On September 14 and 15, 2024, the Primorsky Stage of the Mariinsky Theatre will present the first premiere of the new season, Gaetano Donizetti’s comic opera Don Pasquale. The Musical Director of the production is Irina Soboleva. The Revival Stage Director and Choreographer is Ilya Ustyantsev. The Production Designer is Igor Ivanov. The conductor’s stand will be taken by Dušan Vilić (September 14, 2024) and Vitaly Shevelev (September 15, 2024).
The opera first premiered in 1843 at La Comédie-Italienne in Paris with unprecedented success. Critics said that Don Pasquale was the most outstanding work created for that theatre. Today, Don Pasquale is one of the twenty most popular Italian operas and is performed annually in 150 theatres around the world.
Here is what Irina Soboleva, Artistic Director of the Opera Company of the Primorsky Stage of the Mariinsky Theatre commented on this occasion:
“The appearance of such a title as Gaetano Donizetti’s Don Pasquale on the playbill of any theatre always evokes smiles of connoisseurs and opera genre lovers. The key to the success of the opera is its wonderful libretto, full of humor and including elements of masquerade and transformations. The plot is based on the story of a big prank: the desire to prevent a close friend from taking a dangerous step towards an unequal marriage. Such a comic onset is well in tune with the opera Il barbiere di Siviglia, well known to our audience.
Along with his outstanding contemporaries Gioachino Rossini and Vincenzo Bellini, Gaetano Donizetti is also a symbol of bel canto and the founder of the opera genre. During his short 50-year life, the composer managed to create, according to some sources, as many as 68 operas (74, according to other sources)! The top ten most performed operas in the world include such famous works as Lucia di Lammermoor (previously presented on the Primorsky Stage of the Mariinsky Theatre), Anna Bolena, Linda di Chamounix, Lucrezia Borgia, L’elisir d’amore and, finally, Don Pasquale, which is one of Donizetti’s late works. It is worth mentioning that one of the operas is based on Russian history and has a long title: Il falegname di Livonia, o Pietro il grande, czar delle Russie (The Livonian Carpenter, or Peter the Great, Tsar of the Russias).
I will not fear tautology, and say that the composer’s style in Don Pasquale is perfectly perfect! Therefore, the singers who can cope with such complex material won’t be afraid of the rest of the vocal repertoire (laughing). At the same time, the musical content is presented in an elegant, airy manner. I am sure that the advent of Don Pasquale on our stage is another milestone in the development of the Theatre and the future of the Opera Company.”
In 1980, the opera buffa Don Pasquale was staged at the Mariinsky Theatre by Director Yuri Alexandrov and Stage Designer Igor Ivanov. To commemorate the 180th anniversary of the masterpiece, the performance returned to the historical stage. The young Stage Director Ilya Ustyantsev, who has already worked on various stages of the Mariinsky Theatre, including the Primorsky Stage and the Theatre’s branch in the Republic of North Ossetia-Alania, was entrusted with reviving it. The sets and costumes for the upcoming premiere at the Primorsky Stage were created in the Theatre’s workshops in Vladivostok.
The parts are being rehearsed by opera soloists of the Primorsky Stage of the Mariinsky Theatre: Don Pasquale — Bat-Erdene Dorjtseden, Dmitry Nelasov, Yevgeny Plekhanov, Sergei Pleshivtsev, Vladislav Chibirev; Doctor Malatesta — Sergey Krylov, César Méndez, Dmitry Migulyov, Nikita Odalin, Aleksey Yurkovsky; Ernesto — Ilya Astafurov, Alexei Kostyuk, Roman Krukovich, Mingiyan Odzhaev; Norina — Samira Galimova, Anastasia Gensler, Olga Zharikova, Iveta Simonyan, Alisa Fedorenko; Carlino — Vsevolod Marilov, Yevgeny Mizin, Alexei Smirnov.
The next premiere performances will take place on October 9 and 11, November 6 and 8, 2024.
