Don Pasquale by Donizetti, Nuo (2021/2021), Režisierius Giuseppe Emiliani,, Dirigentas Ferdinando Sulla, Giancarlo Andretta, Teatro Verdi, Padova, Italy

An old miser who would like to marry a much younger woman, a shrewd girl who mocks him, a sentimental young man in love, an intriguer who looks only to his own advantage: in the plot of Don Pasquale there seem to be all the ingredients of the traditional eighteenth-century opera buffa. Donizetti's work is presented as a comedy of misunderstandings dominated by Norina, for whom cheating Don Pasquale is nothing more than an amusing theatrical game. If the cowardly Ernesto embodies the authenticity of a naive amorous sentiment, Norina embodies fiction. Her ally is Doctor Malatesta, a classic handyman, an histrionic fixer who, like Norina, loves to "play" with life. However, Donizetti's gaze towards these characters is bitter and disenchanted and this makes Don Pasqualenot a mere comic opera but a tenderly melancholy reflection on old age and youth. The director Giuseppe Emiliani in his staging chooses to revive the famous story in the "roaring years" of the twentieth century, highlighting those characters of light-heartedness, beauty and hedonism that the cynicism of the characters and the liveliness of the music seem to evoke.