200 Women Wanted for Opera Queensland’s Don Giovanni!
Registrations Close September 24
Ahead of next month’s highly anticipated new production of Mozart’s masterpiece Don Giovanni by Opera Queensland (OQ), an exciting performance opportunity has presented for local women to star in the dramatic final scene.
Opera Queensland are seeking 200 fearless South-East Queensland women of various ages, backgrounds and body sizes to participate in a thrilling 7-minute finale sequence, in which Don Giovanni is dragged to his end by the hundreds of victims he has preyed upon.
The horde of Avenging Furies, a key example of director Lindy Hume’s striking and provocative production, will be asked to perform either naked, semi-naked or clothed in underwear.
Opera Queensland delivers a reimagined production of Mozart’s masterpiece Don Giovanni to Brisbane next month, conducted by Johannes Fritzsch with rising international star Duncan Rock making his Australian debut in the title role.
Staged in the intimate setting of the QPAC Playhouse, 19 October – 3 November, director Lindy Hume’s sobering new take on the iconic opera is set in working class Victorian London, where Jack the Ripper stalks and the aristocracy lurk to get a taste of the seedy side of life.
Although penned more than 200 years ago, Hume said Don Giovanni strikes a brutally relevant chord in 2018 with sexual misconduct at the forefront of the world’s collective consciousness.
“Don Giovanni ranks alongside Carmen as one of opera’s most iconic, sexually-charged characters, and there’s an expectation from audiences to see this sensuality revealed in all its intensity,” Ms Hume said.
“But for me it is also about an addictive, abusive, entitled personality. You cannot stage Don Giovanni today without the context of #metoo. Don Giovanni isn’t your standard womaniser, he is a rapist and a murderer, and at the same time he is charismatic, funny and charming.”
“Participants in this new production will play a horde of ‘avenging furies’ – some of the thousands of women in Giovanni’s catalogue of conquests, now taking revenge for the suffering his lifetime of debauchery has caused. In the final scene, Giovanni is dragged down to hell by the furies, and I want this scene to be as spectacular and as resonant for contemporary audiences as possible.”
