Don Giovanni and The Lulu Plays

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1988

Mozart, Wolfgang and da-Ponte/Frank Wedekind and Alban Berg

This is an opera. “Kosky’s ‘Don Giovanni’ is perhaps more traditional than one might have expected from a director who, at 21, is regarded as decidedly avant garde. But it is a credit to his theatrical intelligence that he has not filled this classic with gimmickry…He has set the opera somewhere between the 1930s and early 1950s. Don Giovanni looks rather like Al Capone, and the women are dressed a la Brunswick Street chic, and the ending is very much his own…the starkness of the costuming and the effective use of minimal, harsh lighting only makes the musical and dramatic impact more direct.” Abstract taken from “The Herald”, Tuesday 13th September, 1988. Barrie Kosky noted “the two works are…linked by quasi-mythological protagonists and through the themes of obsession, sexuality, power and hypocrisy”. This “psychological” production treated “Lulu” as a “20th century female equivalent of Don Giovanni”, “male and female version of the same sexual myth”. Letter of thanks to Theatre

Barrie Kosky

Warwick Stengards

Michael Anderson

For “Don Giovanni” – Daniel Gare (Leporello); Dianne Briffa (Zerlina); Kerry Henderson (Don Giovanni – baritone); Stephen Davislim (Masetto); Gabrielle Leber (Donna Anna); Edward Parry (Don Ottavio); Desmond Lukey (Commendatore); Linda Thompson (Donna Elvira – soprano); Adele Flere (costumes); Bernadette Steele (stage manager), Liz Pain (lighting) , Tina Kokkinos (chorus member). For “The Lulu Plays” – Federay Holmes (Lulu), Eleonora Varrenti (Countess Geschnitz), Gordon Lindsay (Dr. Schon), Robert Morgan (Schwarz), Stephen Brown (Schigolch), Tristan Gemmill (Alwa), Charles Powles (Rodrigo), Michael Pickering (Casti-Piani/Dr. Hundei), Gisele Muglia-Smith (Magelone), Nicole Nabout (Bianetta), Elise McCredie (Kadikja) and others.

Plays, 1980s, 1988, opera