rehearsals for don giovanni kicked off this week, and we took a moment to catch up with musical director and conductor, jonathan lyness, about how it’s all been going!
“We’ve now entered day five of rehearsals. We’ve spent most of the week with just two cast members in the room, but today, for the first time, we bring two pairs of characters together: Giovanni and his ‘servant’ Leporello, and the young couple Masetto and Zerlina, and there is an immediate sense of danger.
Poor Zerlina has no real idea of what will happen if she’s left alone with the Don, but the more experienced Masetto (played by Felix Kemp, here in the green top) knows exactly what’s going on. I can’t help feeling the contemporary power and relevance of this male-controlled scene, made even more unsettling by rehearsing in a church!”
Posted on 11 September 2026
