OPERA IN CONTEXT
We are committed to constructive conversation and debate about opera’s creators, storylines, and other historical elements of the works we perform.
DON PASQUALE
When Gaetano Donizetti premiered Don Pasquale in 1843, public demand for opera was at one of its all-time highs. (A strong comparison could be made to streaming television series today, which some have dubbed “peak TV.”) Composers were writing operas at a dizzying rate, and most operas produced were being performed for the first time with the direct involvement of the composers themselves. By the time the Metropolitan Opera opened in New York City in 1883, however, the list of operas performed included works by composers more than half of whom were no longer living.
As the opera production ecosystem shifted over the 20th century, favouring classics over new works, a new concept arose: presenting the stories of known operas in new dramatic contexts. Stage directors felt a greater freedom to change the location and time period, and therefore scenery and costumes, to present their own interpretation of the opera. Like revivals of Broadway musicals, resetting opera productions requires a careful understanding of the heart of the opera, what maintains its artistic integrity, and what can destroy it. Puccini’s Tosca for instance, is often cited as an opera that is challenging to reset because its intended setting is central to the story. (Tosca takes place in Rome between June 17–18, 1800 just as Napoleon is returning to conquer Italy. A resetting would be akin to changing the setting of the Broadway musical Les Misérables from the 1832 Paris Uprising, immortalized in Victor Hugo’s novel.)
There are several elements that make Don Pasquale conducive to a resetting: a time period is not specified in the original libretto, the stock characters are timeless archetypes, and the comedic setting is flexible to reinterpretation. Moreover, unlike many traditional Italian comic operas that find dramatic tension in conflict between classes of society, Don Pasquale plays on outmoded versus modern ways of thinking, which can shift depending on the era. Perhaps most interestingly, however, Donizetti himself adapted the subject of Don Pasquale from an earlier opera, updating the setting and costumes to contemporary times. This marked a radical innovation in opera history, which took many more years to be fully realized.
While change for its own sake – or worse, for shock value – is not useful, successful resettings can provide a sparkling adaptation to a beloved classic. And in cases such as Don Pasquale, they even mirror the original intentions and forward-looking attitude of the composer. By resetting this 1843 opera, audiences will witness Don Pasquale under the same contemporary light in which the composer wanted his opera to be experienced.
-Stephania Romaniuk
RESOURCES
The Basics
Donizetti and his Operas
By William Ashbrook (Cambridge University Press, 1982)
This historical publication is a revision of the Donizetti scholar William Ashbrook’s earlier biography. A thorough narrative of Donizetti’s life as it related to his operatic works, this book also includes an analysis and commentary on important musical excerpts.
San Diego OperaTalk! with Nick Reveles: Don Pasquale
University of California Television and San Diego Opera
San Diego Opera’s longtime director of Education and Community Engagement shares the history of the opera along with musical highlights, critical acclaim, recommended recordings, and more in this 30-minute featurette. Available on YouTube here.
Donizetti and the World of Opera in Italy, Paris, and Vienna in the First Half of the Nineteenth Century
By: Herbert Weinstock (Pantheon Books, 1963)
A very well researched, clear, and entertaining account of Donizetti’s life and works written by the long-time music editor for Alfred A. Knopf publishing house in New York. This book contextualizes the life and times of Donizetti exceptionally well.
Resetting Operas & Reviving Musicals
A New Breed of Director Changes the Face of Opera
By Edward Rothstein (The New York Times – March 11, 1984)
Long-time cultural critic for The New York Times and Guggenheim Fellowship recipient Edward Rothstein presents an engaging and sensitively written piece that frames the 1980s as an era in flux: in the absence of a “vital contemporary repertory” and the widespread loss of opera’s “mystique,” a new generation of opera directors were experimenting with more artistic freedom to reinterpret and adapt classic operas. Available here.
Visionary stage directors in the world of opera
By: Andrea Buring (Euro News – May 5, 2023)
A short video profile on three contemporary stage directors working in opera sheds light on their goals, challenges, and motivations. Each has a different visual style and method of creating for the operatic stage, but all are working outside the bounds of “traditional stagings.”
Available here.
Nostalgia with Intention: The Best Broadway Revivals Are More Than Just Remakes
By: Zoe Kaplan (The Wesleyan Argus – February 7, 2020)
Stepping into the world of musical theatre, this article explores the purpose and value of musical revivals on Broadway. Like in opera, musical theatre revivals can often feature traditional settings. Increasingly, however, Broadway revivals also update the setting, feel, and sometimes even original score of the original production to connect with contemporary audiences.
Available here.
Regietheater or Werktreue – What Should Be the Role of Directors in Opera?
By: John Vandevert
Stage directors’ resettings in the later 20th and early 21st centuries, particularly in European opera houses, have often been accused of going too far. The words Regietheater or Regieoper (German for “director’s theatre” and “director’s opera”) can be a pejorative term for absurd and gratuitous productions which change not only the time period or setting of the opera, but may alter the text or music, emphasize political or social connotations that were not intended in the original, introduce bizarre or overly sexualized costume pieces, and rely on heavily symbolic, minimalist or abstracted sets. In this article for OperaWire, Vandevert
Available here.
Diverging Views in Academic Writing
Donizetti’s Don Pasquale and the Conventions of Mid-Nineteenth-Century Opera Buffa
By Francesco Izzo (Studi Musicali – January 2004)
This article explores how the music and text of Don Pasquale developed from, reacted to, and influenced the traditions of the opera buffa artform in the mid-19th century. With many musical examples and references, this article is best suited for the reader with a thorough grounding in the Western Classical musical tradition, including familiarity with other operas and composers of the Bel Canto era.
Available here.
Donizetti in the light of Romanticism and the teaching of Johann Simon Mayr
By John Stewart Allitt (Element Books, 1991)
This beautiful read traces the influence of Johann Simon Mayr, Donizetti’s first and principal mentor, on the life and works of the composer. Allitt was a musicologist and cultural historian, and for his contributions to promoting Italian culture received a knighthood (Ordine di Cavaliere) from the Italian Republic. Allitt’s arguments are layered and compelling, and this book includes a chapter on the deeper metaphysical meaning behind six operas, including Don Pasquale.
Donizetti and the Tradition of Romantic Love (A collection of essays on a theme)
By John Stewart Allitt (The Donizetti Society, 1975)
Allitt writes in the tradition of Western philosophers and educators that embraced poetic imagination and linked art with the development of the mind and spirit. Allitt is guided by big questions: What was the tradition that formed Donizetti’s soul? Who was his beloved teacher whom he addressed with such respect? What was the secret of such beautiful music? His writing best serves a reader with an open heart and creative imagination.
Media
Don Pasquale
RAI 1955 film
Don Pasquale: Italo Tajo
Dottor Malatesta: Sesto Bruscantini
Ernesto: Cesare Valletti
Norina: Alda Noni
Un Notaro: Renato Ercolani
Conductor: Alberto Erede
Available on YouTube here.
Don Pasquale
Welsh National Opera
Don Pasquale: Geraint Evans
Ernesto: Ryland Davies
Norina: Lillian Watson
Dr Malatesta: Russel Smythe
Conductor: Richard Armstrong
Orchestra: The Welsh Philharmonia
Chorus: The Welsh National Opera Chorale
Available on YouTube here.
Don Pasquale
Teatro Lirico di Cagliari
Don Pasquale: Alessandro Corbelli
Ernesto: Antonino Siragusa
Norina: Eva Mei
Dr Malatesta: Roberto de Candia
Un Notaro: Giorgio Gatti
Conductor: Gerard Korsten
Available on YouTube here.