Zuzana Marková / Reseñas

You sometimes hear people describe Don Pasquale as a ‘cruel’ comedy – though they’re often a bit vague as to what they mean. Pin them down and the complaint seems to be that the 70-year-old gentleman who belatedly gets married in the plot is treated cruelly. But Don Pasquale begins the opera by attempting to impose his will upon his nephew’s choice of wife, and disinheriting him when he refuses to comply; any cruelty in the opera starts there. There are undoubtedly tricky moments for director, cast and even the audience to negotiate collectively, most notoriously when during their battle of marital wills in Act III, Norina – Pasquale’s fake bride, whom he has willingly married as part of his scheme to disinherit nephew Ernesto – slaps her elderly husband’s face.

If you want escapist bliss — and who doesn’t right now? — the Royal Opera’s new staging of Donizetti’s comic opera is almost perfect. Almost, because it slightly runs out of steam just before the end. By then, however, I had been richly entertained by Damiano Michieletto’s clever modern-day staging, dazzled by mostly brilliant singing and the scintillating playing of the orchestra under Evelino Pido’s seasoned direction and touched by the acting of a top-notch cast. The latter is most surprising because I thought myself impervious to the “fun” of an opera in which an old man who craves a pretty wife is tricked, bullied and humiliated. Yet his treatment doesn’t feel cruel here. In part that’s because Olga Peretyatko, as the marriage-brokered bride

You couldn’t ask for a more cultured pair of voices than our master and servant pairing of Erwin Schrott and Gerald Finley: both have burnished, smooth bass-baritone voices and effortless Mozartian phrasing which meant that, in purely musical terms, listening to them was a delight. However, Schrott’s comic timing seemed off in recitative – the little delays while he tries to remember the name of the woman he’s talking to held for slightly too long, an occasional hesitancy rather than confident gusto. In terms of comedy, Finley’s Leporello is something of a work in progress: in his role debut, the alternation of cringing and deviousness didn’t come across as natural. But these are two great singers and the chemistry between them improved through the course of this performance. Let’s hope that it keeps doing so during the run.In contrast, Adela Zaharia’s Donna Anna and Frédéric Antoun’s Don Ottavio looked completely comfortable in their roles from the moment they arrived on stage. Zaharia was the pick of the singers, with ardent delivery, clear intelligibility and a voice that made you sit up and listen. Antoun’s tenor has a slightly covered timbre but he injected plenty of emotion and played a full part in moving the action along. Nicole Chevalier (like Zaharia, a frequent star at Komische Oper Berlin) sang Donna Elvira with masses of character and total confidence throughout her range. I could have hoped for sharper comedy and some more chemistry between characters. But this is an intelligent staging, vocal performances were excellent throughout and the orchestral playing that kept us completely engaged from start to finish. Even with a half-full Covent Garden, it was good to be back.

The stage is dominated by a disorientating set of doors and panels, populated by ghostly figures, and against which are projected the names of Giovanni’s past conquests, giving an immediate sense of the appalling scale of his activities. Schrott, the only repeat singer from the previous 2019 revival, exudes the dark tone and devilish arrogance that he brought to Covent Garden as Mephistopheles in Gounod’s Faust, yet even he can disappear, wraith-like into this disturbing, hallucinatory and slightly tawdry background. While the Don’s fortunes prosper, we see the steady disintegration of his servant Leporello, brilliantly acted, wonderfully sung by Gerald Finley, coming across like a sad clown who just cannot go on any more. All the principals are high-class, with Zaharia outstanding for impressive strength throughout her range. Her top notes, sung piano in rejecting Don Ottavio’s suit, are exquisite. Markova has an incisive but ingratiating tone, and is a splendid actress, complemented by the fine bass Michael Mofidian as Masetto. Chevalier, after a less impressive start, is in commanding form later, especially in her act 2 scena and aria Mi tradi and the sweet-voiced Frederic Antoun invests the spurned Don Ottavio with a dignity not always found in the role. The orchestra brings out the colours appropriate to the action, but conductor Constantin Trinks occasionally allows its enthusiasm to get the better of the ideal balance with the singers.