GAETANO DONIZETTI
DON PASQUALE
CONTENTS
P.
4
SYNOPSIS P.
6
A MIX OF YOUTHFUL ÉLAN AND NOSTALGIA INTERVIEW WITH JESÚS LÓPEZ COBOS P.
10
WHEN THE STAGING IS WRITTEN IN THE MUSIC INTERVIEW WITH IRINA BROOK P.
14
A COMPOSER, SURPASSED ONLY BY RABBITS OLIVER LÁNG
P.
18
28C: OBSTACLES TO LOVE ADRIAN MOURBY P.
22
DON PASQUALE DANIEL BRANDENBURG P.
26
ROLLING PIN AT THE READY! BETTINA EIBEL-STEINER P.
28
THE UNEQUAL COUPLE ANDREAS LÁNG P.
32
PERFORMANCE HISTORY IN VIENNA OLIVER LÁNG P.
38
IMPRINT
GAETANO DONIZETTI
DON PASQUALE DRAMMA BUFFO in three acts Libretto GIOVANNI RUFFINI & GAETANO DONIZETTI
ORCHESTRA
STAGE ORCHESTRA
2 flutes / 2 oboes 2 clarinets / 2 bassoons 4 horns / 2 trumpets 3 trombones / timpani violin I / violin II viola / cello / double bass 1 trumpet / 2 guitars 1 tambourine
WORLD PREMIÈRE Théâtre-Italien, Paris
3 JAN 1843
PREMIÈRE AT THE HOUSE ON THE RING Court Opera Vienna
4 OCT 1879
DURATION
2,5 H
INCL. 1 INTERMISSION
DON PA SQUA LE
SYNOPSIS The old, wealthy, but miserly bachelor Don Pasquale wants to marry off his nephew Ernesto: to a wealthy woman. Ernesto however prefers the young, destitute widow Norina, who loves him. Although Don Pasquale has never seen Norina, he rejects the marriage – and throws Ernesto unceremoniously out of his house. Despondent, Ernesto writes a farewell letter to his beloved Norina. But Norina will not give Ernesto up... Don Pasquale’s new plan is now get married himself – and his friend Dr. Malatesta is to help him in this endeavour. Malatesta however sticks by Ernesto and contrives a complex plot in which Norina and Ernesto have a part to play: Norina is to be presented to the bachelor as Malatesta’s well brought up sister Sofronia, who grew up in a convent. Don Pasquale is enchanted by this silent, virtuous creature – and enters into a sham marriage arranged by Malatesta (but which Don Pasquale believes to be real). Immediately after the wedding, Sofronia (= Norina) changes her behaviour. She turns into a lavish, loveless, snappish shrew who terrorizes Pasquale and is – obviously – deceiving him. To get her out of the house again, Don Pasquale wants to give his nephew Ernesto not only a rich dowry, but also a home again, along with Norina (whose real identity is still unknown to him). Sofronia’s true identity is then revealed. He has to learn his lesson: a man of the older generation should not try to court a younger woman...
Previous pages: SCENE
4
KS JUAN DIEGO FLÓREZ as ERNESTO
SYNOPSIS
ADRIAN MOURBY
28C: OBSTACLES TO LOVE Back in the eighteenth century Count Carlo Gozzi declared there were a finite number of dramatic situations, exactly 36 in fact. Sensibly the author of Turandot did not elaborate on what they actually were. It was left to the French critic Georges Polti to extrapolate and publish Les Trente-six situations dramatiques, which he did in 1895. Reading Polti’s list today, it’s surprising to find how low OBSTACLES TO LOVE rates. Considering its role as pretty much Hollywood’s number-one dramatic motif, OBSTACLES TO LOVE ranks a lowly 28. Within Situation Dramatique 28 Polti cites a range of impediments to living happily ever after, including 28a: Marriage Prevented by Inequality of Rank, 28b: Marriage Prevented by Enemies and Contingent Obstacles, and 28c: Marriage Forbidden on Account of the Young Woman’s Betrothal to Another. Given that the unwelcome suitor or unsuitable fiancée is such a common trope in western drama, it’s curious that Polti placed it so far below less familiar Situation Dramatiques like 2b: Rescue by Stranger Who is Grateful for Benefits of Hospitality, or 10b: Abduction of
a Consenting Woman, or even 18a: Discovery that One has had One’s Sister as Mistress. What of Juliet betrothed to Paris? Isolde betrothed to King Marc? Rosina to Bartolo, Guinevere to Arthur, Sophie von Faninal to Baron Ochs, Marianne to Oskar in Geschichten aus dem Wiener Wald (Tales from the Vienna Woods), or poor Ernesto watching his Norina being married off to Don Pasquale? The great Shakespeare may have claimed there should be no impediments to a marriage of true minds, but he was by no means the first dramatist to stick them into his plays. There is virtually no union in the Shakespearean canon that isn’t delayed, plagued or wrecked by an unsuitable suitor interposing himself between hero, heroine and true happiness. Andrew Aguecheek and Malvolio pursue Olivia in Twelfth Night, Demetrius plagues Hermia in A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Thurio tries to come between Sylvia and Valentine in Two Gentlemen of Verona, Lucentio has three rivals to see off before he can marry Bianca in Taming of the Shrew, Portia has three unsuitable suitors to dispose of before she can wed Bassanio in The
18
28C: OBSTACLES TO LOVE
Merchant of Venice and Rodrigo generally messes up everyone’s lives in Venice when Desdemona chooses Othello over him. The courtship of two lovers is one of the greatest themes in fiction – and probably the single most frequent cause of narrative happy endings – and yet for the sake of dramatic suspense the denouement must be delayed. Consummation has to be obstructed for as long as possible. Ever since the first lovers found their stars were crossed, dramatists have employed various devices to keep them apart – war, illness, abduction, inequality of rank, mistaken identity, but principal amongst these is the unsuitable suitor who has some kind of prior claim. There may be many reasons why this man – it usually is a man – proves unsuitable, but the norm is that he is far too old. The young woman’s true love, by contrast, is a younger and more virile prospect (but usually penniless). The Barber of Seville, Tristan und Isolde, and Der Rosenkavalier all present the grisly prospect of young flesh being sacrificed for the gratification of one whose trump card is power rather than sex appeal or passion. In Rossini’s Thieving Magpie (La gazza ladra) Ninetta isn’t actually engaged to old Mayor Gottardo, but a betrothal is his intention so he represents not just age but authority as well, as does Bartolo – both guardians of the young women they intend to wed. By contrast with these wheezing buffos, the lover is unquestionably more worthy of our delicious ingenue. He may even be a titled adventurer courting his love in disguise, like Almaviva when in pursuit of Rosina. Octavian also has youth on his side against Baron Ochs, as does
Tristan against King Marc, and Ruprecht against Judge Adam in Kleist’s comedy Der zerbrochene Krug (The Broken Jug). Even where the ages of lover and unsuitable suitor are better matched (as with George Emerson and Cecil Vyse in E.M.Forster’s A Room With A View or Alfred and Oskar in von Horváth’s Geschichten aus dem Wiener Wald (Tales from the Vienna Woods) the existing fiancé is invariably lacking in attractive qualities. Cecil is stiff and devoid of spontaneity, Oskar is a bucolic sadist. Usually the older man has never married before, something that suggests an “immoral” past, emotional immaturity or the fact that he sees his prospective bride as the latest in a long line of possessions, rather than a true love and helpmeet. But the enduring appeal of Dramatic Situation 28c extends beyond the opportunity to show off our hero to good effect. The prior “claim” of an older, wealthier man has fascinated us ever since feudalism broke down and the merchant classes of Europe laid siege to all those things hitherto taken for granted by their betters. The bourgeois miser is an archetype in our literature and folk tales. This man wasted his youth making money. He is the mother’s boy who never married or the misfit who has always prized objects over emotions. Unlike his aristocratic contemporaries, the miser was unable to find beauty when young himself. He was too busy putting money in his purse. Now in late middle age he wants to be compensated. His fortune, so he believes, entitles him to buy that which he’s missed out on hitherto. Bartolo, Gottardo, Pasquale, and Ochs are all variants on this character, although with Ochs the class dynamic is inverted. What we see in Der Rosenka-
19
JULIUS KORNGOLD
“ ANY LISTENER WHO IS NOT COMPLETELY BLASÉ CANNOT HELP BUT BE ENCHANTED BY THE INSPIRED LIGHTNESS, THE MERRIMENT, THE MELODIC FLOW OF THE MUSIC. ”