Don Juan Giovanni and Figaro

Our friends at Theatre de la Jeune Lune (Carmen, The Miser, Amerika) have created a unique pair of productions that combine the beauty of Mozart with the brilliance of two of France’s greatest comic writers. Don Juan Giovanni joins Don Giovanni with Molière’s Don Juan to form a cross-country road trip that skewers notions of love, sex, and hypocrisy; Figaro unites Mozart’s sublime Marriage of Figaro with Beaumarchais’s revolutionary comedy of intrigue and seduction. The productions are performed in repertory on one set, with a chamber ensemble accompanying a cast of actors and opera singers that includes Stephen Epp (Harpagon in The Miser) and the principals from Carmen. An outstanding theatrical event, not to be missed!

SYNOPSIS

DON JUAN GIOVANNI

based on the work of Molière and Mozart
from the original production by Steven Epp, Felicity Jones,
Dominique Serrand, and Paul Walsh

Sganarelle, Don Juan’s long-suffering servant, is tired and jealous of his master’s libertine ways. Juan lurches from one sexual escape to another, while Sganarelle is left to pick up the pieces and drive the escape car. But when Sganarelle tries to raise moral objections, Don Juan runs rhetorical circles around him and persuades him to continue—and so the pattern of their life together continually repeats itself as the two of them motor across the country in an unending road trip to nowhere.

One day, at a drive-in movie, Don Juan and Sganarelle meet their counterparts Don Giovanni and Leporello. Giovanni, in disguise has attempted to seduce the wealthy Donna Anna, who runs into the street calling for help. Her father, the Commendatore, comes to her aide, but is killed in the ensuing brawl. Anna vows to avenge her father’s death.

Meanwhile Don Juan and his companions run into Elvira, Juan’s estranged wife, who is also set on revenge. And when Juan and Giovanni seduce the fiancée, a simple garage mechanic, it seems that the whole world is turning against this pair of intractable gigolos. But when Don Juan boasts that he’ll give dinner to the ghost of the murdered Commendatore, has his hubris finally gotten the better of him?

FIGARO

based on the work of Beaumarchais and Mozart

We are in Paris in the year 1792, and the French Revolution is raging. Count Almaviva and his long-time servant, the barber Figaro, have taken refuge in a deserted mansion across the street from the Bastille.

The Count spends most of his days hiding in a closet, with Figaro still tending to him, more or less. They bicker and insult each other, and remember their past life together in Seville—and their memories come to life before them.

Suddenly it is once again Figaro’s wedding day. The Count is plotting to seduce Susanna, Figaro’s fiancée; meanwhile a young page, Cherubino, has fallen in love with the lonely Countess.

The Old Count and Old Figaro watch as their former selves enact their inevitable patterns of seduction and recrimination. Outside the Revolution blazes, threatening to engulf the aging aristocrat—and slowly past and present seem to merge.