by Peter Feher
It’s hard not to be enamored with Don Giovanni, Mozart’s supreme realization of passion, danger, and desire in music. And CIM Opera Theater made falling in love with this 1787 masterpiece the most natural thing thanks to a splendid production at Playhouse Square last week.
Taking the stage of the Mimi Ohio Theatre on Wednesday, April 23, for the first of two performances, the largely student cast seemed to be discovering the drama afresh. The story of the cad and lecher Don Juan has been told countless times, but the Italianate version that Mozart crafted with librettist Lorenzo Da Ponte remains the most viscerally immediate, even centuries later.
There are very few American cities who can count themselves as having an official fanfare. But now, Akron is one of them.