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May 3, 2016 | Music & Arts | Big Sky Publishing
‘DON GI ONE OF OPERA’S T
Artistic Director Linda Curtis holds the 500-page, definitive Barenreiter score/script for “Don Giovanni.” It contains no stage directions.
HE C A ST, GUEST CONDUCTOR AND di-
and noted that the opera w
rector are all in town now, collaborating on a new
Putting this performan
incarnation of Mozart’s opera masterpiece “Don
too. She generally brings
Giovanni,” which Intermountain Opera Bozeman
show. “Don Giovanni” re
will stage at the Willson Auditorium on May 13 and 15.
and 16 chorus singers hav
But the show has been in Intermountain Artistic Direc-
while.
tor Linda Curtis’ head since spring 2015, when she began
Starring in the Bozem
imagining and then looking for exceptional, up-and-coming
Richard Ollarsaba, who wo
opera talents who could arrive in Bozeman on one day, sing
ful and well-controlled sou
their first rehearsal with the guest Conductor Christopher
Chicago as an understudy;
Allen the next, begin learning their stage directions from
soprano Jennifer Welch-B
visiting Director Steven Daigle after that and perform be-
ing bass Matthew Trevino
fore an audience 12 days later. Such lightning-speed sched-
prano Lauren McNeese as
ules are common for smaller opera companies, but Inter-
completed his first seaso
mountain Opera’s schedule is one of the tightest.
Opera’s Domingo-Cafritz
Curtis heard all of the voices separately at auditions
tavio; theatrical Kenneth
across the country, including in New York and Chicago.
na, Tasha Fain, last seen lo
She conferred with other artistic directors nationwide
and Gretel.”
and with singers’ management companies. She’s even
Mozart’s version of Pra
checked out recommendations from local opera aficiona-
ends, “Don Giovanni” wea
dos.
melodrama and the supe
“Don Giovanni,” was an immediate success with an ador-
Don Giovanni travels Eur
ing audience when it premiered in Prague in October 1787.
hind innumerable broken
Critics exclaimed that audiences had “never heard the like,”
he encounters a force he c
Richard Ollarsaba
Matthew Trevino
Jennifer Welch-Babidge
Brian Kontes
Lauren McNeese
Yi Li
DON GIOVANNI
LEPORELLO
DONNA ANNA
THE COMMENDATORE
DONNA ELVIRA
DON OTTAVIO