The next re-runs of Donizetti`s opera Don Pasquale are scheduled for Monday, January 23 and Friday, January 27, 2017 at 7:30 p.m. at the CNT in Zagreb.
It is a co-production with the Opera of the Slovene National Theatre in Maribor. The conductor is Josip Šego, stage director Dora Ruždjak Podolski, set designer Stefano Katunar, costume designer Barbara Bourek, light designer Elvis Butković, stage movement Petra Hrašćanec and the choirmaster is Luka Vukšić. The cast is: Ozren Bilušić/ Giorgio Surian (Don Pasquale), Leon Košavić/ Ljubomir Puškarić (Doctor Malatesta), Mark Milhofer/ Nikša Radovanović (Ernesto), Marija Kuhar Šoša/ Ivana Lazar (Norina), Antonio Brajković/ Robert Palić (Notary) with the following ballet dancers of the CNT: Tatjana Andročec, Ilinca Barbu Moga, Barbara Novković Novak, Danijela Zobunđija, Filip Filipović and Alen Gotal.
An insight into the premiere will be held on November 20, 2016 on the stage of the CNT in Zagreb and the authors and singers shall present the production by performing the most interesting arias and duets from this opera.
The comic opera Don Pasquale by the Italian composer Gaetano Donizetti, a masterpiece of its genre, was created in the final period of his career and has featured regularly in the repertoires of the world’s greatest opera houses for over 170 years. Donizetti gave precise subtitles to all of his comic operas, with Don Pasquale designated a dramma buffo. The opera’s premiere in 1843 achieved great success and it soon became one of his most popular works. Through its three acts we follow an entertaining story about two lovers, Ernesto and Norina, who attempt to thwart the elderly bachelor Pasquale’s plan to marry Norina. Numerous disguises, cases of mistaken identity, errors and dramatic twists are the main characteristics of this opera which plays on stereotypes at a frantic pace and uses the characters from the Italian commedia dell’arte: Pasquale is based on the whimsical Pantalone, Ernesto on the love-struck Pierrot, while Norina draws on the tricky Colombina. Nonetheless, Donizetti’s Pasquale is a genuine character, more complex than its source: he is honest and overemotional, funny one moment, curmudgeonly and naïve the next, enthrallingly gallant or hopelessly melancholy, but always, even in the most difficult moments, incorrigibly optimistic and full of life. After many twists and turns, the young couple manages to get married and the opera ends with a cheerful finale and joyful playfulness alongside a wise home truth, as Pasquale is forgiven for wanting to marry a young girl in his old age.
http://www.hnk.hr/en/don-pasquale-by-gaetano-donizetti/