“Don Giovanni in New York” Has a One-Night Stand at Bay Street

Divaria Productions presents the historical music drama, "Don Giovanni in New York,” in conjunction with Sag Harbor’s Bay Street Theater, Saturday, September 22 at 8pm. This exciting one-night only performance is bringing to the East End of Long Island the kind of groundbreaking theatre that you’d only expect to see in big cities like New York, London, or Venice. Divaria Productions was founded in 2011 by a brother and sister team, Ashley and Andrew Bell. Their mission is large, encompassing artistic and humanitarian goals: to give emerging artists and future stars the chance to perform opera at a professional level, to make opera accessible to all, and to give back to the community by bringing their work to people suffering from Alzheimer's and other ailments.

Interviewing Ashley Galvani Bell, who plays the character, Donna Anna, afforded me a fascinating glimpse into the genius, talent, and hard work that went into creating this remarkable play. After speaking with Ms. Bell, viewing her web site with all her impressive credentials (including the fact that she graduated from Yale – Phi Beta Kappa), and watching a clip of this soprano at work, I was left with the distinct impression that this woman has it all: brains, beauty, heart, soul, humility, and immense talent. In other words, she’s a rising superstar.

This original historical drama blends selections from Mozart’s score and Da Ponte’s libretto from the opera “Don Giovanni” with an original script by Andrew Bell. This play re-enacts the events leading up to one of the earliest opera performances in the United States, “Don Giovanni,” which was produced in 1826. The drama revolves around three musical icons: Mozart's librettist, Lorenzo Da Ponte, who just happened to be one of New York’s first Italian immigrants, Spanish Bel Canto expert, Manuel Garcia, and his daughter, the opera diva, Maria Malibran.

When I asked Ms. Bell what inspired her brother, playwright Andrew Bell, to write this auspicious piece and what her involvement in the project was, she mentioned that her brother had read the biography, “The Librettist of Venice: The Remarkable Life of Lorenzo Da Ponte, Mozart’s Poet, Casanova’s Friend, and Italian Opera’s Impresario in America,” by Rodney Bolt. She stated that her brother was fascinated by the colorful life of Da Ponte and encouraged Ashley to read the biography as well. Although years would pass before the play came to fruition, Ms. Bell explained that she felt, “Da Ponte had one of the most interesting lives I’ve ever read about. I was astounded by how he reinvented himself wherever he went. He started out Jewish, living in the ghetto of Venice. To get a better education, he converted to Catholicism, studied poetry, and became a priest.“ In Bolt’s book, it becomes painstakingly clear that Da Ponte’s true vocation was not the priesthood at all, but rather, his passion was for chasing women. In this regard, his many conquests even rivaled his friend, Casanova. In 1779, after a notorious love affair, Da Ponte was exiled from Venice. He eventually made his way to America where he became a grocer, schoolteacher, businessman, and professor of Italian at Columbia College. From Mr. Bell’s extensive research, which included devouring the memoirs of Da Ponte and studying Malibran’s and Garcia's letters, “Don Giovanni in New York” emerged.

Ms. Bell told me, “The overarching theme that Andrew came up with is that Lorenzo Da Ponte is grappling with the work of “Don Giovanni” and staring at his past and the person he was and trying to decide, throughout the course of the play, if he is OK with the man he was.” In this day and age of the Me Too Movement, a man examining his less than stellar sexual past seems timely and highly appropriate.

I also had the pleasure of speaking with the play’s director, Anton Armendariz Diaz, who has a starring role in the production as well, portraying Manuel Garcia. I asked him, “How hard was it for you to be acting in an original production at the same time you were directing it? He told me, “It was a challenge. Everything was new. Nobody else had done it before. It’s an opera inside an opera. All the arias are out of context to represent the memories of the characters. Playing real time and flashbacks...the switching back and forth in time. Is it going to be right? Will the audience like it? More importantly, will they understand it? The bottom line was – will they get it? I planned the direction first...how I saw the overall story with the lighting, and when I had that clear, then I studied the play and my character.”

The music for “Don Giovanni in New York” is conducted by Nicolo Sbuelz, and the play features a top-notch cast, including: Ricardo Rivera, Richard Bernstein, Helena Brown, Christopher Nelson, Ashley Galvani Bell, Natalie Havens, Eliam Ramos, Michal Gizinski, Paulina Cossio and Anton Armendariz Diaz. This particular production also showcases members of the Choral Society of the Hamptons, who serve as the chorus for the production.

For tickets to the Saturday, September 22 performance of “Don Giovanni in New York,” call the Box Office at 631-725-9500, open Tuesday through Saturday 11 am to 5 pm, or go online at www.baystreet.org.

Cindi Sansone-Braff is an award-winning playwright and author of “Grant Me a Higher Love,” and “Why Good People Can’t Leave Bad Relationships.” She has a BFA in theatre from the University of Connecticut. In 2017, “Tomorrow’s Classic Theatre Company” produced her full-length music drama, “Beethoven’s Promethean Concerto in C Minor WoO,” a theatrical tribute to the man, the myth, the music, which garnished an “Encore Theater Award,” and “Digital Journal” named it the “Best Indie Play of 2017.”

Photo: Anton Armendariz Diaz, as Manuel Garcia coming to America, taken by Ashley Galvani Bell.