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Love Italian-American style
Opera Institute's Don Pasquale a comic triumph of marital furor

By David J. Craig

	Opera Institute singer Alexander Prokhorov (CFA'04) and master's student Elisabeth Russ (CFA'04) rehearse their parts as Pasquale and Norina in the institute's upcoming production of Donizetti's comedy classic Don Pasquale. Photos by Kalman Zabarsky

In the climactic scene of Gaetano Donizetti's comic masterpiece Don Pasquale, when the young female lead Norina viciously slaps her elderly aristocratic husband, audience members are meant to feel at least a pang of sympathy for the old coot. The opera's title character, says CFA Assistant Music Professor William Lumpkin, is clueless but generally likeable, and in marrying a veritable witch, clearly gets worse than he deserves for earlier indiscretions.

But audiences at many contemporary productions of Don Pasquale aren't likely to care much for Pasquale, or any of the other characters for that matter, Lumpkin says, because they tend to be portrayed with a hamminess that robs the opera of its subtler human touches. “Don Pasquale has turned into the Carol Burnett Show of comic opera, with all sorts of camp thrown in,” he says. The musical director of BU's Opera Institute, Lumpkin conducts the institute's upcoming production of the piece, at the BU Theatre from February 12 to 15. “We're trying to get away from that,” he says. “By letting the characters live in more realistic situations, I think we'll have a comedy that's funnier than the kind you get by throwing a toupee around the stage.”

Don Pasquale's plot, of course, is pure farce: after refusing his nephew Ernesto permission to marry the lower-class Norina, the wealthy old bachelor Pasquale is duped into a hoax marriage to a beautiful woman who quickly transforms into a bossy shrew determined to squander his money. After much scheming, the bride is revealed as Norina, whereupon Pasquale is so relieved to be rid of her that he sanctions her marriage to Ernesto.

“This opera basically makes for a lighthearted evening, with a lot of humor and some sad and sweet romantic moments,” says Sharon Daniels, a CFA associate professor of music and the production's stage director. “It's perfect for someone who has never been to the opera, because it is very clearly told.” It will be sung in Italian, with supertitles.

Trading off performances with Prokhorov and Russ in Don Pasquale will be Opera Institute singer David Cushing (CFA'04), as Pasquale, and master's student Sarah Asmar (CFA'01,'04), as Norina. Opera Institute productions typically have two casts.

And despite the madcap story, Daniels says, there's an emotional richness in Don Pasquale that can be drawn out by sensitive singers. “Ernesto is really a sweet man, so there's no need to make him ridiculous,” she says, “and even Pasquale eventually understands that he's bitten off more than he can chew by marrying a young woman.”

Daniels, who also directs CFA's opera programs and the Opera Institute, which is a postgraduate training program, chose to update Don Pasquale to 1950s Italy and to make Norina an American, in part to give her character added sophistication — think Joanie Cunningham's prefeminist panache, equal parts wide-eyed and feisty. “I've frequently seen Norina played as a hardened little twit I never did like, but we've given her a bit more softness and spunkiness to start out with,” Daniels says. “Then when she takes on the role of Saphronia as Pasquale's bride, she's not quite as shrewish as in most productions, and we can see the regrets she has about the plot.”

Sarah Asmar (CFA'01,'04) says the most challenging aspect of her role as Norina is nailing the opera's long, complicated vocal phrases in between physical comedy stunts. First performed in 1843, Don Pasquale is considered among the most vocally demanding operas in the bel canto style — literally, beautiful singing — popularized by Donizetti (1797-1848) and fellow nineteenth-century Italian composers Vincenzo Bellini and Gioacchino Rossini.

“There's a lot of quick staging that happens, and we do a lot of running around,” says Asmar, a master's student. “It required me to really learn how to breathe so I don't tire myself out, because the bel canto style inherently is going to call attention to any technical weaknesses you show as a singer.”

Lumpkin says his strict treatment of Don Pasquale's music makes the singers' jobs all the more challenging. “I'm trying to preserve all the Italian feistiness that Donizetti put on the page,” he says. “That includes a lot of accents that come on unexpected syllables. If you don't do all the precise articulations Donizetti intended, the language doesn't get properly finessed and the piece doesn't live.”

To prepare for his part as Pasquale, Alexander Prokhorov (CFA'04) spent long hours studying Donizetti's score. “I have experience in how to handle comic roles, but this one is really different,” says the second-year student in the Opera Institute. “If one tries to be clumsy and ridiculous, it's not going to work here, so it is important to fully plan out the strengths and emotions of my character so that he comes out complete and natural, and the scenes aren't simply a bunch of disjointed funny situations.”

Don Pasquale will be performed from February 12 to 15 at the BU Theatre, 264 Huntington Ave. For a performance schedule or to order tickets, visit www.bu.edu/cfa/news/index.htm, or call 617-266-0800.

6 February 2004
Boston University
Office of University Relations