Arizona native makes hometown debut in 'Don Giovanni' opera

Tempe native Richard Ollarsaba has sung the titular role of Mozart’s “Don Giovanni” with Opera Hong Kong, Lyric Opera Chicago and on a handful of other stages.

This weekend, he will bring it to Tucson’s Linda Ronstadt Music Hall in his debut with his hometown opera company.

“This is a big deal to me not just because it’s my hometown but it’s an opportunity for me to give back to the community that helped me early on,” the 36-year-old Corona del Sol High School alumnus said. “Everything that I set out on for my academic education and early career has its foundation here.”

He joins a cast that includes conductor Daniela Candillari making her fourth Arizona Opera appearance after having conducted “Fellow Travelers” in 2019, the film version of “Copper Queen” in 2021 and Puccini’s “Tosca” last January.

“It’s so much fun coming back here every time,” Candillari said during a phone call from Phoenix early this month, where rehearsals were entering the homestretch to last weekend’s Phoenix performances. The show moves to Linda Ronstadt Music Hall, 260 S. Church Ave., on Saturday, April 27, and Sunday, April 28.

“I feel like every time I come to do a project, I’ve been always blessed with a really great cast,” she said. “I think the cast is what makes the experiences unique for us and carries the story forward.”

This marks Candillari’s debut conducting “Don Giovanni,” although she has been behind the podium for the two other operas — “Cosi fan tutte” and “The Marriage of Figaro” — in the so-called Mozart-Da Ponte Trilogy, Mozart’s collaborations with the librettist Da Ponte that resulted in his three most popular operas.

“This is the only one of the Da Ponte trilogy that I haven’t done before so this is a completely new world for me in a way,” Candillari said. “The question that I had for myself when starting this piece is why do we come back to the pieces that were written 300 years ago and what is it about them that makes them resonate with us and why do we keep coming back to these pieces? I think with ‘Don Giovanni,’ the question was also sort of how do we make it sound as if it was written yesterday.”

Ollarsaba has a 10-year history with “Don Giovanni,” having played Commendatore, who Don Giovanni kills early on and who returns as a statue; and Masetto, one of the victims.

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He ascended to the title role about 10 years ago.

“As a low voice in opera, if you are a baritone or bass or a bass-baritone as I identify myself, this is a role that fits perfectly in your voice because the character is so chameleon-esqe, this person who can kind of flitter his way into any capacity of society,” he said.

Ollarsaba, who now calls Florida home, remembers the first time he experienced live opera. He was 14 and he went to see Arizona Opera’s production of Puccini’s “Madama Butterfly” at the Phoenix Symphony Center, where he had performed violin as a member of the Phoenix Youth Symphony.

“That got the creative juices flowing,” said Ollarsaba, who had been playing violin since he was 8 and had started singing in musical theater at age 12.

In opera, he said, he found “this beautiful marriage of classical music and singing.” When he graduated high school four years later, he decided to pursue opera at the Curtis Institute in Philadelphia, where he earned his bachelor’s degree. He went on to earn a master’s degree from the University of North Carolina School of the Arts before doing a resident artist stint for a year with Minnesota Opera and three years at the Ryan Opera Center at Lyric Opera of Chicago.

Candillari, who in addition to a classical music background earned a degree in jazz studies from Indiana University’s Jacob School of Music, said the thing that has intrigued her most about “Don Giovanni” is the society surrounding the character, one of opera’s truly bad guys whose crimes against humanity included murder, assault and physical abuse.

“Are they letting him get away with things until they don’t anymore?” she asks herself. “I think it’s a great morality question: How do we react when we see that things are wrong? What do we do with that information and how do we react to that? It’s been an incredible discovery of a piece that is now becoming one of my favorite pieces, actually.”

Arizona Opera will perform “Don Giovanni” at 7:30 p.m. Saturday and 2 p.m. Sunday. The performance runs 3 hours, 30 minutes, with one 30-minute intermission. Tickets are $30-$145 through tickets.azopera.org.