Wingate music students tackle the opera Don Giovanni in Italian

by Savannah Phillips

Student Writer

Wingate Opera has given itself a real challenge this fall.

This Friday and Saturday, the University's music department is presenting Mozart's Don Giovanni (1787), Wingate's first full-scale opera sung in a foreign language. They will perform a special abridged version in Italian, accompanied by English dialogue and supertitles. Performances, in McGee Theatre in the Batte Center, will be at 7 p.m. on Friday and 2:30 p.m. on Saturday.

Dr. Annie Stankovic, opera coach, conductor and music director of opera, originally brought the idea of performing Don Giovanni to Dr. Jennifer Hough, director of opera and associate professor of music. Stankovic and Hough decided that putting on the opera would be a great opportunity for students and that singing it in the original language would be best.

"We were originally going to do it in English," Hough said, "but because Mozart wrote it to be in Italian, singing in Italian is vocally easier."

That doesn't mean it will be easy. Wingate singers take a diction class with Hough, who teaches them how to use phonetics. By learning the International Phonetic Alphabet, students can begin to understand how to pronounce the different languages.

"There's a little bit of a learning curve," Hough said. "They're working from a word-for-word translation. Knowing what you're singing about, when you're singing in a foreign language, is so important, because it's impossible to be accurately expressive if you don't understand what you're singing about."

What the students will sing about is a classic Don Juan tale. Wingate Opera has even changed the setting from Italy to Seville, Spain, in the 1920s.

"He's a womanizer who is completely obsessed with what gives him pleasure," Hough says. "We see all the bad that he's doing, and once he's discovered, people realize, 'Oh, this noble person is actually not good.'"

Pausing, Hough added: "We are going to find our vengeance! Good wins in the end!"

The lead character is played by Wingate junior Major Bryant, who is pursuing a music education degree. When Bryant, a baritone, auditioned in February, he was "hopeful" of getting the part of Don Giovanni.

Although Bryant describes the experience of playing Don Giovanni as both beautiful and uncomfortable, he admits to discovering that his biggest obstacle was becoming the character onstage.

"As most of you will find out when watching the opera," Bryant said, "he is not a very good person. Trying to figure out how to channel this awful character has been a long process that has been interesting, to say the least."

Bryant has done his fair share of singing in Italian at Wingate and says that his classes have helped him improve his pronunciation. "These classes definitely made it an easier experience, but it was far from easy," he said.

Justin Beaman, a junior music major with a concentration in church music, plays the part of Don Ottavio, a nobleman in love with one of the leading ladies, Donna Anna, played by Sophia Ackerman.

Although Beaman has had experience singing songs in Italian, learning the Italian songs on this scale was challenging. Beaman, a tenor, is a part of six songs and has had to master each one.

"Before, I was really only focused on what my specific part was doing," he said. "This opera has really pushed me to look at what everybody is doing, because it all works together to create one sound.

"I realized a lot of the things I was doing were not really working. That made me want to figure out how to make it work. And that's where I feel like a lot of my growth has come in."

Both Bryant and Beaman are looking forward to seeing the cast's hard work over the past six months pay off.

"I'm excited to see the reaction of the audience to the dialogue in some of the scenes," Bryant said. "The comedic timing of some of the lines is truly incredible."

"If someone has never seen an opera before," Hough said, "this is a good place to begin. I hope they take a chance on something that is new to them. It's a wonderful story!"

Five Wingate faculty members play in the orchestra: David Brooks (violin II), Rick Gibson (clarinet), Chris Griffin (horn), David Markgraf (timpani) and Brady Miller (harpsichord and mandolin).

The cast will give a special showing of act 2 for middle and high school students on Nov. 6 at 10 a.m.

To buy your ticket, click here. Wingate students do not need a ticket to be admitted. The event counts as an art Lyceum credit for students.

Learn more about studying music at Wingate University.

Nov. 5, 2025