POLISH AVANT-GARDE MAKES MARK ON MOZART AT L.A. OPERA.

Byline: Rick Mortensen Staff Writer

At last year's press conference to announce the 2002-03 season, Los Angeles Opera artistic director Placido Domingo didn't know yet who would direct Mozart's ``Don Giovanni.'' He did offer a clue as to what kind of production he had in mind by mentioning he was considering controversial German director Achim Freyer.

The 2001-02 L.A. Opera season included Freyer's abstract staging of the Bach B Minor Mass, which featured dancers in rubber suits doing pantomimes behind a colorfully lit scrim.

Domingo didn't get Freyer for ``Don Giovanni,'' but L.A. Opera did get something similarly avant-garde in Mariusz Trelinski's production, which features sets by Boris Kudlicka and costumes by fashion designer Arkadius.

Trelinski won Poland's Minister of Culture Award for his 1990 film, ``A Farewell to Autumn.'' Trelinski's opera debut was the 1995 world premiere of ``The Heartsnatcher,'' and he has directed four operas since then, including a production of Puccini's ``Madame Butterfly'' at Washington Opera.

The new production is a joint venture between L.A. Opera and the Polish National Opera, which premiered it earlier this year. It features outlandish costumes, abstract sets and choreographed movements for all the actors.

L.A. Opera resident artist James Creswell plays Masetto, a brutish peasant whose wife, Zerlina, is seduced by Don Giovanni (Italian for Don Juan). Creswell compared Trelinski's production to commedia dell'arte, a 16th-century European style of theater that used clowns and stock characters.

``The movement is very stylized and exact instead of being natural and organic like real people,'' Creswell said. ``That's a challenge, because, while the movement is not organic, the text and the music have to be. It sort of plays tricks on your brain.''

Hungarian soprano Andrea Rost, who plays Don Giovanni's other conquest, Donna Anna, agreed.

``It's not easy,'' she said. ``Sometimes I have to have two faces. One is singing and the other is thinking what I have to do next.''

Still, Rost had high praise for Trelinski's vision and said his experience in film gives him an attention to detail not often seen in opera.

``He wants us to have strong intents in our bodies,'' she said. ``Even through the audience won't see it, he wants us to feel it.''

Rost made her own film debut last year in a filmed version of the opera ``Bank Ban,'' by Hungarian composer Ferenc Erkel. One of the world's premier lyric sopranos, Rost is making her third L.A. Opera appearance this season, after ``Tales of Hoffmann'' in December and last month's gala concert.

While she's played the role of Zerlina many times, this is her first turn as Donna Anna, and she's excited to be playing a more serious character.

``Zerlina is just a simple girl, and Donna Anna has a lot of intensity and much more emotion in both of her arias,'' she said. ``There is a lot of drama in this lady. Her second aria is just amazing. It's very difficult and very high.''

Rost said Trelinski's vision for Donna Anna is different from any other production she's seen. In most productions, Donna Anna hates the man who seduced her- in some productions, raped her - and killed her father, and she goads her fiance, Don Ottavio, into seeking revenge.

``What's new for me in this production ... is that Anna is really in love with Don Giovanni, and she doesn't trust Don Ottavio very much,'' Rost said. ``Her second aria is a farewell to love, a farewell to Don Giovanni.''

Although he's only 30 years old, Uruguayan bass-baritone Erwin Schrott is a veteran Giovanni. Like Rost, he admires Trelinski's bold vision for his character. The opera chronicles the legendary lover's exploits until he is confronted by the ghost of the man he murdered and is literally swallowed up into hell.

Schrott said Trelinski sees the protagonist's descent into hell as deliberate.

``Don Giovanni, in this production, is just trying to get an answer from God,'' Schrott said. ``For Mariusz Trelinski, Don Giovanni is a little bit tired, he's a little bit bored of women and pleasure because everything is too easy for him. He needs something more. He never gets that excited until he finds death, the ghost or God, whatever you want to call it.''

DON GIOVANNI

Where: Dorothy Chandler Pavilion, 135 N. Grand Ave., Los Angeles.

When: 7:30 p.m. today and June 11, 14, 17, 20, 22; 1 p.m. June 8.

Tickets: $30 to $170. [phone] or losangelesopera.com

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Mariusz Trelinski's production of ``Don Giovanni,'' seen here during its run in Warsaw, draws from commedia dell'arte and other elements not usually associated with opera.