Highgate Calendar – Public events in Highgate, London

Don Giovanni, an Oxford ‘Don’, re-invented for a new generation @ Upstairs at the Gatehouse

Nov 14 @ 7:30 pm – 10:30 pm

Hampstead Garden Opera – Don Giovanni – 6 – 15 November 2015

Dear Friends and Supporters,

The city of Oxford is abuzz with the latest rumours, following the death one of the University’s most revered college heads. The talk is that one of the Senior Fellows of his college, a Don with a large personal following – particularly among younger women – is somehow implicated in his death.

Stories of this man, popularly known as Don Giovanni, abound in both the city and the University (‘Town and Gown’). His generosity, his wealth, his charm, his networks, his position and to some extent his creepy D.Phil. student, Leporello, protect him; and he is able to indulge his insatiable appetite for women fearless in his knowledge that his ‘victims’ will not betray him. Many find him desperately attractive regardless of his reputation. Some are brave – or foolhardy – enough to think they can resist him. A few are deluded into believing they can reform him. So far, nobody has blown the whistle and called ‘time’ on him. But I can reveal that this is about to change. The denouement will unfold in November, appropriately and with dramatic finality, on stage in the course of our production of Mozart’s Don Giovanni. You just have to come and see this, for all sorts of reasons.

· The story is vibrantly up-to-date in Stage Director Genevieve Raghu’s Oxford setting, using a new translation by Benjamin Hamilton. This Don Giovanni can easily take his place among the galaxy of fallen celebrities of our day.

· The Music Director for this production will be Jonathon Heyward, fresh from his triumph as outright winner of the 54th International Competition for Young Conductors held in Bésançon, France. Jonathon has been Assistant Music Director for HGO since the autumn of 2014, and conducted one of the performances of Xerxes last April. In his safe hands you will hear all the beauties of Mozart’s score, magnificently sung by HGO’s young singers and played by Musica Poetica London.

· We shall be celebrating HGO’s 30th and final production at Upstairs at the Gatehouse – 27 different operas and three repeats in 15 years! From next May we shall be moving to Jacksons Lane Theatre on the corner of Archway Road and Jacksons Lane, opposite Highgate Underground station. Those of us who have lived through all those eventful years will inevitably have some regrets, but there will be exciting new opportunities and challenges in our new home, including a bigger auditorium and better facilities.

UPSTAIRS AT THE GATEHOUSE, HIGHGATE VILLAGE, LONDON N6 4BD

Evenings: November 6, 7, 10, 11, 12, 13 & 14 @ 7.30 pm

Matinées: Saturday November 14 @ 2.30 pm: Sundays November 8 & 15 @ 4.0 pm

Tickets all performances £23 (£21 concessions November 6, 7 and 8 only)

BOX OFFICE – 020 8340 3488

ON-LINE – upstairsatthegatehouse.com