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Nashville Opera opens its season with Don Giovanni

nashvilleopera.org

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (WMOT)  --  The Nashville Opera will this week perform what may be the perfect opera for Bible Belt audiences.

The Nashville Company will perform Mozart’s Don Giovanni Thursday and Saturday. The famous opera is, of course, a morality play that ends with the title character being dragged off to hell for his womanizing and other sins.

In spite of the dark subject matter, Nashville Opera CEO and Artistic Director John Hoomes says Mozart created an entertaining work.

“Mozart called this piece a ‘dramma giocoso,’ which roughly translated means ‘a drama with jokes.’ -- and so it walks a balance between being serious and also using the jokes that Mozart wanted in the piece.”

Veteran Baritone David Adam Moore will sing the lead. It’s Moore’s Nashville operatic debut, but he’s no stranger to Music City. He comes from a family of Country Music performers and remembers visiting the honky tonks along Broadway as a boy with his father.

Moore admits to being something of an Opera evangelist, perhaps because his extended family has always had a hard time understanding his passion for the music.

“I just think it’s very important for all of us to realize that the art form of Opera itself, is a massively powerful art form. It’s the largest scale unamplified art form in existence and it’s developed over hundreds and hundreds of years throughout a variety of cultures.”

To help audiences better relate to Opera, this week’s performance of Don Giovanni in Italian will include projections of the lyrics in English.

Visit NashvilleOpera.org for show times and ticket prices for the Thursday and Saturday performances of Don Giovanni at TPAC’s Jackson Hall.