Don’t you love Donizetti?
There is nothing quite like the sonic fizz of bel canto when coupled with the intricacies of plot and absurd characters of commedia dell’ arte theater.
Fun and funny is what the current production of Donizetti’s comic opera Don Pasquale at the War Memorial Opera House is. Director Laurent Pelly, who also directed the adorable 2009 production of La Fille du Regiment, seems to be exquisitely attuned to the genre of comic opera. He sets Don Pasquale in an undefined period, modern but perhaps not contemporary, and a generic setting, OK, Italian, but easily some other European setting, where traditions, refinement and old buildings gently crumble into the hazy world of the past. Pelly says he took his inspiration from the comic Italian films of the 1950s and ’60s. And suitably, the opera program is decorated with a still photo of the luscious Gina Lollobrigida, whose name alone trips off the tongue with a laugh and a whistle.
The opera tells the story of a bad-tempered old man whose wayward nephew refuses to marry the rich and highly placed woman his uncle wants him to marry. Nephew Ernesto has lost his heart to the lovely, but poor, Norina. To punish his nephew Ernesto, Don Pasquale decides to marry himself, selecting a young woman, preferably modest, chaste and beautiful, who will provide him with numerous heirs that would replace Ernesto.
When the opera opens Don Pasquale is waiting for Dr. Malatesta, a mutual friend of the old man and Ernesto. Malatesta arrives to tell Pasquale that he has just the woman for the 70-year-old bachelor: his newly-departed-from-a-convent sister, Sofronia.
In the second scene we meet Sofronia, only her name is Norina. Lounging around her messy apartment, reading romance novels and drinking plonk, Norina is thrilled by Malatesta’s sly plan to ensure that Ernesto and Norina are married and that Don Pasquale is taught a hard but necessary lesson: that old men should not marry young women.
As is fitting and necessary, the singing in this delightful production was to die for. Bass Maurizio Muraro, who sang the central role of Don Pasquale, is not only blessed with sublime comic timing, he is blessed with a voice rich in color, beauty and profundity. Lawrence Brownlee, sporting a rocketing pompadour wig and an equally high and dazzling tenor, scaled the climbs of Ernesto with the ease of walking around a suburban block. Soprano Heidi Stober sang the role of Norina, taking great delight in transforming from a lounging bad girl into a demon wife bent on making Pasquale’s life a misery. Lucas Meacham, he of the gi-normous golden baritone voice, played the heroic part of the devious Dr. Malatesta.
Maestro Giuseppe Finzi conducted the orchestra with delicacy and consideration. The entire emotional landscape of the opera, from rambunctious surprise to tender love, was sketched out in the overture and continued unflaggingly through the opera.
The sets by Chantal Thomas were clever and engaging, comprised of two flanking walls of door- and window-ridden buildings around a central turning set comprised of three scenes – Pasquale’s stark living room with his favorite chair and a candelabra hanging from the ceiling, Norina’s even starker apartment, cluttered with myriad fluffy outfits, and a building exterior. All three are raked and skewed, and walls, doors and windows offer no obstacles to the characters as they drift through their fantastical world.
– Jaime Robles
San Francisco Opera’s production of Don Pasquale continues through October 15. For information and tickets visit sfopera.org.
Photo: Maurizio Muraro as Don Pasquale complains to Lucas Meachem as Dr. Malatesta, that his life has been turned upside down by his new wife. Photo by Cory Weaver.