I attended this last night, my third time of seeing it, and with the third entirely different cast. 2006 and 2004.I must be getting old, I thought it was more recent than that.
I thought I loved Donizetti. Not to the extent of loving Wagner or Verdi, but certainly enjoying his tunes. But I've had a bad run of Donizetti*. So I was determined to enjoy last night's Don Pasquale.
You may have noticed I am a bit of a tenor nut. It's not unusual for my appreciation to depend upon the tenor, even in an opera like this where the curtain calls show the tenor to be ranked third behind basso (or in this case baritone) and soprano. And I was greatly looking forward to the vastly under-rated Barry Banks as Ernesto.
As a side issue, I had thought that Don Pasquale is a basso buffo role, and Paolo Gavanelli a baritone. It seems strange that this obviously inconsistent casting has gone unremarked. So baritones and basses, as sopranos and mezzos, are interchangeable, but for a tenor to take on baritone roles is The End of Opera As We Know It™. Get a grip people.
Barry from Stoke (see interview ) is obviously not how you'd imagine a top-class Italianate tenor, and, sadly, Our Barry is not the tallest of men. I've never met him, so can't judge, but doubt that he's much taller than 5 foot.
Which is such a shame, because Barry from Stoke ought to be a star. He has a gorgeous voice. The most obvious comparison is with Juan Diego Florez, acknowledged as the leading singer in that fach. JDF has that elusive 'star-quality', but Barry has tremendous stage presence, and is fine as an operatic actor. Probably not as crystal clear at the top of the range as Our Juandi, he also lacks the beat/bleat that I know puts several people off the Peruvian.
I thought that the rest of the cast were fine without being stunning. Jacques Imbrailo has the potential to be an extremely good singer but I found him underpowered in this role. I was in a seat I know to be acoustically sweet, and, in any case, I had no problem with the other singers.
I don't want to be the person who dismisses a singer because they are not as good as previous singers in that role, and at times, Paolo Gavanelli was outstanding. I just don't think he did the patter to my satisfaction and I found his portrayal of Don P a bit lacking either in initial outrageousness or subsequent pathos.
Iride Martinez did nothing to upset me and at times was delightfully vapid, as the character demanded, but there were no vocal thrills. All in all, it was a routine revival with a routine revival cast.
It had been scheduled to be conducted by Sir Charles Mackerras, who sadly died at a grand old age in July. Instead, Evelino Pidò conducted, and I can't say I was impressed. It was pedestrian and uninspiring.
I do like Don Pasquale as an opera, and unlike other people, I like the Dolls House production. I did conclude, though, that the first two acts, run together as if one act, do rather drag. There's an awful lot of scene setting for one rather lame joky story line. And an awful lot of recititative leading to the musical highlight of the thankfully short third act: - the tenor's gorgeous aria, Com'è gentil ' and the Ernesto/Norina love duet.
The worst aspect of light fluffy operas such as this is that they are billed as 'comedy'. In truth, they are mildly amusing, at most. I don't have a problem with mildly amusing, not everything has to be split-your-sides-laughing. I just find it perplexing that so many people feel driven to chuckle seemingly unstoppably at stuff that is barely amusing.
It's not that I lack of sense of humour, but it just worries how they manage to control themselves when it comes to the downright hilarious. I may be totally wrong, but I think for many of them most of the time, they are laughing deliberately to show 'everyone else' that they 'get' the joke and are, thus, intellectually superior. At least I didn't have the problems a friend did, with the people behind him rustling sweet papers throughout. Though I did hear the sound of rustling also from the other side of the house (different people, different sweet papers).
Some people feel uncomfortable about this opera because it depicts cruel exploitation of an old but rich man. I don't.
I doubt that Donizetti or his librettists conceived it as an analysis of a patriarchal society, but it provides revealing observation of what counted for 'normal' back then in Italy: threatening Ernesto with disinheritance unless he entered into a forced marriage; a young woman finding it necessary to enter into an arranged loveless marriage for economic reasons; and the impersonated Soferina being locked away in a convent, no doubt either because of some previous sexual sin (like being raped) or merely to ensure that she didn't live a full life as an autonomous individual.
So, I don't have any great sympathy for Don Pasquale, who is the least exploited and oppressed of the lot of them. (This of course is the sort of marriage the religious nutters would like to defend against attack from people who love each other and want to be together!)
A nice pleasant start to the season, but an opera that failed to move me either in music or story, and one that really offers no insight into the human condition, even when accidentally providing a historical glimpse into the arrangements of society. A good solid 6/10, but no danger of it being a season or calendar-year highlight!
* Walked out of Fille this summer, thought it irritatingly light-hearted and the second choice tenor, Colin Lee, nothing special, endured a Lucia di Lammermoor with the world's worst tenor Jaewoo Kim as stand-in man, and I was bored by ROH's L'elisir last year with a sub-standard tenor Giuseppe Filianoti. And yet, I saw a wonderful and fabulous Elixir of Love at ENO last year, and didn't even blog it. #gertfail!
