CS

Don Giovanni has always been about a man who believes he is above consequence — even above divine judgment. 

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That idea feels less hypothetical and more like a question we are actively living with: what happens when charm and spectacle replace accountability? 

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The opera reveals a world that repeatedly excuses, enables, and even rewards destructive behavior. Giovanni moves freely, not simply because he is powerful, but because the culture around him absorbs and protects that power. 

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The philosopher Theodor Adorno wrote that the “wrong life cannot be lived rightly.” Mozart and Da Ponte seem to suggest something similarly unsettling — that when a society becomes organized around status, desire, and performance, it becomes increasingly difficult to separate personal corruption from cultural design. Giovanni is monstrous, but he is also produced, tolerated, and sustained by the world around him.

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So where better to set this contemporary interpretation than in the world of reality television? It’s produced our most notorious and powerful seducers in recent memory, after all. I hope you enjoy the fun we have with that. We did.

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At the center of this production is the extraordinary work of these student artists. Opera demands precision, courage, and complicated collaboration, and these performers have embraced those challenges with remarkable imagination and discipline. I am deeply dedicated to them. Their talent, humor, and fearlessness bring this story into the present moment. 

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If Don Giovanni still feels dangerous after nearly 240 years, it is because young artists continue to confront its contradictions with intelligence, skill, and heart.