Opera Colorado sets Mozart classic in ’60s

“Updating” an opera is always a tricky business. Some concepts can have a great impact, while others fall flat.

Mozart’s “Don Giovanni” is one of the most beloved and perfect operas ever composed, and according to stage director Kevin Newbury, “an amazing opera can withstand an amazing update.”

Newbury, who directs Opera Colorado’s production of the classic, was asked to put his own take on a previous conception of the story that sets it in the 1960s and imagines the Don as a James Dean type of character.

“It works because there’s very little that’s specific to the late 18th century,” said Newbury, whose production premieres Saturday and runs for four performances through April 7. “It’s about hierarchy, sex, death, class, and how they interact. Giovanni and his servant, Leporello, are outsiders and foreign to the prevailing morals. It’s like imposing the changing scene of the early 1950s, as seen in Dean’s and Marlon Brando’s characters, to the more rigid morality of the late 1940s. In the end, it’s about innocence lost.”

Among the updated images will be Giovanni and Leporello traveling in a sports car and a duel scene that might have had a place in “West Side Story.” All that matters, said Newbury, is that Giovanni’s privileged background is clear.

Newbury said that the morally rigid characters of Donna Anna and Don Ottavio work well against the changing standards of the mid-20th century.

“Donna Elvira fares even better,” he said. “She comes across as Giovanni’s female counterpart, and even in Mozart’s original, it’s clear that she is a bit of a sex addict who cannot resist the Don. In this setting, she seems right out of ‘Desperate Housewives.’ ”

Newbury mostly works with world premieres and new operas, including Mark Adamo’s “The Gospel of Mary Magdalene” in San Francisco, which was conducted by Colorado Music Festival director Michael Christie.

“I like controversial and edgy new stuff,” Newbury said, “but once in a while, it’s fun to do a little Mozart.”

From the musical standpoint, a resetting also plays a role. New York conductor Ari Pelto will be in the pit for the Denver production.

“As a conductor who approaches the score from a dramatic point of view, I think about this all the time,” Pelto said. “Every production, singer, and concept is different, and every moment on stage is different in each production.

“I try to create the most beautiful way for the music to express what the director is looking for, but on the other hand, I also see myself as the caretaker of Mozart’s vision. I need to maintain that in the face of the dramatic direction that every production takes.”

Pelto also discussed specific conducting problems in the opera, most notably the extremely complex overlapping dance rhythms with onstage orchestras at the end of Act I.

“In their own right, these dances are relatively simple, but it’s complicated getting them all to go together,” Pelto said. “The key is to find the right gesture for each of them, putting it together so that the musicians and singers can each hear their own dance. If I’m doing my job right, it should be easy for each of them to play in their own tempo, and the singing is superimposed on the ‘hypermeter’ of the whole thing.”

The cast includes seasoned veterans in the roles of Donna Anna, Don Ottavio and Donna Elvira, with relative newcomers playing the Don, Leporello, Zerlina, and Masetto, all of whom are playing the role for the first time. Zerlina is portrayed by Boulder favorite Maria Lindsay, who recently graduated from the University of Colorado opera program and performed memorably in several roles.

Pelto said the balance of veterans and newcomers is a wonderful and clever approach to casting.

“If everybody’s doing it for the first time, it’s exciting and fresh, but you’re missing a certain depth,” he said, “whereas if nobody is new, there is the danger that they are all simply rehashing their old ways of doing it, and it’s harder to find that ensemble quality that is essential in all of Mozart.

“It’s difficult when everybody comes in with strong preconceptions. It’s important that everybody involved feels that this particular production has never existed before and never will again.”

Of interest to those who know the opera well is the decision whether to include two arias that were late insertions by Mozart but then became extremely popular. They used to be included all the time, but more recently, one or both is often omitted. Pelto omits the lyrical tenor aria “Dalla sua pace” for Ottavio but includes Donna Elvira’s virtuosic “Mi tradi.”

“The later aria for Ottavio, ‘Il mio Tesoro,’ gives a more complete picture of Ottavio, whereas ‘Dalla sua pace’ doesn’t really add anything except a pretty song,” Pelto said. “By contrast, ‘Mi tradi’ provides a very important development for Elvira that adds depth to her final appearances.”

This development seems to fit with Newbury’s conception of the character.