There’s a twist at the end Opera Cleveland’s production of Mozart’s Don Giovanni, but the stage-management crew isn’t spilling the beans.
Not that I was digging when I was talking with stage manager
Kathleen Edwards and her team: assistants Katy Reeves (a freelancer
from Texas) and Erin McCardle (who freelances for Cleveland
professional theater companies) and intern Andrew Landis, a recent
college graduate from Indiana.
“This is my seventh production of Don Giovanni,” says
Edwards. “And I haven’t ever seen it end this way.”
What’s at stake is the feeling audiences are left with as they leave
the theater, having just watched the prodigious mack daddy of the title
— whose sexual contests number in the thousands — descend
unrepentant into hell, dragged there by a statue come to life.
Depending on the director’s choices, his decision not to repent and the
fate he suffers as result can feel like a cautionary tale, like justice
served or maybe something else.
But a stage crew’s role is to make other people’s visions come true
as if by magic, and this bunch isn’t revealing any secrets.
They’ve become fast, efficient friends in order to whip the show
into shape in about half the time usually allotted for rehearsal. The
quick turnaround is for both scheduling and cost-saving purposes.
They’ll be constantly busy until opening night, as well as during each
performance.
“We take notes on everything that happens and needs to happen, and
make sure that it all happens consistently and safely,” says
Edwards.
So they know, maybe more than anyone else, all the details of the
production. That must make it especially difficult not to leak a few
things — like the ending.
“Don’t you watch Battlestar Galactica?” asks Edwards, as if
an arts reporter had any understanding of the Cylons and their ambush
of the Twelve Colonies. The series ended earlier this year, and its
finale was a closely guarded secret.
What’s certain about the production — aside from the
extravagantly beautiful music — is that director John Hoomes has
created a memorable contrast by using elaborate, traditional costumes
on a stark, modernist set. Hoomes conceived the production —
designed by Kris Stone — for Florentine Opera of Milwaukee, where
he directed it in 2006. He directed another Don Giovanni with
the same set and costumes in Nashville in 2008. His Cleveland cast
includes Robert Gierlach in the title role, Alyson Cambridge as Donna
Elvira, Janinah Burnett as Donna Anna, Matthew Burns as Leporello,
Jonathan Boyd as Don Ottavio, Fenlon Lamb as Zerlina and Scott Conner
as the Commendatore. Artistic director Dean Williamson will
conduct.
But about that ending: “It’s different,” is all Edwards will say.
“It makes you think.”
mgill@clevescene.com
This article appears in Oct 28 – Nov 3, 2009.