Review Don Pasquale at Perth Festival of the Arts

May 25 2010 Perthshire Advertiser Tuesday

ENGLISH Touring Opera once again formed the core opera element of Perth Festival of the Arts, this year for the first time performing three different operas over three consecutive evenings.

The first night featured a new and thoroughly entertaining production of Donizetti’s wonderful opera buffa Don Pasquale. This late masterpiece has all the comic set pieces one expects from conventional opera buffa however, ENO’s director William Oldroyd has adapted some of the regular conventions of the opera with some novel ideas that in general work well.

The eponymous character is here given the persona of a tyrannical conductor in the mould of a Toscanini or Stokowski, and appears first conducting a rehearsal of the overture from the stage, a clever touch. Don Pasquale was sung by Keel Watson, who has a light baritone voice, but what he lacked in power he certainly made up in characterisation. He played the beleaguered old man with animation and just the right sentiment to make him feel justly aggrieved with his state of affairs when he is duped into ‘marrying’ Norina, dressed as a shy convent girl Sofronia.

Mary O’Sullivan played Norina with a coquettish charm. She has a pretty voice that easily assimilated the top notes and vocal melismas Donizetti requires and she played her role with conviction both as the scheming, devious Norina and the meek, ‘shy young bride’ Sofronia.

The catalyst in the plot is Malatesta; he is the malevolent agent who suggests Pasquale marries Sofronia and thereby concocts the plan so Ernesto, Pasquale’s disinherited nephew, can marry his lover Norina.

Owen Gilhooly sang the role of Malatesta with clear diction and a fine balance particularly in the ensemble pieces and Nicholas Sharratt sang the disenfranchised Ernesto in true Italian florid tenor style and the right amount of pathos.

The main set was a spacious study huge with portraits of Pasquale in conducting mode gracing the walls. These of course were to be later removed by the transformed Sofronia (Norina) as she takes over the running of the household and relieves Pasquale of all his money. Finally, Malatesta suggests that Ernesto marries Norina, at which Sofronia says she will leave and a much-relieved Pasquale relents and lets Ernesto marry Norina.

The moral of the plot, as Norina enthuses at the end of the opera is: Be careful what you wish, it might be more than you bargain for!

The opera was directed with a fine pace by William Oldroyd and conducted with finesse by the assistant conductor Timothy Carey.

Peter Rutterford