My first live performance at the Metropolitan Opera this year was Donizetti's Don Pasquale. It was a great pleasure to be at the Met again, the best part of which was hearing Anna Netrebko sing the role of Norina. Anna Netrebko was feisty and effervescent in the role of Norina in this comic opera. The role required Netrebko to assume various personae.
Netrebko pretends to be the painfully shy sister of Doctor Maletesta newly arrived from the convent who is being presented by the doctor as the bride-to-be of Don Pasquale. After a fake marriage ceremony, she becomes the shrewish, extravagant and demanding wife of Don Pasquale. She strives to drive him crazy so that he will recognize that marriage is a bad idea for him and that she should instead be wed to his nephew Ernesto. She also acts as the sprightly and devoted love of Ernesto.
Anna Netrebko's singing as always was beautiful and appeared effortless. She achieves this while gallivanting about the stage bringing the comic role to life. In my opinion, her aria Quel guardo il cavaliere (a longer version than the earlier video clip) was stunning.
The role of Don Pasquale in this performance was sung by John Del Carlo who was a master of the small comic gesture. The role of Ernesto was sung by Matthew Polenzani, Doctor Malestesta by Mariusz Kwiecien and the Notary by Bernard Fitch. The conductor to the delight of the audience was James Levine.
The opera is a series of melodious arias - some lyric, some luxurious, some highly energetic as well as recetatives which are accompanied by the orchestra. The use by Donizetti of well-placed solos, duets, trios and quartets maintains the entertaining flow of the opera. I thought the performances of the roles by all of the singers were impressive especially in many of the spirited ensembles. One of my favorites is Via, Caro sposino which starts as a solo by Norina and then becomes a duet with Don Pasquale.
Punctuating these more energetic comic moments are arias of poignant reflection. One such poignant moment is the Act 1 aria Sogno soave e casto. In this aria rendered in a minor key Ernesto bemoans his fate in life to have lost his love Norina after Don Pasquale throws him out penniless when he refuses to marry Don Pasquale's choice for him.
Another poignant moment occurs at the beginning of Act 2 which is preceded by a horn solo that helps to set the tone. Here in Povero Ernesto! and Cerchero lontana terra, Ernesto continues to sadly view his fate: "Poor Ernesto! Thrown out by my uncle, deserted by all...lamenting my lost beloved."
A final poignant moment occurs towards the end of the opera in Ernesto's serenade to Norina, Com e gentil la notte a mezzo april! and then in the following duet with Norina, Tornami a dir che m'ami. They sing: "Tell me once more that you love me, tell me that you are mine...I feel safe when I am near you."
It is in these reflective poignant moments that the human feelings that underlie the action come out. As such, the story becomes more than just a comedy. It is a comedy built upon a human drama.
At the end of the opera, Norina announces the moral of the opera: "The man who marries when he's old is rather weak in the head; he's going out of his way to look for a heap of trouble."
In this opera and in Der Rosenkavalier, old rich men seeking marriage do not come off so well. It appears that old men seeking marriage with much younger women further exacerbate the situation. There seems to be little sympathy for the plight of Don Pasquale except for Norina's moment of awareness as the plan continues to unfold: "The lesson's a trifle hard, but it has to achieve its purposes; now we must make sure our plan succeeds."
The old men in these operas bring on the disaster themselves though Don Pasquale's intentions seem more innocent than those of Baron auf Lercheneau in Der Rosenkavalier. I do note that in Der Rosenkavalier, the love affair of Marshallin with her much younger page Octavian is portrayed as a fulfilling one though it, too, has its embarrassing moments and also does not work out in the end. I wonder if the world has changed since the date of these operas. Would a contemporary opera view the situation more benignly as in A.A.R.P.-The Opera. Or, is this just part of the human condition?
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