OPERA > Don Giovanni

DON GIOVANNI
by W.A.Mozart

New York Opera Society
Théâtre Municipal de Castres, France 2007

Director Pat Diamond
Costumes Camille Assaf
Sets Camille Assaf and Marcus Doshi
Lights Marcus Doshi

Don Giovanni Victor Benedetti
Leporello Shannon DeVine
Donna Elvira Kathleen Flynn
Donna Anna Juliana Rambaldi

In this production, Giovanni's bleak hedonism indifferently zaps from women to ecstasy. The set, a cold and austere environment of silver drapes around a bed where all solitudes converged, included the magazines, old tv set, and empty bottles of a sad bachelor pad. The costumes, blocks of primary colors, gave a graphic vibrancy to the humans, partly a relief from the environement, partly the symptoms of an altered mind under the influence.
In the slow progression of a drug-induced nightmare, the silver sheets oozed from the bed, to finally cover most of the stage.
It was from the bed iself that the ghost/hallucination of the Commandatore rose to take revenge on Giovanni's soul. Giovanni's damnation was, in the end, the indifference of the rest of the world.