Vancouver Opera audiences are already properly acquainted with the work of conductor Jacques Lacombe; this may mark the primary manufacturing of his time as VO’s new music director.
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Don Pasquale at Vancouver Opera
When: Feb. 11 and Feb. 15, 7:30 p.m.; Feb. 18, 2 p.m.
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The place: Queen Elizabeth Theatre, 630 Hamilton St, Vancouver,
Tickets: Info right here
Sandwiched between two blockbusters — The Magic Flute, which opened Vancouver Opera’s season, and Carmen, which rings down the curtain — now we have a chance to take pleasure in Gaetano Donezetti’s Don Pasquale, a bel canto opera from 1843.
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Donezetti was each prolific and standard. Opera followers now have a tendency to consider him first because the composer of Lucia di Lamermoor; his Daughter of the Regiment and Elixir of Love are additionally revived repeatedly. Don Pasquale isn’t fairly as well-known, nevertheless it’s a effective piece in what guarantees to be an thrilling manufacturing created by André Barbe, costume and stage design, and Renaud Doucet, stage course and choreography, with Jacques Lacombe conducting.
Barbe and Doucet clarify: “We think about Don Pasquale owns a small, run-down pensione. Outdated and one thing of a hermit, he leaves the operating of the resort to his nephew Ernesto and his workers — a rum bunch, together with a chain-smoking chambermaid, a greasy prepare dinner, and a past-it porter, so outdated that he has shrunk inside his uniform. A refrain of vacationers comes and goes.”
Vancouver Opera audiences are already properly acquainted with the work of conductor Jacques Lacombe; this may mark the primary manufacturing of his time as VO’s new music director.
The workforce of André Barbe and Renaud Doucet launched themselves to Vancouver again in 2017 with a grand, extravagant Turnadot, adopted by La Bohème two seasons later. For this third Barbe/Doucet present, we get to see what the duo could make of an earlier work within the bel canto idiom.
Dawn
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Central to their idea of Don Pasquale is updating the setting to Rome within the Nineteen Sixties. “We’re basically utilizing dated imagery to provide the viewers enough distance from the story,” they advised me in a pre-rehearsal telephone chat.
Setting the story in our age of emails and cell telephones simply wouldn’t work. Selecting the Nineteen Sixties, only a decade and a half after World Conflict II, is smart: the purpose is to make use of an period near — however not of — our time, to assist audiences perceive the characters and their motivations.
The place it involves the rating and the libretto (“So good you possibly can do it with out music!”) they noticed themselves because the honoured custodians of subtle, nuanced music, the place each notice and indication deserves the utmost respect. “We use the overture to disclose the setting. We have now designed it like a fotoromanzo, the black and white photographed comedian books that Italians of all ages used to take pleasure in.”
Each producers are adamant that this isn’t comedian opera, however quite a dramma giocoso, a time period many opera aficionados affiliate with Don Giovanni. “Don Pasquale shouldn’t be a buffoon,” they emphasize.
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“The opera is about misunderstandings between the generations. Inside each outdated individual is a younger spirit. It’s essentially unhappy, however right here the scenario turns into unexpectedly comedian. It’s a implausible play made very human.”
Whereas the characters could be learn as archetypes, they aren’t supposed as caricatures. “We inform every singer every single day, you should be honest.”
These singers embrace Montreal-based soprano Elizabeth Polese as Norina. Victoria native tenor Josh Lovell performs Pasquale’s nephew Ernesto. Vancouver Opera favorite baritone Gregory Dahl, heard final season in Wagner’s The Flying Dutchman, sings the title function.
Extra opera in February
Need extra opera in February? The UBC Opera Ensemble mounts Jules Massenet’s Cendrillon in 4 performances, Feb. 1 to 4 and, in any case, who doesn’t like an opera whose plot everyone knows?
Massenet’s fairy story confection is a delight, full with three vital feminine roles: Cinderella, naturally; her fairy godmother, after all; and — Prince Charming? “He” is a pants function for soprano, all of which makes for some charming duos and trios. Add in a giant solid with a lot of smaller roles that are glorious alternatives for superior college students, and a delight for followers of Massenet’s belle epoch idiom.
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