The first work presented at Opera Theatre of Saint Louis is also the most recently presented.

OTSL’s inaugural production was Donizetti’s Don Pasquale on May 22, 1976. To celebrate the company’s golden anniversary season, OTSL has remounted Don Pasquale with the same director, Christopher Alden, and a member of original cast, Sheri Greenawald, who played Norina. The new production a wonderful tribute to the artistic ambition that has made OTSL one of opera’s leading lights.

Pictures in this year’s program indicate that the first Don Pasquale used a traditional setting for the great opera buffo with music by Gaetano Donizetti and libretto by Giovanni Ruffini and the composer. This conservative choice was sensible for a new company trying to build an audience.

Today, OTSL’s work merits attention from the nation and the world. The current production’s setting is evocative rather than realistic. This choice works because the opera’s conflict is not limited to one period. The source of that conflict is an old man’s desire to control a young man’s behavior.

The wealthy, elderly Don Pasquale is outraged that his nephew and heir, Ernesto, insists on marrying a poor widow named Norina simply because he loves her. The uncle wants the nephew to make a practical choice. Out of spite, Pasquale decides to get married himself and produce a new heir. He shares his plan with Dr. Malatesta, who proposes his own sister as Pasquale’s bride.

Malatesta is only pretending to be on Pasquale’s side, however. The doctor recruits Norina to pose as his sister and pretend to be the obedient, silent woman Pasquale yearns for.

After a fake marriage by a phony notary, Norina transforms herself from Pasquale’s dream wife into his worst nightmare. The plan is for Norina to be so irksome and domineering that Pasquale will agree to anything that crosses her.

In Alden’s current staging, the first act takes place in what appears to be a contemporary espresso bar. Its patrons are old men who look grotesque in costumes by Marsha Ginsberg and wigs and makeup by Krystal Balleza and Will Vicari.

The old men’s actions echo Pasquale’s in a way that underscores the unreasonableness of his desire for a young wife. At the same time, Pasquale shows no interest in the attentive proprietor of the espresso bar, a woman of his own generation endearingly played by Greenawald. Later, the proprietor poses as the notary in the mock wedding. She has an important part to play in the third act, too. In his program note, Alden rightly calls Greenawald, “one of the reigning divas of OTSL.” She is a commanding presence in the role created for her in this production.

After Pasquale’s new wife drops her pretense of diffidence, he suffers a mental breakdown that is mirrored in the physical breakdown of the grotesque old men in the Act Two finale. The splendid choreography is by Seán Curran.

The set for the second act features a gargantuan easy chair and lamp that can be seen as projections of Pasquale’s outsized ego. He does not understand that his fantasies make him look foolish. In the third act, video and shadows on a portable screen play a striking role in the storytelling. Eric Southern designed the lighting.

This Don Pasquale is a joy to see and hear. I appreciate the way Alden’s unconventional and often hilarious staging made me think as it reflected and commented on the action. I am glad OTSL is a company that empowers artists to use their creativity to enrich great works in performance. Adventurous staging may not work out in every instance or for every audience member, but without risk-taking, opera will stagnate.

Even without its fascinating concept, the golden anniversary Don Pasquale would be a gem. Kensho Watanabe conducts the St. Louis Symphony in a loving account of the score. The members of the chorus under Andrew Whitfield throw themselves into their portrayals of the grotesque old men before intermission. The chorus is just as entertaining when it returns for Act Three. With Pasquale’s new wife now in charge, the chorus members are all dressed as women.

Ginsberg designed the set as well as the costumes. The set’s walls look like beautiful frescos. The floor has an oversized pattern reminiscent of granite.

The four principals are superb singers and comic actors. Patrick Carfizzi has great fun with Don Pasquale’s comic overreaching and with the torment he brings upon himself. Kyle Miller is charming and supremely confident as Malatesta. Charles Sy is deeply affecting as the lovesick Ernesto. Susanne Burgess gives Norina extraordinary strength of character even before she begins posing as Malatesta’s sister. Burgess’s arias prompted wild cheering on opening night, as did the lovely interplay between Burgess and Greenawald when the past and present Norinas convey the moral of this tale together.

Don Pasquale continues through June 28 at the Loretto-Hilton Center, 130 Edgar Road.

—Gerry Kowarsky

Photo © Eric Woolsey
From the left, Patrick Carfizzi as Don Pasquale, Susanne Burgess as Norina, Kyle Miller as Dr. Malatesta, and Sheri Greenawald as the Notary in Don Pasquale.