Discovering Don GIovanni

When I reach bass-baritone Luca Pisaroni over Zoom for a transatlantic conversation about Mozart and Don Giovanni, he tells me that he does not know what will happen when he takes the stage in Houston to perform the role of Mozart’s infamous antihero.  

Each time the curtain comes down in the Wortham’s Brown Theater, Pisaroni explains, he will have had a different experience on the stage, and given a different performance. Each time, the opera will have revealed new truths to him. And each time, he will have new questions.  

“The brilliant thing about Mozart,” he says, “is that Mozart doesn’t answer questions. He is asking them. That’s why you can watch Giovanni 250 years later, and still find it relevant.” 

During an extraordinary career that has taken him to the great houses of the world, Pisaroni has portrayed Mozart’s infamous antihero twice so far, and found he adores the role in all its complexity. “It’s the other characters that make Don Giovanni,” he says. “It’s how everybody else relates to him that gives him this energy and makes him the center of the piece. In one way or another, he affects everybody’s life.  

“And so, for me, it’s one of these roles that are so epic and so profound to play. Every night, there will be a little bit of unhappiness, you know, because I ask myself: Did you really play the seductive side? Did you really play this dangerous part of him?”  

It’s tough, after giving your all on the stage—and without a doubt, in Pisaroni’s case, doing so brilliantly—to feel you’ve fallen short in one way or another. But as I remind him, that’s Mozart. The composer himself might not have been human, but he was sent to remind us that we are. He nods as we share a moment of understanding, each on the other side of the globe. 

Pisaroni is utterly convincing as a leading man, yet Don Giovanni is one of opera’s relatively few lead roles written for his lower voice range. He was born in Venezuela to Italian parents, and his family moved back to Busseto, Italy, the hometown of Verdi, when he was four years old. He remembers listening to his grandfather’s Verdi collection as a child and feeling transported.  

“I had this attraction. It just moved me,” he shares. “And then, at age 11, I saw Pavarotti singing on TV, and I realized that I wanted to become an opera singer. I just always loved it. The combination of the music, the words, and the ability of a person to convey emotion with the voice. That always fascinated me.”  

Throughout his youth, Pisaroni did everything he could to prepare for a career in opera. He sang with his church choir and, as a child tenor, learned as many roles as possible—from Un ballo in maschera, Ernani, Don Carlos, Aida. Then, at age 18, he tried to sing “E lucevan le stelle” from Tosca and realized his voice had changed.  

“I cried for two weeks when I realized that I was not a tenor,” he says. “All of a sudden, I was like, Oh, I am the less sexy role: the bass-baritone. It was really a shock.” But, still in love with the art form, he absorbed the shock and soon set about learning a new, diverse range of roles, including not only Don Giovanni but also his servant Leporello, something that intimately informs his perspective on the title character.  

“I’ve done a lot of Leporellos, so I was really lucky to have a perspective of Don Giovanni from the servant,” he says. “And this helped me try to understand who this guy is.” 

Understanding Don Giovanni is an ever-evolving process for great interpreters of the role. Pisaroni sees the character as less Don Juan and more obsessive, manic madman. He points out that for all Don Giovanni’s trying, he doesn’t have any success with women during the opera. “With Donna Anna? Not that one. Elvira? Disaster. Zerlina? Doesn’t go. The servant of Donna Elvira? Doesn’t happen.”  

He describes the opera this way: it’s about Don Giovanni “murdering somebody and then dealing  
with the consequences of the murder, and dealing  
with a superior energy, superior power, a god, something.” He’s speaking, of course, of the Commendatore, the embodiment of the immutable truth that actions have consequences. 

Pisaroni remembers having an epiphany when experiencing Kasper Holten’s production—the same one HGO is presenting this season—and its deep exploration of Don Giovanni’s interior world. “In an old-fashioned production, he goes to hell, and there is the smoke,” he muses.  

“But when it is a psychological thing, it’s really challenging, because how do you show that he’s going down this tunnel of being obsessive, questioning who he is? I remember when I saw ‘Fin ch’han dal vino,’ and Giovanni is standing still, but there is this vortex. I went, Oh my god. For the first time, that aria made sense. I love this production.”  

HGO audiences may remember Pisaroni for his acclaimed performances in several prior productions. “I did the Count (The Marriage of Figaro), which was a debut; Faust, my first Méphistophélès; and The Phoenix (as Enzo/young Da Ponte), which was a world premiere,” he remembers, adding that he cannot wait to return to Houston.  

“Everybody at HGO feels like a family rooting for you, and helping you do the best that you can,” he says. “You have an incredibly high-quality music staff. I’m thrilled to be coming back.”