PASQUALE IN THE POORHOUSE---BUT WITH MUSICAL RICHES
                                              By D. Rane Danubian
        artssf.com, the independent observer of San Francisco Bay Area music
                                                                 Week of July 15-22, 2002
                                                                  Vol. 4, No. 98
        WALNUT CREEK---Musically, Donizetti's comic opera "Don Pasquale" is top-drawer, with superb ensembles, arias, scenas, and quality coloratura. As drama however it sputters, unless you really relish the cruel treatment of the title character, a serious and likable older fellow who is used and abused by all those around him.
        Pasquale's sin is to refuse the dashing nephew Ernesto permission to marry the young beauty Norina. In a contrived plot, a disguised Norina becomes Pasquale's bride, then runs him deep into misery with her extravagance, shrewishness and apparent infidelity. Given the chance, he jumps at the opportunity to be rid of her, tossing her into the arms of the ecstatic Ernesto, and is then left all alone.
        Despite the title, Norina is the main character and most arresting singer.
        "Pasquale" is a pathetic tale for a comic opera. The tradition is inevitably to play Pasquale, the wealthy older bachelor, as a plausible individual with middling IQ, even though I think playing him as a farcical buffo bass--a pompous ass who merits ridicule and exploitation--is the only way I see this plot could really work effectively. Yet I've never once seen it done with this perspective.
        Walnut Creek's opera company, which performs only in July and August, has come up with an excellent, funny production, moved up to the art nouveau style of 1900, allowing Norina to don some truly extravagant costumes. The summer slump makes possible the hiring of good singers who'd be otherwise engaged, or perhaps be demanding far higher fees. Most of the cast we caught on opening night July 13 was in fact from the Merola Opera (San Francisco) of several years ago, providing attractive and articulate young talents with many more productions under their belts since Merola days.
        Soprano Kristin Clayton, endowed with a multi-layered "Traviata" voice,  played Norina opposite her real-life husband, Bojan Knezevic (Pasquale). Her coloratura was true, her lyrical voice color warm and appealing. Knezevic's manner was wooden, but his voice is an artful resonant bass.  All but stealing the show was the adroit manipulator Malatesta, played with artful deceits by baritone Armando Gama, in the grand tradition of Papageno or Figaro. He can deliver a whole sardonic aside with nothing more than a up-down wiggle of the eyebrows. Dramatic tenor David Miller played Ernesto, where a lyric tenor was called for.
        Stage Director Harvey Berman kept the pace lively and funny, while Francesco Milioto, from Italy via Chicago, provided the best conducting I've ever encountered in Walnut Creek, where Festival Opera was born in 1991. For the beautifully balanced ensembles alone, Milioto deserves a medal.
        With this season-opening production, Festival Opera has rounded a vital corner. Olivia Stapp was let go after the 2001 season after serving as artistic director since the mid-1990s. Taking over this season as her successor is Michael Morgan, an East Bay symphony conductor running his first opera company. If this is the norm for Morgan productions, I'm leaping aboard the Morgan horse right NOW for my next operatic ride around the track.
        Donizetti's opera "Don Pasquale," in Italian, with orchestra, staged by Festival Opera, Regional Center for the Arts, Walnut Creek. Repeats July 15, 17, 19, 21. Next: Floyd's "Susannah," Aug. 10-18, with Cynthia Clayton (no relation) in the title role. For info: (925) 943-7469, or on line.
        ©D. Rane Danubian 2002
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        D. Rane Danubian has been covering the dance and modern-music scene in the San Francisco Bay Area with relish -- and a certain amount of salsa -- for years.
    These critiques appearing weekly (or sometimes semi-weekly, but never weakly) will focus on dance and new musical creativity in performance, with forays into books (by authors of the region), theater and recordings by local artists as well.
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