We’re going to hell on this week’s Sunday Opera (7/21 3:00 p.m.) with “Don Giovanni” from Opera de Lille in France. Lorenzo Da Ponti’s tale of the lecherous Don features some of Mozart’s best loved music and is excellently performed by a superb cast headed by Timothy Murray in the title role.
Murray is joined here by Vladyslav Buialskyi as his equally amoral partner in crime, Leporello. As the three women who have currently found themselves in his lustful crosshairs, Donna Elvira, Donna Anna, and Zerlina, we have Chiara Skerath, Emoke Barath, and Marie Lys.
As the fiances of Anna and Zerlina, Don Ottavio and Masetto, you’ll hear Eric Ferring, Villegas Galvain, and finally, the “Stone Guest,” the Commendatore and father of Elvira whom Giovanni murders, is James Platt, who returns to ensure that the Don will get the punishment he deserves.
After the opera, join Michael Kownacky a look at three more treatments of the legend of Don Juan. We’ll begin with a symphonic work by German composer Walter Braunfels performed by the Philharmonic Orchestra Attenburg-Gera conducted by Markus L. Frank. We couldn’t have a program about Don Juan without what is possibly the most well-known version by Richard Strauss in a performance by The Vienna Philharmonic conducted by Andre Previn. Our final Don is a short one as we turn to an excerpt from the ballet by Christoph Villibald Gluck featuring Tafelmusick.
That’s four “Dons,” four Stone Guests, and four hours of some wonderfully evocative music beginning at 3:00 p.m. this Sunday.
