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John del Carlo in the title role
(c) Marty Sohl/Metropolitan Opera |
Had I been actively seeking an antidote to late winter doldrums, I could have done no better than the final afternoon of Donizetti's
Don Pasquale at the Met. In the hands of the delightful cast, it becomes a gentle, affectionate send-up of Italian operatic conventions, as I suspect Donizetti intended in 1849. In support of my thesis that Donizetti meant the joke, I cite the
dramatis personae, which after listing the four principals says merely - A Notary. All you need to know is that there will be a notary. He is, of course, not a notary at all, but Malatesta's cousin, and I suspect he wore Danielle de Niese's notary outfit from
Così fan tutte.
Typically demure soprano virtues are catalogued and then parodied wildly in the person of the feisty Norina, the tenor is not the most intelligent young man in the world but takes himself very seriously, the baritone is suave, and the bass doesn't know what's going on. I am not entirely sure that Otto Schenk's production, an Italian idyll awash in Mediterranean pinks and golds and shabby charm, is in on the joke. But it works as part of it.
I presumed that the ominous front-of-curtain appearance of a man in a suit was merely to echo the slips in our programs which said Anna Netrebko was indisposed. No: Joseph Colaneri would be conducting; James Levine was ill. Colaneri's reading of the score was bright and sprightly; there were a few issues of balance at the outset, but the orchestra was allowed to shine, and they performed with their customary excellence (I love you, cellos!) The chorus didn't have a great deal to do, but they milled, tidied, and pronounced dolefully on the topsy-turvy household with great aplomb. Regarding the principals, I have to add my voice to the universal acclaim they've garnered.
