Don Pasquale (the complete opera, recorded in 2002)

G :-

All Regions - Widescreen 16:9 - LPCM Stereo / Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround / DTS 5.1 Surround - Colour - 152 Minutes - NTSC

This lavish 2002 production of Gaetano Donizetti's cynically humorous take on love, marriage and romance features the Chorus and Orchestra of Teatro Lirico, conducted by Gerard Korsten, and the voices of Eva Mei, Alessandro Corbelli and Roberto de Candia. It is released simultaneously this month on TDK DVD and Audio CD.

Donizetti's music provides a comic opera sui generis. Coloratura arias, cavatinas and romances, duets and ensembles reveal a musical with which puts the opera on a level with Rossini's Barber of Seville and Verdi's Falstaff.

When Don Pasquale had its premiere in 1843, Donizetti was already marked by the illness from which he suffered. In 1846 he was admitted into an institution in Ivry near Paris with signs of progressive paralysis. He died in his native Bergamo in 1848.

Directed by Patrizia Carmine

"The acting is first class, everybody relishing their roles, Alessandro Corbelli's Pasquale, bumbling, pompous and outraged, Eva Mei's Norina shrewish and petulant and full of good humour and Roberto de Candia, a knowing, hoodwinking Malatesta.
A visual delight, a sparkling production with fine comic performances from Mei, Corbelli and De Candia."
(MusicWeb)