Don Pasquale: A Smashing Season Opener

By Truman C. Wang
Saturday, July 13, 2002

Don Pasquale

Comic opera in Three Acts by
Gaetano Donizetti
Sung in Italian with English supertitles

Francesco Milioto, conductor
Harvey Berman, director

Performance of Saturday, July 13, 2002
at Kofmann Theatre,
Dean Lesher Regional Center for the Arts

All photos by TOM BACON, courtesy of Festival Opera
 

WALNUT CREEK, CALIF  – Throughout its 11-year history as the premier opera company in San Francisco’s East Bay Area, the Festival Opera has consistently excelled in highly professional productions, despite the ebb and flow of the local economic tides.  Of all the performances that I have attended at the intimate Hofmann Theatre in tony downtown Walnut Creek, none was more pleasing to the eye and the ear than this Don Pasquale, which would make its big sibling across the Bay green with envy.

The comic plot revolves around Don Pasquale, an elderly bachelor who one day takes it into his head to marry a much younger Norina and to disinherit his uppity nephew Ernesto.  A mock marriage is hastily arranged by the cunning Dr. Malatesta.  With the ink barely dry on the marriage certificate, the shy and demure Norina starts to create such havoc that the groom is only too happy to pay to get rid of her.  The opera ends in time-honored fashion with Don Pasquale giving his blessing to the young couple.

The elegant production design by Harvey Berman features contemporary costumes, circa 1840, which Donizetti had wanted but did not get for the opera’s premiere.  The brightly lit, cheery sets include a tall, blue-velvet atrium ceiling, flanked by potted palms and cacti.  The same sets reassemble in Act I Scene ii, now with softer pink lighting, to reveal the interior of Norina’s boudoir.  The generally efficient stage direction misfired only in the final Garden Scene, where the offstage nocturnal serenade was sung in full volume on center stage, nullifying much of the music’s sweet, enchanting effect.

Kristin Clayton as Norina, Armando Gama as Malatesta

The young, vibrant cast excelled in ensembles as well as in their individual numbers.  Soprano Kristin Clayton played Norina as a spunky vixen with a soft heart.  The rapid scales and roulades in the Act II Quartet held no terror for her.  After giving her new ‘groom’ a smart box in the ear on their wedding night, this Norina consoled him in a soft, beguiling tone that added poignancy to the farce.  Norina’s Act I aria and her Act III duet with Malatesta, unfortunately, were marred by frequent shortness of breath and shrill high notes.  Ms. Clayton was more at home in the coloratura passages than in the long unbroken line of the cantilena.

As Ernesto, disinherited by his uncle and contemplating the life of an exile hunting wild game in Africa, tenor David Miller sang all his arias with the stentorian tone of a big game hunter, although he did round off the Act III serenade “Com’è gentil” nicely with an elegant, well-turned trill.  The Festival Opera Chorus lent fine support to the serenade and sang the servants chorus with jovial high spirits.

Don Pasquale is a basso buffo role, meaning it is more often declaimed in the form of quick patters than it is sung.  As such, the singer must possess an unerring sense of timing and a voice of quicksilver agility.  Yugoslavian baritone Bojan Knezevic displayed both these traits with admirable results.  His solo number “Ah un foco insolito” and the ensuing duet with Ernesto (technically a tenor aria con pertichini) were a gem of comic characterization.  Even better was Mexican baritone Armando Gama, who sang the basso cantante role of Dr. Malatesta with a crisp diction and limpid legato – whether in patter or in song – and all but upstaged Pasquale in the celebrated patter duet “Cheti, cheti immantinente”.

(Left to Right) Bojan Knezevic as Pasquale, Armando Gama as Malatesta, Bruce Knopf as Notary, Kristin Clayton as Norina, Act I

There is no question in my mind that guest conductor Francesco Milioto easily upstaged the company’s own Artistic Director Michael Morgan with idiomatic playing and expert pacing that were far and above the company’s usual standards.   From the rollicking overture, to the great Act II Quartet, to the rousing rondo-finale, there was not one phrase or tempo out of place.  The gorgeous trumpet solo near the beginning of Act II was to die for.  Maestro Milioto held a tight rein to prevent the comedy from disintegrating into a farce.  When, in Act III, Norina gave Pasquale a slap in the face and almost as quickly voiced her pity for the old man, a consoling violin melody, played dolcissimo, arose from the pit and lent a humanizing touch to the seemingly heartless plot.  To me, that was great conducting.

Truman C. Wang is editor of Classical Voice.

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