“One must laugh a bit at Venus,” sings Norina, as freely translated in the supertitles of her Act 1 aria “So anch’io la virtù magica” (I also know the magical virtue).
This could have stood as the raison d’etre for Gaetano Donizetti’s Don Pasquale at its Paris premiere in 1843, as well as for Festival Napa Valley’s delightful Manetti Shrem Opera production of the work at the Mondavi Center at UC Davis last Friday, Nov. 15.
The translation (uncredited in the program) was one of a bunch of imaginative updates that helped transpose the story from early 19th-century Rome to 20th-century Miami. Norina played out her initial scene in a gym (sets designed by Matthew Antaky) and garbed in a leotard and headband (costumes by Callie Floor). Among the giggly bits of physical comedy was Norina’s workout on an exercise mat; the character was partnered by a non-singing Richard Simmons look-alike who shook her leg as she trilled. The previous scene featured a beach chair, umbrella, and golf cart, plus technicolor video projections (by Anouar Brissel) of flying pink flamingos and the Miami skyline.
Throughout the opera’s three acts, presented without intermission, conductor Noah Lindquist kept pace with the madcap comic spirit of the music, while varying his tempos to engagingly entertaining effect, with Festival Orchestra Napa responding faithfully and mostly faultlessly. While packing his composition with successions of gorgeous bel canto melodies, Donizetti also slipped in a variety of meta-operatic lampoons of the style. All of this served to buoy several scenes which to my contemporary taste seemed overextended, Pasquale’s awkwardness and Norina’s shrewishness bordering on annoying.
Certain kinds of comedy in any medium — be it opera, theater, film, or TV — have a set shelf life, but this shouldn’t suggest any shortcomings in the acting skill of this cast nor in the generally imaginative stage direction by Jean-Romain Vesperini. The Act 1 workout routine was an ingenious way of introducing choreography into the entertainment. And all the singers skillfully deployed vocal technique to comic effect, including bass-baritone Matthew Burns as the titular tightwad. Burns did not physically convey the decrepitude intended by the original librettists (Donizetti and Giovanni Ruffini), but he did sound convincingly blustery while also powerfully projecting his voice in the stretta that followed his scolding at the conclusion of Act 2 and in his duet with Dr. Malatesta in Act 3 (after a journey in a helicopter projected on the backdrop).
As Malatesta, the friend and counselor of both Pasquale and his nephew Ernesto and the agent of a plot to fool the former in order to further the love life of the latter, baritone Alexey Lavrov was understated in his Act 1 aria “Bella siccome un angelo” (Beautiful as an angel) but improved his audibility in later recitatives and duets with the other two principals.
As Norina, Ernesto’s intended, soprano Vanessa Becerra had perhaps the most extended singing and acting demands, executing both beautifully. Her coloratura was tone-perfect and prettily fluttery. After her feisty introduction and powerful arias in the gym, she artfully disguised both her voice and her body when, on Malatesta’s advice, she appeared to Pasquale as Sofronia, the faux sister of Malatesta, a meek graduate of a convent school who becomes the object of Pasquale’s foolish plan to find a wife.
The character of Ernesto evokes that of Nemorino in Donizetti’s earlier comedy L’elisir d’amore — a young swain somewhat clueless but ingenuously earnest. Tenor Jonah Hoskins has sung the latter role with San Francisco Opera and brought the same sort of luscious lachrymosity to the numbers “Sogno soave e casto”(Sweet, chaste dream) and “Cerchero lontana terra” (I will seek a far-off land) as Pasquale threatened to cast Ernesto out and disrupt his marriage plans with Norina.
Along with emotional resonance, Hoskins consistently showcased a confident sustained tone and a brilliant high end. Beginning offstage, in a different mode now that his character had become wise to Malatesta’s plot, Hoskins handsomely carried the lovely Act 3 Neapolitan song “Com’è gentil” (How gentle) — accompanied by ukelele — and then proceeded to the precious duet “Tornami a dir” (Tell me again). He was well matched by Becerra’s coloratura against a projected stroll along the beach, an example of where song and setting worked well together.
This Festival Napa Valley production was first performed at the Charles Krug Winery in St. Helena in July 2023. In addition to a scaled-down orchestra, it has no chorus (and consequently omits the Servants’ Chorus from the original score). Currently, though, this is one of the few fully staged operas touring in the U.S. and will continue to lucky locations yet to be determined.
