Pehlivanian Professional Opera Academy

One of the world’s most renowned opera academies, the Pehlivanian Professional Opera Academy, is coming to Villa Vipolže.

One of the world’s most renowned opera academies, the Pehlivanian Professional Opera Academy, is coming to Villa Vipolže. Founded under the direction of Maestro George Pehlivanian, a Lebanese conductor living between Los Angeles, Paris, and Ljubljana, the academy is an important pillar of the international opera scene. The academy offers comprehensive training for conductors and vocalists from all over the world, with a focus on refining their skills. Every summer, it stages an opera production in various Slovenian towns, enriching the local cultural scene. At Villa Vipolže, they will perform “Don Giovanni”, a two-act (ten-scene) opera by W. A. Mozart. Overture On the evening of 28 October, the night before the premiere, the overture had not yet been written. Mozart was enjoying himself with friends, improvising three different pieces for them on the clavichord, from which they had to choose one to become the overture. Between two and three o’clock in the morning, he finally began writing. To keep him from falling asleep, he asked his wife Constanze to read him stories from One Thousand and One Nights. Within three hours, the overture was finished. In the morning, the score was sent to the copyist, and the musicians received the freshly copied parts at the performance with ink still wet on the pages. Despite playing prima vista (at first sight), they performed the overture with such verve that the audience rewarded them with thunderous applause. Mozart, who conducted from the harpsichord, happily said to the musicians around him: “A few notes may have fallen under the stand, but it went well anyway.” The overture begins with a solemn introduction, in which Mozart uses the cold, otherworldly music that, in the second act, accompanies the arrival of the Stone Guest for dinner with Don Giovanni. This is followed by a perfect sonata-allegro in D major — a portrait of the libertine nobleman, driven by desire from one pleasure to the next. Yet the sinner cannot escape the warnings to repent: time and again his path is blocked by a threateningly accented five-note descending motif. The overture has no final cadence but, after a modulation to F major, leads directly into the first scene of the opera. Roles Don Giovanni – baritone Leporello, his servant – bass Donna Anna – soprano The Commendatore, her father – bass Don Ottavio, her fiancé – tenor Donna Elvira – soprano Zerlina, a peasant girl – soprano Masetto, her fiancé – bass Servants, peasants, and guests Price: €25 Tickets can be purchased at Eventim, TIC Brda, and Villa Vipolže. People with disabilities have free admission. Children have free admission provided they sit on their parents’ lap. More information: ZTKMŠ Brda Villa Vipolže Vipolže 29, 5212 Dobrovo T: +386 8 20 554 20 E: info@vilavipolze.eu