Donizetti: Don Pasquale ***
Glyndebourne, 10th October 2015
“It’s a hard lesson,” explains Norina, justifying her behaviour as ‘Sofronia’ in teaching elderly bachelor Don Pasquale for wanting to marry. In Mariame Clément’s Glyndebourne production, revived here for the Tour, it is a lesson dealt out particularly harshly, viciously even. Don Pasquale is billed as adramma buffo, but there’s little about the situation which is funny. Despite a spirited performance right from the overture’s opening guffaw to its moralising epilogue, Clément only heightens the cruelty, making it an opera that’s hard to love.
José Fardilha (Don Pasquale) and Eliana Pretorian (Norina)
© Tristram Kenton
Read the full review on Bachtrack.