Varna's "Don Pasquale" in Stara Zagora
News публикувана на: 21.11.2015
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46th Festival of Opera and Ballet Art-Stara Zagora`2015
Day Five
Varna's Don Pasquale in Stara Zagora
On 27 November at 19.00 State Opera-Varna will present the comic opera "Don Pasquale" by Gaetano Donizetti - a co-production with Teatro Comunale-Modena, Italy on the stage of Stara Zagora Opera.
"Don Pasquale " - the jokes of the age
Gaetano Donizetti, renowned for the speed and ease with which he composed, created Don Pasquale in just 11 days and the orchestration in 8. The result was a score with a unified dramatic concept and rich melodicism in the style of opera buffo, which the public applauded at the premiere on 3 January 1843 in Paris.
Evgeny Stanimirov, Irina Zhekova, Svilen Nikolov and Adrian Pleska in an intrigue against the old bridegroom
The leading soloists of the Varna State Opera team, together with the Romanian tenor Adrian Plesca, now take part in the intrigue against the self-righteous old bachelor Don Pasquale, who has decided to marry, and necessarily to a young lady. The Don Pasquale is artistically portrayed by the far younger than his character Evgeny Stanimirov: "a very nice bass, which the singer uses flexibly in the places requiring quick articulation", according to Elena Habermann from the worldwide opera and ballet magazine Der neue Merker. The music observer, who attended the premiere at the Summer Theatre Opera this year, was also impressed by Irina Zhekova as the mischievous Norina - "a lyric soprano with a well-schooled voice and a rich range", as well as the "musically excellent chorus" and the "dynamically captivating treatment" of conductor Svetoslav Borisov. Svilen Nikolov is also very convincing as Doctor Malatesta, stirring the whole intrigue with obvious gusto to bring it to a successful conclusion.
Impressive accents are brought in by the sets of Teatro Comunale - Modena and the elegant costumes of Elena Ivanova, which offer a kind of fashion show from several eras - Pasquale comes from the Baroque, Ernesto from the end of the last century, and Malatesta and Norina are somewhere between the Baroque and the modern times.
Director Kuzman Popov.
"All the musical numbers are so developed that they tempt with their gushing ideas of stage impersonation. I start from this grateful premise in order to take the artists to a higher interpretive and technical level, which relies, along with singing mastery, on serious theatrical acting and the possibility of improvisation. I set the action not in the nineteenth century but in the twenty-first, and today the story is reborn in all its detail. At the same time, all the types derived from commedia dell'arte and opera buffo are recognized. There is no lack of Pantalone, Doctor, Columbina, Harlequin, we even have our notary, but they are all expressed with contemporary artistic means. Both soloists and choristers appear as full-blooded participants in the performance, while constantly switching roles. From being creators of the action at one moment, they find themselves spectators of the action at some subsequent moment, and in this continuous confrontation and dynamic overflow of one into the other, the conditions for an artistic competition are created."
Conductor Svetoslav Borisov: "To sound lacy and brilliant, with the aesthetics of Donizetti"
Svetoslav Borisov, chief conductor of the State Opera Varna, will present the comic opera Don Pasquale by Gaetano Donizetti at this year's Festival of Opera and Ballet Art in Stara Zagora. Immediately before that, on 23 and 24 November, he will conduct the Graz Philharmonic Orchestra for the Austrian premiere of Krzysztof Penderecki's Concerto for Trumpet and Orchestra. "It is a great honour for me", emphasises Svetoslav Borisov, "to take over a concert that Penderecki himself was to conduct, especially since the programme includes his work and this will be his first performance in Austria."
His concept as conductor-performer of Don Pasquale was based on "a fresh, very light, but not lightly presented reading. The libretto and the musical text carry the wit and provocation that we as interpreters are obliged to present convincingly. The idea is to make everything sound lacy and brilliant, with that ethereality that Donizetti's aesthetics demand", Svetoslav Borisov emphasises.
Don Pasquale - video