It won't be like any other Don Giovanni . Not when soprano Catherine Malfitano, one of the finest Butterflies and Toscas to grace the contemporary operatic stage, directs the young artists of San Francisco Opera's famed Merola Opera Program in two performances this Friday and Sunday, August 1 & 3.

"We're not treating Mozart like it's a precious music-box," she revealed during an hour-long, in-person interview conducted 18 days before opening night. "Working on Mozart is a very sexy affair."

Malfitano brings significant stage cred to the production. She first essayed Zerlina in 1976 in a David Alden production at Houston Grand Opera. Immediately thereafter, she flew to the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, where she performed Susanna in Le Nozze di Figaro and Zerlina in Giovanni in back-to-back runs.

As the voice developed spinto potential, Beverly Sills offered her Donna Anna at New York City Opera in the 1980s. "I decided not to do it because the tradition in New York at the time called for a big, Birgit Nilsson type of Donna Anna," she explained. "Instead, I went on to do Elvira in Salzburg in the mid-90s in a wonderful production by Patrice Chereau. Three years of doing it in Salzburg, the first time with a rehearsal period of two months, put the role deep inside of me.

"I've been directing unofficially since the beginning of my career," she said. "I've always wanted

Soprano Catherine Malfitano. Photo: John Swannell

to be right there with the director in finding things, and super-ready to offer things to them, not waiting for them to tell me what to do. They've loved everything I've ever given them. Really. Even when I'm not doing their job for them, they're happy when an artist gives of themselves, because they build on it."

During Merola's rehearsal period of almost six weeks, Malfitano is working with an exciting young cast. Most have little stage experience and are fresh out of school; one even returns to school next year.

"What they were worrying about in the first week was being correct," she says. "That's not always interesting. These young people are growing up in an era where there's such a sense of homogenizing themselves. I'm looking for someone who can sweep me away and show me they're unique, have something special and gutsy. We need to be correct, but we need to get beyond correct.

"These kids are getting a lot of freedom and permission from me and our conductor Gary Wedow to really live and breathe in a much more human way. There's a life underneath the first layer of words. My job is to help them understand the subtext and what they're really saying underneath the words they choose to speak."

Malfitano endeavors to empower her singers to go beyond what anyone expects of them. When we spoke, her cast members had just begun to take everything she had given them and make it their own.

"It's about a singing instrument inside a body that's as expressive as the voice. I want to see an artist get to a higher and higher level in the rehearsal process, and have even more bloom in the actual performance. I'm demanding a great integration between music-making, acting, and movement, much more so than they've ever experienced before."

"The one character who has more costume changes than anyone else is my Don Giovanni, because he's my chameleon character. He's so many people and aspects of humanity and expectations of other humans rolled into one. He's kind of like Lulu and Carmen. Other people make of him what they will. And he's that plus more.

"At the end of the opera, who do we miss? It's Don Giovanni's energy and life force. Even if that energy is not all for good, it's very much a part of who we are, too. So there's something missing when he's gone from us.

"The minute we define people's relationships, we're in a box. The moment we allow that relationships are about the magic thing that happens, we're really in freedom. That's what Don Giovanni says: 'Viva la liberta!' True freedom is way out of the box. Besides, men in tights are cool. I like men in tights."

Don Giovanni plays at Cowell Theater at Fort Mason on Fri., Aug. 1 at 8 p.m.; Sun., Aug. 3 at 2 p.m. For tickets, call (415) 864-3330, ASAP.