New Generation Opera's Don Giovanni. Opening on August 18 at the Helsinki Festival 2013

Photo: Juha Reunanen

Finnish conductor, composer, pianist and singer Ville Matvejeff leads the New Generation Opera and the Tapiola Sinfonietta in Mozart’s Don Giovanni at the Helsinki Festival. The title role will be sung by Waltteri Torikka.

Don Giovanni by the New Generation Opera, is a hybrid combining opera and cinema, offering a framework for an emerging generation of musicians to forge a new form of expression. In this very modern take of Mozart's classic, affluent young people party like there's no tomorrow and photograph and film themselves and each other while bashing. The live documentation of the events by the characters themselves diversifies the drama taking place on stage taking it to a whole new level. By combining cutting edge mobile technologies with cinematic narrative, The New Generation Opera are opening up the art-form also to the ”MTV-generation” that finds opera often old-fashioned, dull and tedious.

“We want the opera to become more accessible to everybody and to communicate better as an art form under today’s visual conditions”, says Ville Matvejeff, who also is the founder and artistic director of New Generation Opera.

The drama finds itself tantalisingly placed in the middle ground between comedy and tragedy, burlesque and grotesque. It derives its power from a roll call of fresh young vocal talent and complex video projection. The production is a theatrical opera but also a live film projected simultaneously onto two screens.

Ville Matvejeff is one of the most interesting Finnish musical talents. He is the artistic director of Heinävesi Music Festival, and was recently appointed the Chief Conductor for Jyväskylä Sinfonia.

W. A. Mozart: Don Giovanni

Tapiola Sinfonietta
New Generation Opera Ensemble
Conductor: Ville Matvejeff
Choirmaster and Assistant conductor: Jonas Rannila

Director: Erik Söderblom
Film director: Janne Suutarinen
Assistant director: Mirva Koivukangas
Scenography: Markku Kunnari
Costumes: Sari Salmela
Assistant to the director: Laura Åkerlund

Don Giovanni: Waltteri Torikka, baritone
Leporello: Tapani Plathan, bass
Il Commendatore: Timo Riihonen, bass
Donna Anna: Ida Falk Winland, soprano
Don Ottavio: Joska Lehtinen, tenor
Donna Elvira: Anna Danik, soprano
Masetto: Nicholas Söderlund, bass
Zerlina: Malin Christensson, soprano

Film production: Arcada