‘Don Pasquale’, a dark comedy, opens the Maestranza season | Culture



"Don Pasquale It is a great comedy, but at the same time it is cruel, sad and dark, like all great comedies of any genre. It can only be successful if it manages to be as pathetic as it is emotional. It's not about making people laugh by laughing, you have to tell a story, "he said Tuesday Laurent Pelly about Donizetti's opera with which this season opens the Teatro de la Maestranza in Seville Saturday October 12th. Pelly, who signs the stage direction and costume design, has confessed that he loves this opera and, on this occasion, is especially happy because he has an "absolutely perfect" cast. The opera, the first also for Javier Menéndez as general director of the Teatro de la Maestranza, he has the voices of the low zaragozano Carlos Chausson, who repeats in the role of Don Pasquale who incarnated in 2003 on the same stage, and from the Tarragona soprano Sara Blanch.

Pelly, one of the big names in the French theater and opera that last April was in charge of the Falstaff of the Royal Theater, is committed to simplicity in this production that premiered in 2016 at the Opera de Santa Fe, which has co-produced alongside the Opera of San Francisco and the Gran Teatre del Liceu in Barcelona. "I do not like realism in the theater and much less than in opera, where the characters sing and that is not realistic. Everything is raised as if it were a dream or rather a nightmare of Don Pasquale," said the director of scene.

"It's a melancholy comedy, in which there is always a sad point as it happens in A sneaky tear, from L'elisir d'amore [also from Donizetti]. It is a work on a light subject, but the score has a lot of complexity because the current orchestras are different from how they were when it was premiered Don Pasquale [1843], before they were less numerous and fresher, "said maestro Corrado Rovaris, in charge of the musical direction at the head of the Royal Symphony Orchestra of Seville and the Maestranza Choir.

"It is a masterpiece from the theatrical and musical point of view, Donizetti wrote it almost at the end of his career, after having reaped many successes and the master Rovaris has brought him a monumental freshness. When I saw her in Santa Fe at its premiere I thought it was the best worked production, with more rhythm and more sparkle than I know of Don Pasquale That's why I think it's a perfect choice to start my work as the new director general of the Maestranza, "said Javier Menéndez, who arrived at the Sevillian lyric theater last January.

"I have embodied Don Pasquale many times, the first when I was 40 and a few years old and now I am 69; so I know what this opera is about. Each score has several readings and, in this case, what Pelly has proposed to me is the humiliation, something that was difficult for me to understand because it is truly cruel, there is a brutal cruelty to the character, "clarified the bass that lends its voice to the poor old man who wants to marry the young Norina, who gives life to the soprano Sara Blanch. "Sara is going to be a bomb, a discovery, so much so that the opera should be called Dona Norina," jokes the singer.

Donizetti's opera, which deals with the issue of the difficulty of aging, will be on the bill on October 12, 15, 17 and 19. The lyric season of the Maestranza also includes Samson et Dalila, from Camille Saint-Saëns; Agrippina, de Haendel - which will be represented for the first time on the Sevillian stage -, and The traviata, of Verdi. In addition, you can see the musical West Side Story, of Bernstein and the zarzuela The barber of Lavapies, of Barbieri.

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