Publication Date: Friday Oct 17, 1997

Diluting Donizetti

By treating Donizetti's "Don Pasquale" to an English translation, a modernized 1950s setting and highly farcical characterizations, West Bay Opera has produced a very entertaining American musical. It's too bad it didn't also produce an opera.

West Bay got away with an English translation in last June's "Magic Flute" because the switch came from German, a close linguistic cousin sharing the same consonant endings and guttural tones as our home tongue. The journey from Italian is a longer one, one that creates unintentional Gilbert & Sullivan tongue twisters and messes up the very rhythm and tempo of the score. Hearing the Don throw around rhymes like "yearning," "burning" and "churning" may be funny the first time around, but the composer's fondness for rapid repetition soon makes them an irritating distraction.

The second complaint is for stage director Yefim Maizel's farcical approach. "Pasquale"--a tale about an old, foolish bachelor with a hopeless romantic streak--is often termed the most Mozartian of Donizetti's operas for its more realistic treatment of its characters, abandoning the thin comic stereotypes of commedia dell'arte and opera buffa for a more sophisticated, human interplay (in fact, the opera is classified in Grove's Book of Operas as a "dramma buffa").

Under Maizel, the principals convey about as much depth and reality as Jean-Francois Revon's distorted, cut-out settings (of course, those I liked).

Some come out better than others. Baritone William Neely manages to give the conniving Dr. Malatesta a relaxed, sharp-witted presence, and tenor Thayer Coburn gives Pasquale's disowned nephew Ernesto a brooding (and understandable) rebelliousness. Good thing, because these two are the primary catalysts to the plot--a scheme to trick Pasquale into a torturous marriage in order to win his approval of Ernesto's main squeeze Norina.

From there, the road forks dramatically. Bass-baritone Douglas Nagel plays the Don as a complete buffoon--and succeeds beautifully. His facetious reworkings of the phrase, "It isn't very funny, to lose a lot of money," uttered soon after his enthusiastic disowning of his nephew, may be worth the price of admission alone.

Then we have Norina, Ernesto's flirtatious, independent girlfriend. Sharon Maxwell plays her with a flouncy, overcharged sexiness that falls flat to the floor, then spends the rest of the show striking more poses than a vogueing Madonna.

Maxwell's other duty, as the prima donna, is to carry the opera's musical showpieces, and here she has a bit more success, demonstrating a strong top range but coming out too breathy on her middle range and trills.

The musical highlight came in Act III, in the sublimely understated duet, "Tornami a dir che m'ami," between Maxwell and Coburn. Coburn's tenor is amazingly light and even and blends beautifully with Maxwell's similarly Iyric soprano.

Coburn also shined in the second act introduction, the scene that inspired the production's postcard-'5Os Italian setting in the first place. Ernesto's aria, "Cerchero lontana terra," is preceded by a long, mournful trumpet solo. Coburn, dressed in leather jacket and Ray-Bans, is shown brooding over his recent disowning, playing the trumpet himself (with a little help from Kale Cumings in the orchestra), conveying a true blues-driven beatnik mood while his uncle's servants are busy moving out all his furniture.

The scene provided the kind of heartfelt laughter that opera fans have come to expect, the kind that, in this opera, should have come more often.

What: "Don Pasquale," by West Bay Opera, conducted by Henry Mollicone

When: Oct. 17 at 8:15 p.m.; Oct. 18, 8:15 p.m.; Oct. 19, 2 p.m.

Where: Lucie Stern Theatre, 1305 Middlefield Road, Palo Alto

Cost: $15-$30

Information: 424-9999 

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