Don Pasquale by Donizetti, Sa. 17 Sept. 2022, Ab (2022/2023), Unter der Regie von Ilya Ustiantsev, Dirigat Valery Gergiev, Mariinsky Theatre, Sankt Petersburg, Russland

They say about such: "Gray hair in a beard - a demon in a rib." A wealthy aristocrat, Don Pasquale, in his old age, took it into his head to marry. From the love fever of an elderly miser, youth cures, and with a very potent medicine: forcing him to feel in his own skin all the “charms” of married life with a vixen wife. Old men in the role of suitors have long been the object of taunts, but Donizetti, in the buffa opera Don Pasquale, develops a classic comedic theme with a share of melancholy and sympathy for the protagonist - perhaps because the composer who wrote this brilliant score in an incredible eleven days, he himself was at that time no longer young and deeply lonely. Remaining a typical comedy of characters-masks, dating back to the traditions of the Italian street theater, Don Pasquale is a composition of the romantic era and therefore filled with lively feelings.