Canadian Opera Company’s Don Pasquale gets a one-note Dolce Vita treatment

The Canadian Opera Company launched its spring season with Don Pasquale, the company’s first presentation of Donizetti’s cynical comedy in 30 years. The production also marks a belated company debut for Canadian designer/director duo Barbe & Doucet whose very active European careers include Glyndebourne’s latest staging of The Magic Flute. Their 1960s Italian fotoromanzo-inspired conception originated at Scottish Opera in 2014 with subsequent remounts at Florida Grand Opera in 2016 and most recently, Vancouver Opera this winter. While their Dolce Vita aesthetic has its charm, it leaves little room for the work’s intrinsic pathos and darker undertones.

The overture is illustrated with an amusing black and white photo montage that establishes basic character relationships as well as Barbe & Doucet’s own conceptual flair. As it turns out, Don Pasquale loves cats, but in a tragic turn of fate, is fatally allergic to felines. His allergist, Dr Malatesta, is foiled in his efforts to cure his patient who ends up hoarding cat-related chachkas as substitutes for any real furry friends. As the scrim rises, we see Don Pasquale in his rundown pensione, surrounded by all manner of cheap cat figurines, attended to by a chain smoking chambermaid, a rotund cook and an ancient porter. Pasquale's nephew Ernesto helps him run the joint into which unsuspecting tourists wander to and fro.

The staging’s time shift to 1960s Italy falls into that category of ‘updating’ that is unlikely to offend, respecting as it does the libretto’s original character relationships and social hierarchies. So, once Norina is successfully married to the much-older Don Pasquale, her outfit changes from pre-wedding cat ears and fluffy-furred cuteness to predatory leopard skin and dark sunglasses thus telegraphing her new big spender, vaguely abusive persona. Act 3’s opening slo-mo tableau features hilarious cameos including the past-it chambermaid (actress Colleen Winton) taking long drags on a cigarette as she files her nails, luxuriating in her household’s new ‘all-is-more’ regime.

All of these visuals are in keeping with the comic, buffo element of Donizetti’s score with its preponderance of quick patter and sprightly duets. However, part of the work’s enduring appeal relates to a less one-sided, comic treatment of the aging roué. Norina’s vicious slap of Don Pasquale in their Act 3 duet is immediately reflected by a melancholy turn in the score to accompany the old man’s pathetic self-realisation, “E finita, Don Pasquale!” Somehow amidst all the Technicolor, 60s op-art glamour of the staging, this moment fails to register, robbing the performance of an optimal comic/tragic balance.

Vocally, the COC assembled a strong team. In the title role, Georgian baritone Misha Kiria was a larger-than-life presence who didn’t resort to schtick and was able to bend his voluminous tone to the score’s necessary rapid text delivery. Canadian soprano Simone Osborne made a welcome return to the Four Seasons stage after a too-long absence. Her pointed tone is perfect for Norina, projecting well into the hall with full top notes after a rather unfair acoustic placement upstage, high-up for her opening aria.

As Malatesta, Canadian baritone Joshua Hopkins was almost unrecognisable in his floppy-banged wig and hippy beads, but his warm, velvety tone provides a fascinating counterpoint to his character’s rather oily, pimp-like conception. Argentinian tenor Santiago Ballerini’s Ernesto provided the evening’s most classic bel canto vocalism, spinning long lines etched with all sorts of dynamic and timbral nuance.

Canadian conductor Jacques Lacombe led the Canadian Opera Company Orchestra. His non-elastic approach meant that singers were not allowed much leeway in terms of the give-and-take rubato we associate with bel canto style. High notes were mostly pecked at and entirely eschewed in aria and ensemble endings. The result was a lack of vocal fizz and thrill, surely a big part of the ongoing appeal of early 19th-century Italian opera. Balance between pit and stage, often a challenge in the acoustically vibrant Four Seasons Centre, was not a problem on opening night.

So, a most welcome return to the Toronto stage for Donizetti’s skewering of marriage and old age, albeit tempered by a missed opportunity to fully deliver on its musical and seriocomic potential.