'Don Giovanni' performs for full house at MAC

Bass-baritone Jason Eck sat in his dressing room Friday night, preparing to perform one of the most coveted roles in opera.

Only 30 minutes remained before the opening night of “Don Giovanni” at the Musical Arts Center.

Eck, a graduate student in the Jacobs School of Music, appeared calm and relaxed before playing the role of Giovanni’s fumbling servant, Leporello.

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s “Don Giovanni” opened Friday to a sold-out house and is the first production of the IU Opera and Ballet Theater’s 2012-13 season.

“Don Giovanni” will show 8 p.m. Friday and Saturday at the MAC.

The opera, which premiered at the Prague Italian opera at the Teatro di Praga in 1787, showed again in Bloomington on Saturday with a different cast.

More than 1,000 tickets were sold for seats in the hall, which can contain at most 1,420 people.

“It was quite different, more vocally expressive and a little less action-oriented, and powerful in its own way,” Alain Barker, director of marketing and publicity at the Jacobs School of Music, said in an email. “It’s quite striking how the personality of the performers shapes the outcome of the opera. The Jacobs School has ‘Living Music’ as its tagline, and I thought of it at times through both performances.”

The Friday and Saturday performances were streamed live on the IU Music Live! website, kicking off the 2012-13 streaming season for the Jacobs School.

About 1,200 viewers from 19 countries viewed the live stream this week, said Konrad Strauss, director of the recording arts at the Jacobs School.

“Don Giovanni,” written by Italian librettist Lorenzo Da Ponte, is a tragic comedy about womanizer Don Giovanni, who tricks, seduces and abandons women.

At the beginning of the first of two acts in the opera, Leporello keeps watch as Giovanni seduces Donna Anna before killing her father, the Commendatore.

“I tend to play a lot of comedic characters,” Eck said. “The comedy sort of comes a little more naturally to me, but it is difficult because you have to get the timing down, and there are certain bits or moments you have to do with your other colleagues.”

The more comedic moments were during scenes when Leporello pretends to be Giovanni. In a similar scene, Donna Elvira, played by music student Kelly Glyptis during the Friday performance, grabs onto Leporello, thinking he is Giovanni.

“You sort of have to find what’s funny and then figure out why it was funny and then try to recreate it as much as you can,” Eck said.

Eck had to grow a beard for his role to complement the intentionally scraggly wig pinned on his head. 

There was no shortage of sensual scenes. At the beginning of Act One, Giovanni and Donna Anna are seen in bed together.

Krista Wilhelmsen, who played Donna Anna during Friday’s performance, said one of her favorite moments on stage is with Don Ottavio, Anna’s betrothed.

After Giovanni slays the Commendatore, Ottavio and Anna place their hands in the blood of Anna’s father and hold up their bloody hands. Anna makes Ottavio swear vengeance against Giovanni.

“It’s just an amazing theatrical moment on stage,” Wilhelmsen said. “It’s really intense, and the music lends itself to that intensity as well.”

Wilhelmsen said audience enjoyment helps the performers keep up their energy and continue becoming their characters.

“It really evolves on stage,” she said. “You really become that performer. You are Donna Anna when you’re on stage.”