Synopsis - Don Giovanni

Synopsis

“In this production we will strip the story bare of its supernatural elements – rather focussing on the complexities of heart and mind that fuel the action of all the characters through an intense 12-hour period. “Set in a coldly anonymous glass and steel office tower – the kind of building found in a major urban centre – the opera opens with a heart-stopping murder and ends with the destruction of an all-too-human man. This Don is a man whose boundless and self destructive appetites of all kinds fuel a heedlessly chaotic descent into death. It is a contemporary revisioning of the story where the women he has used so carelessly have the strength and willpower

to plot his downfall.”

- Stage Director, Glynis Leyshon

Act I

The story takes place during an intense 12-hour period – from dusk to dawn – and is set within an enormous glass office tower. Frustrated that he has not been invited to a high level Board meeting convened by Il Commendatore to discuss the upcoming merger of his corporation with that of Don Ottavio’s father, an angry Don Giovanni instructs his assistant Leporello to wait for him in his office while he goes silently into the office of Donna Anna. She is working on some papers relating to the merger. There he attacks her, and when she calls for help, Giovanni runs from her office to the Atrium where Leporello has been waiting. Both her father and Don Ottavio arrive from the Board Room and in the fight that follows, Giovanni kills Il Commendatore. He and Leporello escape quickly into the darkened offices. As Anna mourns her dead father, the Corporation goes into immediate damage control mode and instead of calling the police, Anna demands that Ottavio help her to find her father’s murderer and that together they will avenge his death. The hunt for Giovanni is on.

Donna Elvira, whose PR firm will be handling the merger, now arrives for the Board meeting. In addition to the business meeting, she is expecting to meet and denounce Don Giovanni, with whom she had an unhappy affair. Instead,

Giovanni slips away and Leporello is left to explain the long list of women Don Giovanni has used. Unable to bear this proof of Giovanni’s true character, she runs off. The cleaning staff are celebrating the engagement of Masetto and Zerlina. The happy group enters the Atrium for an impromptu after hours party. Immediately captivated by Zerlina, Giovanni has Leporello take the staff off to the corporate dining room, while he attempts to seduce Zerlina. Elvira returns in time to save Zerlina and to denounce Giovanni. She then tries to convince Anna and Ottavio of Giovanni’s true nature but both Anna and Octavio cannot believe that their friend and colleague can be guilty as charged by the obviously hysterical Elvira. Just as Giovanni drags off Zerlina, Anna recognizes him as her attacker, and demands that Ottavio join her in avenging her father’s death. Although still filled with doubt Ottavio agrees to help and joins Anna and Elvira in pursuit of Giovanni.

ACT II

Fuelled by ego, adrenalin, drugs and alcohol Giovanni refuses to escape the building and instead continues to pursue Zerlina by pretending to host an impromptu engagement party and invites all the members of the cleaning staff. In disguise, Anna, Elvira and Ottavio arrive at the Party, determined to confront Giovanni. At the climax of the party, Giovanni attempts to rape Zerlina and he only escapes by pretending that Leporello is the guilty party. As the evening progresses, the disintegration of Giovanni continues. Led by Masetto, he is actively in hiding from enraged members of the staff. Beyond rational thought at this point Giovanni refuses to leave and convinces Leporello to remain with him. His victims, now including Zerlina and Masetto, plot to reduce Giovanni to madness. Using the body of Il Commendatore, they convince Giovanni and Leporello that his ‘ghost’ has come back to haunt them.

Anna, Elvira and Ottavio manipulate the body of the “ghost” to appear and force a final confrontation between the ghost of the Commendatore and an increasingly crazed Giovanni. In the final scene, Giovanni confronts his ghosts in the darkened parking garage of the building. He has physically and emotionally reached rock bottom and he imagines that instead of the dirty concrete basement he is in fact in a sumptuous dining room. Crazed with fear, Leporello acts out this last supper committed to Giovanni even to the end. Elvira makes one last attempt to save Giovanni but failing to move him, and insulted by him for the last time, she joins those he has wronged – and watches as Giovanni meets the ‘ghost’ of the Commendatore for a final defiant confrontation before committing suicide. While all seems to have ended justly, a cloud hangs over the proceedings and we are invited to consider the high cost of revenge.