinding and lingerie-throwing lesson in seduction. His commanding ways wilted and he again fell for her charms, even after her dalliance with Don Giovanni.

Although Andrew Potter, the Commendatore, was Don Giovanni's victim at first, he later became a ghostly emissary of doom. His resounding bass voice dominated the stage in the Graveyard and in the final scene when he dragged the title character to eternal damnation.

Ryan Murray maintained a brisk pace as he conducted the orchestra of twenty players from the harpsichord where he played the continuo. Since this theater has no pit, the instrumentalists were set off to one side of the stage. They played well under Maestro Murray's direction but there were a few moments when stage and orchestra were not perfectly synchronized. Although there were monitors that allowed the singers to see the conductor, it must have been difficult for the conductor to see the singers.

POP's Artistic Director Josh Shaw directed and designed the production. He also designed the seating arrangement in the theater. The Vortex is a large warehouse space with a stage. Shaw installed numerous rows of tables, each of which seated four patrons who could enjoy wine, water, and a snack during the opera. Behind the tables he installed some individual theater seats that were less expensive.

On the stage Shaw placed whitewashed flights of stairs, platforms at different levels, gates, panels, and brick walls which turned into indoor and outdoor scenes with the aid of lighting. Scene changes were made during a few seconds of lowered lights. Maggie Green's bright primary and tertiary colored costumes provided the pizazz that made this show a visual delight. Singers in 1950s era garb stood out brightly in front of the white setting.

In a letter to Lorenzo DaPonte, Guardasoni, the stage manager of the original Prague production of DON GIOVANNI wrote, "Long live Mozart! Long live DaPonte! All impresarios, all singers, should bless the names of Mozart and DaPonte, for as long as they live there will be no more bad seasons." While that has not been exactly true throughout the intervening years, DON GIOVANNI is still counted among the world's most popular operas. On April 20, 2018, POP gave Angelenos a thoroughly amusing rendition of the Mozart masterpiece.

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