The Liceu opened its doors this Wednesday for the second season of the entity's 175th anniversary with Gaetano Donizetti's Don Pasquale, one of the most representative works of opera buffa. The event was attended by representatives from the cultural, political, business, and civil society worlds, who took numerous photographs in front of the new exterior doors designed by artist Jaume Plensa.
Maestro Josep Pons is in charge of directing the first opera of the season, which will be on the stage of the Gran Teatre until October 9. On this occasion, the production of Don Pasquale comes from Damiano Michieletto and premiered at the Opéra de Paris in 2018. The artistic director of the Liceu, Victor Garcia de Gomar, has pointed out that in Don Pasquale there is "a fierce mockery against human imperfection. This opera is about us and about how we view an older man falling in love with a younger person," reports ACN.
The original opera of Don Pasquale is not only a comic story about the excessive behavior of a man in the twilight of his life, it is also a critique of Donizetti's 19th-century sociocultural context. As the Liceu has explained, Donizetti rails against arranged and convenience marriages, and defends female emancipation in new romantic ideas.
As for the plot, Don Pasquale is a rich and avaricious old man who has decided to marry and seek an heir because he is disappointed with his nephew Ernesto, who, instead of accepting the marriage of convenience he has proposed, prefers to choose a young widow, Norina, for love. Don Pasquale wants to punish Ernesto and asks his friend, Dottor Malatesta, to find him a wife. The old man's intention is ridiculous, so his relatives want to teach him a lesson: Norina will pretend to be Malatesta's false sister, Sofronia.
The main quartet of Don Pasquale will be performed by Carlos Chausson and Alessandro Corbelli; Dottor Malatesta will be sung by Andrzej Filonczyk and Carlos Pachón. The tenors who will play Ernesto will be Xabier Anduaga and Santiago Ballerini. And Norina will be represented by the Catalans Sara Blanch and Serena Sáenz.