FROM AROUND THE WORLD: LOS ANGLES.(Review)

Don Pasquale abounds in moments, typical of Donizetti's comic operas, in which a cartoonish character is suddenly fleshed out. Low comedy is frequently embellished with elegant bel canto utterances, the equal of almost anything to be found in the composer's more serious works. The plot's stock characters come straight out of Renaissance Italy's commedia dell'arte, but inspired melodies repeatedly ennoble the farce. The particular strength of Los Angeles Opera's recent production of Don Pasquale was to find the soul in what is otherwise a frivolous formulaic comedy about an old man frustrated in his attempts to marry a young wife.

The credit for LAO's success began with French conductor Emmanuel Joel. While his approach to tempos and dynamics could hardly have been called reticent, he allowed the score to breathe during Donizetti's many passages of somber introspection and tender lyricism. In soprano Ruth Ann Swenson, Joel appeared to have found an ideal collaborator. From the moment of her first appearance as Norina, Swenson displayed not only comic panache but an affinity for the composer's more delicate melodic charms. The role fit her like a glove. The melting phrases of "Quel guardo il cavaliere," in which Donizetti allegedly parodies nineteenth-century Romantic conventions, possessed touching sincerity, while the subsequent aria, "So anch'io la virtu magica," was as seductive as it was playful. Swenson continued to bring vocal luster to all that followed, although, masquerading as "Sofronia," a girl fresh out of the convent, she affected an irritating Despina-as-notary nasal drone.