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In Utah Opera's new production of Mozart's timeless masterpiece, which opens Saturday in the Capitol Theatre, stage director Nicolette Molnar takes a different approach. Hell is represented by seven masked women who, when they unveil themselves, are faceless."Don Giovanni feels that you can live without rules or obligations, but that doesn't work. Hell is (Don Giovanni) being himself. He can no longer escape from himself, and these mysterious women drag him off."
The action has ben moved to New Orleans:
Molnár imagines someone like Don Giovanni being drawn naturally to the New World. "It would have appealed to his sense of adventure and freedom; it was a new frontier in every sense."
* In the photo above, Christopher Schaldenbrand as Don Giovanni and Susanna Phillips as Donna Anna (Rick Egan/The Salt Lake Tribune )