Now on the docket: Donna Anna, Zerlina and 2,065 Jane Does v. the Estate of Don Giovanni.
The Don, summoned from the underworld, faced his accusers in a Hilton hotel ballroom-turned-courtroom on Friday afternoon.
“The wretched man is right there!" Donna Elvira cried, pointing to her seducer, who wore a sleek suit and sunglasses. Then, launching into her aria “Ah! Chi mi dice mai," she threatened revenge: “I will tear out his heart."
Mixing high culture, lawyerly arguments and some mild wackiness, the American Bar Association played host to a mock hearing featuring witnesses from Mozart's “Don Giovanni." They sang, they testified, they suffered withering cross-examination from (nonsinging) lawyers.
The session was one of 450 education panels connected to the association's annual meeting, which has drawn 10,000 lawyers to New York. Evidently, lawyers are in need of levity at such events: the gatherings often have mock historical trials. A panel on medical malpractice once used Puccini's “Bohme." (Shouldn't Mimi's cough have indicated tuberculosis?)
On Friday the bar association brought in young singers who had participated in a training program run by the Martina Arroyo Foundation. Ms. Arroyo, the former Metropolitan Opera star and a famed Elvira and Anna herself, was on hand, the star attraction for the opera-loving lawyers and judges present. United States District Judge John Koeltl, who sits in Manhattan and has a Met subscription, presided, handling objections and closely questioning the lawyers in their closing arguments. The session attracted about 50 people.
Behind the humorous presentation was a serious issue. The panel, devised by Sheldon Finkelstein, a Newark lawyer, presented the Don's conquests as plaintiffs in a potential class-action suit charging him with intentional infliction of emotional distress. The idea was to delve into a finer point of class actions.
The plaintiffs' lawyers -- Mr. Finkelstein and Dori Hanswirth of New York -- laid out a case that Don Giovanni had deceived his victims across the board, keeping a meticulous list of conquests. The Don's defense team, Steven M. Richman of Hamilton, N.J., and Jacqueline Becerra of Miami, said that the victims had little in common and that there was not even much evidence that they had suffered damages. The defense's star witness was Leporello, the Don's faithful servant.
I Rest My Case...please continue
