Opera Under the Stars
 

Don Giovanni- Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

Want a one sentence summary of Don Giovanni? Here it goes: “Don Giovanni, a young, arrogant, and sexually promiscuous nobleman, abuses and outrages everyone else in the cast until he encounters the vengeful spirit of a man he killed in Act 1. Still too long? How about a one word summary? Karma.

 

The opera opens with our villain, Don Giovanni fleeing the bedroom of Donna Anna, a woman he attempted to seduce (very unsuccessfully). She pursues him trying to unmask the predator she found hovering over her bed. The commotion wakes Donna Anna’s father, the Commendatore who challenges Don Giovanni (still masked) to a duel. Don Giovanni kills the Commendatore and escapes with his servant, Leporello. Donna Anna is left to grieve her father’s sudden death.

 

Shortly after they escape the scene at Donna Anna’s, Don Giovanni bumps into a new woman. He immediately starts to flirt, but quickly realizes that this new woman is actually an ex, Donna Elvira. Don Giovanni uses Leporello as cover while he slips away. Leporello tells Donna Elvira that Don Giovanni is not worth her feelings. He sings Madamina, il catalogo è questo (My dear lady, this is the catalog). Don Giovanni is unfaithful to everyone and Leporello has the record. He lists Don Giovanni’s conquests for Elvira. His list includes 640 women in Italy, 231 in Germany, 100 in France, 91 in Turkey, but in Spain, the total is 1,003.

*Note- A conquest list of over a thousand women is bad on multiple levels. But is only the start of horrible things Don Giovanni does as the opera continues. A reminder that even though he is the titular character, he is very much the villain. 

 

And his next evil act is in the next scene. Don Giovanni comes across a marriage procession for two young lovers, Masetto and Zerlina. Don Giovanni immediately begins the process of isolating and then seducing Zerlina in Là ci darem la mano (There we will entwine our hands). Zerlina is young and Don Giovanni is bringing his full charm. She begins to fall for his seduction.

 

Luckily, Donna Elvira catches up with them and interrupts the seduction. But Don Giovanni isn’t worried. He sings Fin ch’han dal vino calda la testa (Till they are tipsy), telling Leporello to invite every girl he can find to a wedding party he decides to throw for Zerlina. It’s an attempt at another chance to seduce her, by inviting all the ladies and getting everyone wine drunk.

 

Donna Elvira continues to try and run interference as the opera continues, thwarting Don Giovanni’s advances on Zerlina. In her aria, Mi tradì quell’alma ingrata (That ungrateful wretch betrayed me), she vents her anger and frustration about everything related to Don Giovanni. But she also acknowledges that she kind of pities him. It’s not much of a life just chasing women and pleasure.

 

Donna Anna has been trying to figure out who the masked man who killed her father was. She is starting to suspect Don Giovanni having recognized his voice. Her fiancé, Don Ottavio, is not convinced. To him, someone of noble birth would never do such terrible things. But he promises to keep an open mind out of love and support for Donna Anna in Dalla suo pace la mia dipende (On her peace my peace depends.)

 

In the end, Don Giovanni’s choices catch up with him. He has manipulated, seduced, betrayed, and beaten everyone. He brags about his success to Leporello as he eats a lavish dinner (it illustrates his gluttony in a very visceral way.) Suddenly, a dinner guest appears. The statue of the Commendatore that marks his tomb has arrived at the door. The Commendatore (Donna Anna’s father, who Don Giovanni killed at the beginning of the show) offers Don Giovanni a final chance to repent. Don Giovanni laughs at the offer and a chorus of demons appear, dragging Don Giovanni with them to Hell.

 

Tosca- Giacomo Puccini

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These were dark times. The Republic had fallen. Baron Scarpia and his ruthless officers hunted the fallen leaders like dogs on a scent. 

 

Relentless.

 

Scarpia tracked the former president to his current hideout. A church. 

 

A place that still held a glimmer of light in the dark, hungry, world.

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(Quell’occhio al mondo)

Love in such dark times is strange. Floria Tosca and Mario Cavaradossi were proof of that. They loved each other the way people play with lit matches: knowing exactly how easily the flame could get out of hand.

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Mario, at his canvas, chased beauty with a brush. The woman taking shape beneath his hand wore the face of a saint, but it was her eyes that caught Tosca's attention. Dark. Black as midnight after the rain.

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Not blue.

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Not like hers.

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Tosca didn't need evidence; suspicion was enough. In a world built on secrets and half-truths, jealousy could fill in the blanks better than facts ever could.

Mario saw that jealous light in her eyes. Instead of dousing the spark, he fed it. A crooked smile. Teasing, but not calming Tosca’s fears about who those dark eyes belonged to, and why they had found their way onto his canvas.

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She accused. He laughed. She glared. He stepped closer.

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The room grew smaller.

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Jealousy wasn't the enemy of their love. It was the fuel that kept it burning. Every sharp word, every wounded glance, every challenge drew them closer until anger surrendered to something more. 

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In their world, love didn't bloom despite suspicion. It thrived on it.

 

(E lucevan le stelle)

Time had run out. All that was left were iron bars, bruised flesh, and a death sentence waiting with the dawn.

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Mario Cavaradossi sat alone in his cell, listening to the silence between the footsteps of the guards. Scarpia had done his work well. The torture had broken his body, but there was one thing the chief of police had never laid a hand on.

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Memory.

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In the hours before sunrise, Mario found himself drifting far from the prison walls. He didn't think about the cause that had brought him there. The republic, the speeches, the dream of a freer world—all of it had faded into the darkness.

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He didn't think about his paintings either. The unfinished faces. The colors that would dry forever without his hand to guide them.

He thought about her.

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He heard the slow creak of the garden gate as it yielded to her. He remembered the way she slipped through the shadows, cloaked by the night but radiant all the same. He could almost breathe the fragrance she carried with her—flowers warmed by moonlight, mingled with the faint perfume of her skin—as she fell into his waiting arms.

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She had always arrived like a beautiful secret.

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Those memories were all that remained now.

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Beyond the narrow window, the first pale hint of morning waited behind the rooftops. Dawn was coming, relentless as a hangman collecting a debt. When the sun climbed above the city, Mario Cavaradossi would walk into its light for the last time.

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And the cruelest sentence wasn't death.

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It was knowing that he would never again hear that garden gate creak.

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Never again see Tosca's face veiled in shadows.

 

Never again hold the only masterpiece that had ever truly belonged to him….

 

If you liked what you read here (and what you heard on stage)- come see our production of Tosca this August! Done as a partnership with Hive Collaborative as part of their pollinator project, this film noir style Storyteller will be Overdressed’s first staged production.

Click the link below to get your tickets now. We hope to see you in August!

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Into the Woods- Stephen Sondheim

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Into the Woods takes place in the world of fairy tales. You’ll meet familiar characters such as Little Red Riding Hood, Cinderella, Jack (From Jack and the Beanstalk), and many more. The story opens with the Narrator introducing our characters and we learn that they all have something they want. What they do to attain these wants though, has devastating consequences.

 

Little Red wants to bring her sick grandmother some bread. She gets bread from the Baker and begins her journey through the woods. The Baker is also embarking on a journey. He needs to obtain four items in three days to give to a witch so she will break the curse she placed on his family. He needs to find: “the cow as white as milk, the cape as red as blood, the hair as yellow as corn, and the slipper as pure as gold.” 

As Little Red treks through the woods, she is met by a hungry Wolf who wants to eat her (Hello, Little Girl). The Baker, who is close behind her, catches a glimpse of her cape as she deviates from the path to pick flowers for her Grandmother.

 

Jack wants his cow, Milky White, to produce milk so he doesn’t have to sell her. As he treks to the market, he runs into the Baker and his Wife. Seeing a cow of pure white, the Baker offers a trade, but the only thing he has on him are some dried beans in his pocket. To sweeten the deal, the Baker lies and tells Jack they are magic beans. The trade is made, but Jack is still sad to see Milky White go.

 

When he returns to his Mother to show her the beans, she angrily throws them out the window. The beans must be magic because overnight, bean stalks as tall as the sky grow from where the seeds fell. Jack climbs the beanstalk and finds giants (Giants in the Sky). While in the sky, Jack sees some gold and steals from the giants with the hope of buying back Milky White.

 

The princes want love, or so they say. They are brothers only named in the show as “Cinderella’s Prince” and “Rapunzel’s Prince”. At this point, each has had their initial interaction with their maiden and is completely smitten. They compare their maidens and lament the feeling of being in love in Agony.

 

Cinderella wants to attend the festival. Her stepmother and stepsisters refuse. She receives a dress and golden shoes from her mother’s grave and sneaks away to the festival. There, she meets her prince. He falls in love and she flees, fearing what he will do if he discovers who she really is. The second time they meet, her prince is ready for her. He had pitch spread on the palace steps after she arrived. When she flees a second time, her shoes stick to the steps. Trapped On the Steps of the Palace, she weighs her options and the stress of having to make her own decision.

 

If you like happy endings, this is a show to leave at intermission. Everyone has achieved what they want and they celebrate living happily ever after. In Act 2, reality sets in. The characters learn that there are consequences for their actions (and that giants have really big feet and it's really easy to get trampled by them).

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Pirates of Penzance - Gilbert and Sullivan 

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You have to embrace the silly with Gilbert and Sullivan, especially in Pirates of Penzance! It all starts with a semi-deaf nursemaid…

 

Frederic has been a young apprentice for a gentlemanly band of pirates for many years. But this year, on his 21st birthday, his apprenticeship is officially ending. Why was he apprenticing as a pirate? Well, turns out pirate sounds a lot like PILOT. Frederic’s nursemaid, Ruth, misheard his parents’ instructions for their son and signed him up for the wrong apprenticeship!

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Frederic is a lad of upstanding morals. As they head to land, he informs his pirate friends, that now that he is free, he will have to devote his life to arresting them. He invites the pirates to join him in honest living, but they refuse. The Pirate King tells him that compared with being a member of society,  being a pirate is actually pretty honest (Oh! Better far to live and die!) .

 

Now that he is on land, Frederic has a secondary life goal: to find a girlfriend. Since he has spent his entire life only interacting with men (and Ruth), he is absolutely overcome when he stumbles across a group of sisters hiking in the woods. First, he hides in the bushes to watch them, then he bursts forth from said bushes appealing to all (or any) of them to be his girlfriend (Oh! Is there not one maiden breast?) All the sisters turn him down. (He did just pop out of a bush crooning a rather desperate love song to multiple women at the same time after all..) 

 

All except one. Mable is interested (Poor wand’ring one). Because this is operetta, the pair instantly falls in love. Soon Frederic is meeting Mabel’s father, Major-General Stanley. He is, in fact, a very modern Major-General. He tells us all the things that entails in his aria, I am the very model of a modern Major-General.

 

Now for the plot twist. Frederic has to return to the pirate ship and continue his apprenticeship. Why? Well, he was bound to be an apprentice until his 21st birthday, and it turns out he was born on February 29 (in a leap year). Technically…. Only 5 birthdays have passed, so Frederic has many more years of apprenticing ahead of him. Mabel is devastated. She begs him to stay, but Frederic is a man of morals. He will return to the pirates until 1940, when he finally has his 21st birthday.

 

It all ends well. The pirates try to take over Major-General Stanley’s manor and marry all his daughters, but one clever sergeant saves the day. In desperation he demands that the pirates yield in the name of Queen Victoria. The pirates are overcome with loyalty to the queen and do, in fact, yield. It is discovered that all these pirates are actually noblemen, Major-General Stanley is impressed and forgives them all, Frederic and Mabel are reunited and the pirates get to marry the daughters of the Major-General after all!

 

(I told you. You have to embrace the silly!)

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Thank you for spending the evening with us! We hope you enjoyed the show. Overdressed is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization. We run solely on donations from our audiences. If you liked what you heard tonight and want to here more, consider donating. All donations go directly to creating more shows and opportunities to share our love of music with you all. Every bit helps!

But whether you are able to support financially or not, we are glad you are here with us tonight! Your support and presence means everything to us and  we love that we are able to make opera and music theater more accessible right here in Minnesota!