Music Center Opera Alters Season : Opera: Julia Migenes and Christine Weidinger withdraw from ‘Don Giovanni.’ ‘Hansel and Gretel’ will now come from Dallas.

Vagaries of personal schedules and financial constraints have caused significant casting and production changes in the Music Center Opera’s “Don Giovanni,” scheduled for five performances in October.

Announced without comment only in recently mailed ticket brochures, changes also involve the production for “Hansel and Gretel,” which is scheduled for June.

Most affected is “Don Giovanni,” where two established stars have been replaced with lesser-known singers.

Julia Migenes was forced to withdraw from the production when she was called to reshoot scenes in a film. Christine Weidinger withdrew when she was not able to obtain release from overlapping early rehearsals for a “Clemenza di Tito” in Nice, which will also be recorded.

Replacing Migenes as Donna Elvira is Australian Rachel Gettler, a mezzo who moved into the soprano repertory in 1987 and has been affiliated with the Karlsruhe Opera for the last three years.

She sang a controversial Carmen with the San Diego Opera in 1984, at a time when she was married to Ian Campbell, general director of the company, and was Amneris in San Diego the year before.

American Karen Huffstodt will sing Donna Anna--a role she has sung in diverse productions in Paris, Munich, Vienna, Houston and elsewhere--instead of Weidinger.

There will also be changes to the physical appearance of “Don Giovanni.” The production was originally scheduled to come from the Maggio Musicale in Florence, but never arrived due to mix-up at the Italian festival.

The sets and properties, as designed by Robert Israel for Florence, will now be built in the United States and may incorporate some deviations from the Florentine production, such as different costumes, which have been purchased.

“Hansel and Gretel,” which ends the season with six performances in June, will be presented in a different production from that first planned. MCO was to have participated in a co-production with the Canadian Opera and New York City Opera, designed by Maurice Sendak and directed by Frank Corsaro. According to Marcia Lazer, marketing director, MCO had to pull out of the consortium for financial reasons.

“We didn’t have the money,” she said, “when a grant that we expected didn’t come through.”

Instead, the company has rented a production from the Dallas Opera new last season, staged by John Copley, with sets by Michael Yeargan and costumes by Peter Hall.

In other casting, Music Center Opera has added mezzo Delia Wallis to “Albert Herring” as Florence Pike, a role previously uncast.

There is good news on the ticket front for MCO’s sixth season, eight operas in 41 performances opening Sept. 12 with Puccini’s “Madama Butterfly.”

Lazer reports that the company is running 27% ahead of last season in subscription sales.

(The single-ticket brochure just went out, with several performances already sold out and others nearly so.)

“That’s really incredible, in a recessionary year,” she said.