“Don Giovanni” at Baldwin Wallace College

A night at the opera is coming to Baldwin-Wallace College. Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s masterpiece Don Giovanni will run February 1-5 in the John Patrick Theatre in the Kleist Center for Art and Drama.  The Kleist Center is located at 95 East Bagley Road on the Baldwin-Wallace campus in Berea, Ohio.

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart was born in 1756 and died in 1791. But in his short thirty-five years, he composed more than 600 works, and he remains one of the most popular classical composers in history.  Mozart first composed at age five, and by age seventeen, he had become a court musician in Salzburg.  Among his many works, he composed twenty-two operas from varying genres with lyrics in varying languages. (Lorenzo Da Ponte provided the Italian libretto for Don Giovanni). In addition to Don Giovanni (1787, Italian), Mozart is most known for Le nozze di Figaro (The Marriage of Figaro, 1786, Italian) and Die Zauberflöte (The Magic Flute, 1791, German), the most frequently performed opera worldwide.

Don Giovanni is the story of a young, arrogant and seductive nobleman: The classic Don Juan who has been replicated, over and over again, in various art forms. The opera, itself, is a staple of the standard operatic repertoire and among the top ten most-performed operas across the globe.

Baldwin-Wallace College offers wonderful programs in art, theatre, and music. And these programs not only provide for an excellent higher education for students, but they give Greater Clevelanders even more theatrical options for an entertaining night out. And as these are college productions, they are much more reasonably priced than shows at other venues, but the quality is just as good.

Although I am a great aficionado of theatre, both musical and traditional drama, I do not follow opera.  But after seeing Baldwin-Wallace’s exceptional repertory of Rent and La Bohème last February, I knew that I would be putting Don Giovanni at the top of my 2012 “must see” list. And that is yet another great advantage to seeing a production at Baldwin-Wallace…variety! And as I finish this preview blog, I anxiously await the evening when the curtain will rise.

Don Giovanni offers a great start to the New Year, but it is just one of many highlights of 2012 at Baldwin-Wallace College. Coming up next will be the plays Mr. Marmalade and Some Girl(s) (in repertory, February 18-26). And in April, Baldwin-Wallace will present Shakespeare’s most famous tragedy, Hamlet (April 18-22). If you have not seen a production at Baldwin-Wallace College, now is a perfect time to check out one of Ohio’s best private college’s for arts and drama.

Also in April, the 80th Annual Bach Festival, a premier Northeast Ohio event, will run April 13-15.  And don’t forget all of the great orchestral and choral concerts, presented by the Conservatory of Music, many of which are free to the public. A complete calendar of events can be found at www.bw.edu/news/calendars.

Baldwin-Wallace College was founded in 1845 as one of the first colleges in Ohio to admit students regardless of race or gender. Presently, the college has more than fifty areas of academic study that lead to a bachelor’s degree. And it offers master’s programs in both business and education.

For more information on Baldwin-Wallace College, Don Giovanni and the rest of the 2011-2012 Performing Arts Season, please visit the college website at www.bw.edu.

– Submitted by Christopher S. Musselman, guest blogger and avid theater-goer