Don Pasquale<\/strong> (1843).\u00a0 He continued to compose between travels, but the ravages of syphilis began to slow him down. By 1846, he was housed in a French asylum and later transferred to his beloved hometown of Bergamo, Italy. A complete empty shell, he died there in 1848.<\/p>\nBut Don Pasquale is a most fitting epitaph to his musical exceptionalism. It bubbles with life, melody without compare, a stunning orchestration, and psychological rightness. Yes, it\u2019s bones are buffa polished to the highest degree \u2013 commedia dell\u2019arte cartoon characters and sit-com situations \u2013 but Donizetti handles the silliness with profound understanding and empathy. <\/p>\n
There\u2019s the old geezer who thinks he\u2019s God\u2019s gift to women (Pasquale), the earnest young lover (Ernesto), the pretty young thing who\u2019s wiser than all of them (Norina), a crafty doctor who orchestrates the plot (Malatesta), and a comic servant (the Notary).<\/p>\n
Pasquale (bass Aidan Smerud) wants a young wife so he can produce children so he won\u2019t have to bequeath his fortune to his errant nephew Ernesto (tenor Cody Boling), in love with Norina (soprano Amia Langer). The doctor (baritone John Allen Nelson) in cahoots with Ernesto hatches a plot where Norina will impersonate \u201cSofronia,\u201d a virginal convent girl, and have Pasquale fall in love with her. <\/p>\n
As soon as the marriage is ordained, Sofronia\/Norina turns into the shrew of shrews, shouting at the addled Don, ordering him around, spending his money on clothes and jewels, and flaunting her sexual allure. When she slaps Pasquale, the opera takes a swerve into the tragic, but not for long. All complications are resolved in the \u201cGarden scene,\u201d when Pasquale sees the error of his ways and allows Ernesto and Norina to marry happily ever after. The moral in Donizetti and Giovanni Ruffini\u2019s sparkly libretto is that Old Men Should Not Marry Young Women; nothing will end well.<\/p>\n
Rossini sets this silly comedy under some of his most radiant melodies using the novel \u201cleitmotif\u201d technique that would be overwhelmed by Wagner years later. Beautiful arias abound, with Norina\u2019s opening, flirty, coloratura workout, \u201cI know your magic ways,\u201d as she mocks the romance she\u2019s creating, a high point. It sets the pace for the entire work, as do Pasquale\u2019s eager to trot \u201cA sudden fire\u201d and Malatesta\u2019s \u201cBeautiful like an angel,\u201d as he describes Sofronia\u2019s hidden beauty to the lustful Don.<\/p>\n
Ernesto gets his own standout, the by-now standard tenor concert piece, \u201cHow lovely,\u201d as he rhapsodizes on Norina\u2019s beauty, accompanied by guitar at the beginning of this show-stopper. Every bel canto opera worth its salt had at least one, if not two, standalone tunes that could make or break an early 19th century opera. You needed something the audience could hum on their way out. And coloratura, don\u2019t forget that \u2013 those dazzling displays of vocal calisthenics for both male and female voices. Norina soars all over the place, and even Pasquale and Malatesta have a tongue-twister patter song that even the master Rossini would have been proud of.<\/p>\n
Barrel-chested tenor Boling certainly has the power, but the high notes left him a bit bereft and strained. He never sounded sweet. Smerud\u2019s Pasquale, while a bit too young for the old rou\u00e9, has marvelous acting chops but his projection was a little short and was often overpowered by the orchestra. Langer and Nelson mesmerized. <\/p>\n
Langer\u2019s a comic actress deluxe with the voice of an angel. She sailed through Donizetti\u2019s treacherous passages as if floating. She fizzed in the part. And Nelson (a superlatively wicked Sparafucile in OH\u2019s 2023 production of Rigoletto) was a commanding Malatesta, with his rich effortless baritone firing on all cylinders. Baritone Jack Cozad\u2019s Servant and Notary, with Groucho glasses and false nose, stole the show whenever he appeared, his lovely voice shining along with the buffoonery he created.<\/p>\n
Opera in the Heights\u2019 Artistic Director Kathryn Frady doubled as director and kept Donizetti bubbling with comic touches and spry movement. But scene changes shouldn\u2019t take so long. We have to wait precious moments for stagehands to move potted palms and carry off a couch or desk, meanwhile all the opera\u2019s effervescence dissipates. Maestro Mary Box knows her bel canto, and the OH orchestra blazed and purred, especially the woodwinds, celli, trumpet, and percussion. They made a lovely sound.<\/p>\n
All in all, OH\u2019s Don Pasquale, a difficult work to pull off with ease, is a highlight of the company since the departure of beloved maestro Eiki Isomura. Puccini\u2019s blood-and-guts Tosca opens their next season.<\/p>\n
Don Pasquale continues at<\/strong> 2 p.m. Sunday, April 12 at Opera in the Heights, 1703 Heights Boulevard. For more information, call 713-861-5303 or visit operaintheheights.org. $35-$85.<\/p>\n\n\tRelated<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In the opera world circa 1840s and 1850s, there was only one who wore the mantle of Rossini,…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":720559,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5130],"tags":[299033,299034,12730,4345,165484,272017,358,3187],"class_list":{"0":"post-720558","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-houston","8":"tag-don-pasquale","9":"tag-donizetti","10":"tag-homepage","11":"tag-houston","12":"tag-houston-opera","13":"tag-opera-in-the-heights","14":"tag-texas","15":"tag-tx"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/116386372680068450","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/720558","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=720558"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/720558\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/720559"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=720558"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=720558"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=720558"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}