OBERLIN, OHIO—� The raucous story of literature's Don Juan-the legendary lover and scoundrel who seduces women and eludes his enemies before getting his final comeuppance-will be presented by the Oberlin Conservatory Opera Theater production of Don Giovanni , one of Mozart's grandest operas. The opera-sung in Italian with English supertitles-will be performed on Wednesday, Friday, and Saturday, March 15, 17, and 18 at 8 p.m., and a 2 p.m. matinee on Sunday, March 19, in the college's Hall Auditorium. The Hall Auditorium is wheel chair accessible and hearing enhancement is available.

Conductor Paul Polivnick , music director of the Oberlin Orchestra, leads the Oberlin Chamber Orchestra. The stage director is Jonathon Field , director of Opera Theater and assistant professor of music. Don Giovanni is produced in cooperation with the Oberlin College Theater and Dance Program and supported by the Louis C. Sudler Foundation.

"The abuses of power and authority are issues which never seem to change," explains director Field, "and Mozart's opera shows us not only the perpetrator, but the victims in great and sympathetic detail. This production of Don Giovanni explores some of the darker aspects of the piece in a way that it immediate for a modern audience. Taken from the black and white movies of the 1930s, the production attempts to show class distinctions, sexual relations, and the allure of pleasure in a corrupt world."

Written in 1787, Don Giovanni was the second of the Mozart-Da Ponte operas (the others being Le Nozze di Figaro and Cosi fan tutte ). Mozart had rarely composed a score that so abounded in swift contrasts of mood, ranging from gentle love duets to sinister fulminations of divine retribution. These diverse qualities are brilliantly fused in a work which is rightly regarded as one of the greatest operas of all time.

Synopsis
Don Giovanni is a confirmed ladies man with long lists of conquests, but at the beginning of the opera the lady in question, Donna Anna, is not willing.

To defend her honor Donna Anna's father, the Commedatore, challenges Giovanni to a duel and is killed. Giovanni and his servant, Leporello, flee the scene and Donna Anna asks her fiance Don Ottavio to avenge her father's death. Later, Don Giovanni stumbles across one of his former conquests, Donna Elvira, who has pursued him across the continent. He leaves his servant to explain his character while he escapes and falls in lust with a pretty peasant girl, Zerlina, who happens to be readying to marry another, Masetto. He almost seduces her but Donna Elvira, Anna, and Don Ottavio intervene. Giovanni's next target is Elvira's maid, and he changes cloaks with Leporello to get closer to her; Leporello (mistaken for Giovanni) is almost killed by an enraged Elvira, Anna and Ottavio but manages to escape with his master once more into the night. Giovanni spies a statue of the Commendatore in a graveyard and mockingly asks it to dinner. To his surprise, the statue accepts. Giovanni and Leporello are readying for supper when Donna Elvira rushes in, begging Giovanni to repent. He mocks her and as she leaves she screams in terror at the sight of the Commendatore, come to dinner. The statue demands Giovanni's repentance, he refuses defiantly, and is hurtled forever into the flames of hell.

This production of Don Giovanni features Oberlin Conservatory students double-cast in the principal roles. The casts alternate performances, with one cast appearing Wednesday and Saturday and the other on Friday and Sunday. The ensemble includes the scoundrel Don Giovanni (Michael Chipman AD '00 and Kevin Moreno '00); his servant Leporello (Michael Preacely '00 and Benjamin Cahn '01); the ladies Donna Anna (Zara Barrett AD '01 and Alyson Cambridge '01) and Donna Elvira (Jacqueline Enrique '01 and Dea Lunsford '00); Anna's fiance Don Ottavio (James Morera '00 and Leif Aruhn-Solén AD '01); the peasants Zerlina (Erika Tolano AD '00 and Malia Bendi Merad '03) and Masetto (Jonathan Stinson '01 and Jason Epps '03); and as the Commendatore, Oberlin alumnus Daniel Okulitch (MM '99). The chorus of peasants includes: Ellie Dehn ('02), Florence Gill ('02), Joseph Greaves ('02), Frederick Jackson ('02), Scott Skiba ('02), Hannah Waldman ('01), Charlene Wass ('02) and Davin Youngs ('03).

The Oberlin Opera Theater production staff includes assistant music director Alan Montgomery; assistant director/stage manager Jennifer Bertoni, Oberlin alumna; scene designer Michael Louis Grube, associate professor of theater; costume designer Chris Flaharty, associate professor of theater; and lighting designer Jen Groseth, lecturer in theater.

PAUL POLIVNICK (Conductor), has also continued to direct the New Hampshire Music Festival during his time at Oberlin. He had his eighth and final season with the Alabama Symphony Orchestra in the fall of 1992. His international conducting engagements include Kiev Carmerata in the Ukraine, the Orchestra of Castille and Laon, the Luxembourg Philharmonic, the KBS Orchestra in Seoul, Korea, and a recording with the London Symphony. He was made Principal Conductor of the Harmonia Nova Orchestra of Vienna, and has conducted the Orkester des Osterreichschen Rundfunks (ORF) in the capital city of Austria. He entered the Juilliard School in 1965 as a violin major, studying with Oscar Shumsky. He graduated in 1969 with a degree in orchestral conducting, studying with Jean Morel. Concurrent with his studies at Juilliard, Mr. Polivnick attended the Tanglewood Music Festival on a conducting fellowship with conductor Leonard Bernstein. In 1977, Mr. Polivnick served as Assistant Conductor for the Seattle Opera's production of the complete Wagner Ring Cycle . He has recently conducted at the Santa Barbara Grand Opera, the Central City Opera, and Toledo Lyric Opera.

JONATHON FIELD (Director) has directed over eighty productions throughout the United States and is becoming one of America's most sought after stage directors. Mr. Field will succeed Gary Race as artistic director of Lyric Opera Cleveland after the 2000 summer season. He has directed touring productions for the Lyric Opera of Chicago of Trouble in Tahiti, Gianni Schicchi, The Old Maid and the Thief , and The Spanish Hour . For San Francisco Opera's Western Opera Theatre he directed La Cenerentola and Die Fledermaus and for Seattle Opera, an updated version of La Bohème . In San Francisco he has also directed Tchaikovsky's Eugene Onegin and Mussorgsky's Boris Godunov in the original Russian. Over the past ten years, he has also directed ten productions for the Arizona Opera, being deemed by the press "their most perceptive stage-director". Mr. Field's range extends from the avant-garde to musical comedy. He has successfully introduced computer-generated scenery to opera production in Candide , and he has pioneered the use of video-projected scenery in productions of Tales of Hoffmann and Der Freischutz . In the realm of operetta and musicals, he has staged H.M.S. Pinafore for Opera Omaha, Trial by Jury for Lake George Opera, Bernstein's Wonderful Town in Chicago, and Merry Widow and Countess Maritza in San Francisco.