There are ways to attend an opera in Washington at a ticket price that will not make you cry. The easiest way is to go to a performance from one of the smaller or collegiate companies, where the reasonable ticket price will translate into hearing lesser singers or a piano or small instrumental ensemble instead of a full orchestra. If you want the true experience of opera, however — that “exotic and irrational entertainment” described by Samuel Johnson — then you have to have it all together: the full orchestra, the room-filling voices, the lavish costumes and sets. In short, in Washington with a few exceptions, you need to attend a performance by the Washington National Opera, resident in the Kennedy Center Opera House.

The company only mounts seven productions each seasons. The season opener, Puccini’s La Bohème, has already come and gone (see my review for details), but two productions remain, both opening within the next two weeks. First will be the opera that, if pressed, many opera lovers might cite as the greatest opera ever composed, Mozart’s Don Giovanni. The main stage cast is going to be very good: Erwin Schrott reprising his 2003 Washington appearance in the title role, Ildar Abdrazakov as the Don’s servant Leporello (Ildar will sing the title role in the second cast, with his brother Askar as Leporello), Erin Wall as the jilted Donna Anna, Anja Kampe as the vengeful Donna Elvira. Plus it is a chance to spot a living legend, tenor Plácido Domingo, who will be conducting. John Pascoe has rethought his 2003 production with some flamboyant new costumes and sets. Pascoe has said that his new concept revolves around the idea that Don Giovanni “has to be an incredibly seductive figure . . . looking like a magnificent sexually driven animal in the first act.” One might also describe it as Don Giovanni transported to the world of The Crow or X-Men. There are eight performances, from October 25 to November 16.

Photo of John Pascoe’s costume designs for Don Giovanni courtesy of Washington National Opera