General Director, Alex Reedijk, has spent the last nineteen years building Scottish Opera into a force to be reckoned with. This latest production is a reprisal of a 2014 creation by Renaud Doucet and André Barbe of Donizetti’s Don Pasquale. It is a frivolous affair, thankfully without the tra-la-las of which Mozart was so fond.
The concept is bright, clever and amusing, giving the production so much more than the score and libretto. For that reason, this particular creation has been touring successfully in Italy, Canada and the United States.
Guy Simard’s lighting supports the comedic storyline and the characters. His choice of colours and detail are spot on. A prolific force, Simard has collaborated with Doucet and Barbe for the last twenty five years. I particularly enjoyed the garden scene with window lighting and a beautiful night sky framing the perfunctory hotel laundry drying in the night air. His use of a green wash was both soothing and apt. The lover’s duet was movingly tender amid the mundanity of pegs and sheets: a microcosm of life’s ordinariness and its occasional sheer magic in juxtaposition.
As ever, Stuart Stratford conducted his magnificent orchestra with flair. However, there were moments where the music overwhelmed the voices, which is a pity.
Three new singers joined Scottish Opera for this production. Head of casting, Sarah-Jane Davies brings us Stacey Alleaume, one of Australia’s most accomplished performers and winner of the prestigious AOAC Dame Joan Sutherland Scholarship for outstanding Australian operatic talent. She is a delightfully playful Norina/Sofronia dressed to perfection. At times she dons a hat with cat ears … or are they devil’s horns? The New Zealand-Tongan tenor, Filipe Manu has a fabulous voice and is great casting as the sincere Ernesto; while South Korean baritone Josef Jeongmeen Ahn, a recent graduate of the Royal Opera House’s Jette Parker Young Artists Programme, is secure and engaging as the meddling Doctor Malastesa.
Bass baritone David Stout returns to play Don Pasquale with his greasy demeanor. Stout grew up in Southern Africa which gave him a taste for animals. He is a zoologist. He was once a senior chorister at the stunning Westminster Abbey. He embodies this aging and conniving miser with a firm grip on characterisation.
These exotic flowers from around the world are a credit to Scottish Opera. The company is lucky to attract such talent. However, in time, Scottish Opera, in collaboration with the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland, hopes to grow its own orchids too, with the newly developed Artist Diploma in Opera.
The choral pieces in Don Pasquale are brilliantly entertaining while the antics of the cook (Steven Faughey), the fag ash Lil maid (Frances Morrison-Allen) and Jonathan Sedgwick’s unstable, doddery porter add a splash of colour and humour. The variation in pace and the use of larger than life, stylised comic-book add-ons make this opera both silly and accomplished.
Reviewer: Kathleen Mansfield
Reviewed: 8th November 2024
North West End UK Rating: