Sheer nonsense! But such sublime nonsense. It's the third Donizetti comedy I've seen, after L'elisir d'amoreand La fille du régiment, which I think alas are the only ones that are widely performed these days.
Right, so Don Pasquale is a grumpy old rich guy who is annoyed because his nephew Ernesto refuses to marry the rich girl he's picked out for him, already having a penniless sweetheart, Norina. He decides to get his revenge by marrying himself and disinheriting Ernesto. His physician Dr. Malatesta suggests his own sister for the Don to marry, and Ernesto is sad because if he has no money, he feels he can't marry Norina. But! Dr. Malatesta is actually on his side, and he proposes a sneaky plan to Norina: she'll pretend to be this sister (who is actually off in a convent) and wreak havoc with Pasquale's life and peace of mind, and then Ernesto will be able to marry her because mumble mumble. Okay, the endgame of this plan is not even a tiny bit clear, and the fact that, obviously, things end up working out seems like it really couldn't have been predicted, but eh, whatever! Getting there is the fun, even if we don't know where we're getting.
The whole cast is fun as heck, starting with Anna Netrebko (whom I'd never seen in a comedy before) as Norina. Out of these three comic operas, it seems like this has to be the funnest soprano role, and Netrebko is hilarious, vacillating between the hyperbolically shy, puritanical girl straight from a convent to the brassy hellion to great effect (the idea that before this she didn't have a penny to her name seems hard to believe, but again, eh). Mariusz Kwiecien in designer sunglasses is similarly great as Malatesta, and John Del Carlo certainly seems to be the very soul of Don Pasquale himself. Matthew Polenzani has a surprisingly small role as Ernesto, but he's fine. I'd also like to call attention to the third-act duet between Malatesta and Pasquale, which features what I think may be the fastest singing I've ever heard in an opera. It is quite an aural spectacle.
I do think one could argue that the opera is somewhat overly mean to the title character. He does receive a certain amount of sympathy in the final act, but I don't know. The climax is a bit sudden and not what you'd call psychologically plausible; that's okay, of course, but the repeatedly stated Moral of the Story--old men shouldn't get married!--seems surprisingly specific and not really applicable: surely the point is that they shouldn't lecherously try to marry young girls, not that they should never marry period. Well, whatever. It would be very difficult to stay mad for long at anything here, though L'elisir d'amore remains my favorite Donizetti comedy.
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