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Bitter Reflection
A half-baked 'Don
Pasquale',
reviewed by GIUSEPPE PENNISI
Gaetano Donizetti's final masterpiece Don Pasquale (his last opera Dom Sébastien, Roi du Portugal had a
very mixed outcome at its premiere and has been seldom staged since then)
has been missing from Rome's major opera house, the Teatro dell'Opera, for twelve years. Thus, the new production
unveiled on 18 June 2013 (the
basis for this review) was much awaited, especially because it had been
entrusted to a winning team:
Ruggero Cappuccio for stage direction (with his usual colleagues Carlo Savi for sets and
Carlo Poggioli for costumes) and
Bruno Campanella for musical direction. In
the last two seasons, the
Cappuccio-Campanella partnership has
had major successes in L'Elisir d'Amore [Drama and Comedy, 7 February 2011] and in Il Barbiere di Siviglia [All the Ingredients, 21 April 2012]. This time
Cappuccio and his team missed the key point of the opera and, on the opening night, even
received some boos from the generally phlegmatic and rather apathetic
Rome audience.
Joel Prieto as Ernesto and Eleonora Buratto as Norina in the Teatro
dell'Opera di Roma production of Donizetti's 'Don Pasquale'. © 2013 Luciano Romano. Click on the image for
higher resolution
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What
is the key point of Don Pasquale? The opera is called dramma
buffo, thus a blend of comic and dramatic elements. Composed for
the Parisian
audience, and immediately a major hit all over Europe, Don
Pasquale is, at the same time, the apex of Donizetti's
hilarious and merry melodramas (eg L'Elisir d'Amore) and
the first, and for a long time,
the only 'bourgeois comedy in
music'. The libretto
(largely written by the composer
himself) and the score (composed in eleven days and orchestrated in eight) form a
bitter (but eventually wise) reflection on aging, on longing for bygone youth, and
on various aspects of love and marriage.
There are funny moments
(like, for example, in Verdi's Falstaff) but
the text and the music are full of melancholy.
Also, as a 'bourgeois comedy' -- the period in
the 1840s and 50s featured the increasing role of
the middle class in France (but
not yet elsewhere in Europe) -- it could be very well staged in contemporary
attire (as in 1843 at the Théâtre des Italiens in Paris and
at La Scala in Milan).
Eleonora Buratto as Norina and Mario Cassi as Doctor Malatesta in the
Teatro dell'Opera di Roma production of Donizetti's 'Don Pasquale'. © 2013 Luciano Romano. Click on the image for
higher resolution
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Cappuccio
sets the action in a
period between the end of the eighteenth and the beginning of
the nineteenth century in an aristocratic palace, just
forgetting that the protagonist is a nouveau
riche, the owner of several shops and stores in Rome, but without
anything that would belong to an aristocrat. He
is surrounded by servants in wigs; they are mimes, always busy with
slapstick. Also, Norina is surrounded by slapstick chamber
maids. In the third act, the choir
becomes a crowd of colorful helpers. This would be fine and good if Don
Pasquale were a farce and not a dramma buffo.
Nicola Alaimo as Don Pasquale and Mario Cassi as Doctor Malatesta in
the Teatro dell'Opera di Roma production of Donizetti's 'Don Pasquale'.
© 2013 Luciano Romano. Click on the image for
higher resolution
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Luckily,
Bruno Campanella and the singers
follow Donizetti's intentions from the sparkling yet
nostalgic symphony to
the expansive tenderness even
in duets full
of humor (eg
Malatesta-Norina in the first act) to the waltz tune
in the third act, and the musical continuity from number to number
obtained by the innovation (at that time) of melodious recitatives
accompanied by strings
instead of harpsichord.
Nicola Alaimo as Don Pasquale and Eleonora Buratto as Norina in the
Teatro dell'Opera di Roma production of Donizetti's 'Don Pasquale'. © 2013 Luciano Romano. Click on the image for
higher resolution
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The
singers were quite good, even though they were made to act as if the plot were
a Marx Brothers film.
Nicola Alaimo and Mario Cassi are young but
already veterans of the roles of
Don Pasquale and Malatesta. The real surprise is
the very young couple. Joel Prieto as Ernesto has a velvet lyric tenor voice and
ascends easily to a high register. (His pathetic allegretto Cercherò lontana terra was
marvelous.) Eleonora Buratto, singing the
part of Norina, is a frizzy coloratura soprano as
delightful as a glass of
high quality
champagne. They have great careers ahead of them, and fully deserve the applause and
the accolades they received on 18 June.
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