See all informations
Don Pasquale
Palais Garnier - from 22 March to 16 April 2019
Don Pasquale
Gaetano Donizetti
Palais Garnier - from 22 March to 16 April 2019
2h30 with 1 interval
Language : Italian
-
Opening night : 22 March 2019
About
In few words:
Don Pasquale, an old greybeard, decides to take a wife in order to overturn his nephew Ernesto’s plans. Ernesto, however, with the help of Doctor Malatesta, undertakes to ensnare Don Pasquale in the meshes of his own trap, entrusting the role of bride-to-be to Norina, his own betrothed. Docile, then intractable, Norina excels in playing at false appearances. The conflict between the two generations smoulders and stokes the comedy whilst producing an undercurrent of wistful yearning. With sincerity and dramatic profundity, Damiano Michieletto opens a pathway to the heart of an apparently light-hearted work, renowned as the apotheosis of opera buffa.
Characters
Don Pasquale: A rich old bachelor who decides to marry at the last minute in order to deprive his nephew of his inheritance.
Ernesto: Don Pasquale’s nephew who is in love with Norina.
Norina: A penniless young woman who, under the pseudonym of Sofronia, pretends to be Don Pasquale’s wife.
Doctor Malatesta: A friend of the family and an ally of Ernesto and Norina, he is the mastermind of the plan to fool Don Pasquale.
- Opening
- First part 80 mn
- Intermission 30 mn
- Second part 45 mn
- End
-
Don Pasquale
Dramma buffo in three acts (1843)
-
Performances
Book your tickets today with the Season Pass
Available in audiodescription
Advantages
Full
Book your tickets today with the Season Pass
Available in audiodescription
Advantages
Full
Gallery
Videos clips
Audio clips
Don Pasquale (saison 18/19)- Christian Senn (Dottor Malatesta), Michele Pertusi (Don Pasquale)
Don Pasquale (saison 18/19) - Pretty Yende
Don Pasquale (saison 18/19)- Javier Camarena (Ernesto)
Don Pasquale (saison 18/19)- Michele Pertusi (Don Pasquale)
Backstage
© Eléna Bauer / OnP
06:37’
Video
The two faces of Don Pasquale
Interview with Michele Pertusi
A specialist of the Italian repertoire, Michele Pertusi discusses the
character of Don Pasquale, a touching and authoritarian old man, caught up in
the web of his own entourage. At once comic and dramatic, Donizetti's work is
returning to the stage of the Palais Garnier. Michele Mariotti conducts this
Neapolitan opera buffa, directed by Damiano Michieletto with Michele Pertusi in
the title role.
01:09’
Video
Draw-me Don Pasquale
Understand the plot in 1 minute
Don Pasquale, an old greybeard, decides to take a wife in order to overturn his nephew Ernesto’s plans. Ernesto, however, with the help of Doctor Malatesta, undertakes to ensnare Don Pasquale in the meshes of his own trap, entrusting the role of bride-to-be to Norina, his own betrothed. Docile, then intractable, Norina excels in playing at false appearances. The conflict between the two generations smoulders and stokes the comedy whilst producing an undercurrent of wistful yearning. With sincerity and dramatic profundity, Damiano Michieletto opens a pathway to the heart of an apparently light-hearted work, renowned as the apotheosis of opera buffa.
© Vincent Pontet / OnP
Podcast
Podcast Don Pasquale
"Dance! Sing! 7 minutes at the Paris Opera" - by France Musique
07’
© Eléna Bauer / OnP
Article
A Moral Tale. Or is it?
Interview with Damiano Michieletto
04’
In 1843, Donizetti returned to opera buffa with his delightful Don Pasquale, an opera displaying all the ingredients of the genre: disguises, false names, counterfeit marriages, a disinherited nephew restored to his birth right at the end of the drama, an old uncle who will stop at nothing to protect his estate… It has fallen to the lot of director Damiano Michieletto to bring out the lightness and the depth of this work.
After The Barber of Seville and Samson and Delila, Don Pasquale is your third production for the Paris Opera. What made you decide to put on Donizetti’s opera?
Damiano Michieletto: This is a short opera that represents a challenge for a director. In it, Donizetti offers us a whole gallery of portraits drawn with great precision. Just as the composer was renovating and reinventing dramatic form and the characters of opera buffa, the interesting thing for me was to bring to the work a fresh eye, to conceive a modern vision of it and to rescue the characters from the usual operatic clichés, but to do it whilst preserving the comic aspects; to avoid being tedious without being too sophisticated; in a word, to take the plot seriously without being too serious. I noticed that, often, in contemporary dramas, the elderly characters are depicted as grave, heavy creatures, as if they had lost their comic side. I think it is important to allow space for laughter and lightness.
How do you see the eponymous character of Don Pasquale?
D.M.: He’s a weak character, isolated, incapable of breaking the habits that isolate him even more from the rest of the world, an old man who behaves like a
child: although he has seen a lot of life, he is extremely immature: he has no experience in the matter of love or sentiment, he has no means of expressing his emotions. There’s something in the very music he sings that is puerile, as if he constantly wanted to convince himself that he was still alive. From this point of view, he makes me think of Falstaff: old but believing himself still to be young and attractive. He likes to seduce and, of course, his attempts at seduction are always doomed to failure. He ends up abandoned and penniless and, as in the case of Falstaff, his demise doesn’t fail to amuse us. However, although Norina, Ernesto, Malatesta and even Don Pasquale himself sing that “the moral is very just”, we have every right to find it rather bitter. There is a certain melancholy in Don Pasquale. A melancholy that culminates in Norina slapping her “husband”. There are, at this point, several minutes of music that is really different from the rest of the opera. This is where the old man is forced to face reality. He feels vulnerable. He remembers his youth. Just like Verdi’s hero, Don Pasquale is fascinating dramatically, a sort of theatrical animal, because he plays a role, he is capable of taking huge risks, of throwing himself into a game without knowing the outcome and, when he fails, he is ready to start again.
Your production uses video. Can you say a few words about it?
D.M.: The video is linked to the character of Malatesta, who is an ambiguous character to say the least. He is a false friend. The prefix Mala is a reference to illness. He is the virus that poisons Don Pasquale’s life, the power behind the throne in a way. He appears to offer Norina his services, explaining that he plans to teach Don Pasquale a lesson so that the old man will allow his nephew to marry the woman he loves but, in reality, we don't know what his real motives are. He conjures up a fictitious world, an alternative reality, with a view to hoodwinking Don Pasquale. He offers to introduce him to his own sister, Sofronia, whom he describes as angelic, innocent, candid, generous, modest, sweet, loving and brought up in a convent into the bargain, according to the clichés of comedy at the time. But of course, none of this is true: she is in fact Norina who, no sooner is she married to him than she transforms herself and makes his life hell. The video serves to show the gap between the fantasy and reality.
Recommendations