Greek National Opera Presents A New Production Of Mozart's DON GIOVANNI Next Month

Performances run October 21-29.

By: Sep. 21, 2022
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Greek National Opera Presents A New Production Of Mozart's DON GIOVANNI Next Month

The Greek National Opera (GNO) presents the Athens premiere of Mozart's Don Giovanni, staged by acclaimed opera director and Artistic Director of the Royal Danish Opera John Fulljames and conducted by Ondrej Olos. Don Giovanni will run for five performances spanning October 21-29. This production was made possible by a grant from the Stavros Niarchos Foundation (SNF) [www.SNF.org] to enhance the GNO's artistic outreach.

A co-production between the GNO, the Göteborg Opera, and Royal Danish Opera, Don Giovanni was filmed inside the Stavros Niarchos Hall in December 2021 without an audience due to Covid restrictions at the time, and the production received its world premiere on Greek National Opera's online television channel (GNO TV). Now, after its Copenhagen debut at the Royal Danish Opera, the production returns to the Stavros Niarchos Hall stage for in-person performances on Friday October 21 at 7:30 p.m.; Sunday October 23 at 6:30 p.m.; Tuesday October 25 at 7:30 p.m.; Thursday October 27 at 7:30 p.m.; and Saturday October 29 at 7:30 p.m.

Fulljames updates Mozart's opera from 17th century Seville to the modern day. The plot is entirely set inside a hotel, a place where everything is transient and ambiguous--public and private blending into one. The impermanence of hotel life brings the titular character's fate-obsessed mentality to the forefront; he is his actions and nothing more. Fulljames notes:

Don Giovanni is an enduring opera because it has so many aspects; there is broad humor and great theatrical set pieces, all in a dark thriller about a seducer who must be stopped. It is about how we live together in society and, as ever with opera, about how we face death. The climax is the long-awaited death of Don Giovanni himself as he chooses death, hell even, over denying who he is. His death is an expression of order reasserting itself over the unrestrained liberty he represents.

The production features baritone Dionysios Sourbis as Don Giovanni; tenor Vassilis Kavayas as Don Ottavio; bass Petros Magoulas as Il Commendatore; soprano Cellia Costea as Donna Elvira; bass-baritone Yanni Yannissis as Leporello; and baritone Nikos Kotenidis as Masetto.

Don Giovanni is the first of two Fulljames-directed productions at the GNO this season. His 2008 staging of Puccini's Gianni Schicchi-one of the GNO's most Popular Productions--returns in March 2023 in a double bill alongside a new staging of Bartók's Bluebeard's Castle by director Themelis Glynatsis.

Following Don Giovanni the fall 2022-23 opera season continues at Stavros Niarchos Hall with the Greek premiere of Krzysztof Warlikowski's new production of Offenbach's Les Contes d'Hoffmann, conducted by Lukas Karytinos on December 18, running through January 8.




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