Poolside With a Witty ‘Don Pasquale’

A brilliant tradition of opera production exists at the Music Academy of the West, reinforced this summer with a stunning, beautifully sung “Don Pasquale,” which was given in the Lobero Theatre here twice over the weekend.

Wonderful singing by a quartet of bright, young operatic stars-to-be was only the beginning, however. Randall Behr’s hyperkinetic but controlled conducting kept Donizetti’s bubbling score alive and kicking, and Chas Rader-Shieber’s inventive and witty stage direction underlined the humor with jokes genuinely appropriate to the action.

There were no fools on this stage, only real people--Rader-Shieber’s direction could produce hilarity but it never contradicted the essence of each character--and their particular humanity created many laughs as well as touching moments.

Fuzzily updated--this libretto is not hurt by bringing it forward in time or across oceans--and set mostly poolside (the orchestra pit becoming the pool) in a Mediterranean-style mansion in a period that might have been the 1920s, the opera’s action was unimpeded by the sunny surroundings and aided consistently by bright and elegant but undistracting costumes.

The casting--achieved no doubt by academy vocal program director Marilyn Horne and her associates--was brilliant and focused and put on display first-class, promising talents, in the academy’s acknowledged tradition.

A gifted actor who enunciates and gestures with subtlety, Bert Johnson sang the role of Pasquale most handsomely, indicating but not overplaying the character’s maturity and, more important, embodying his feistiness and neediness without exaggeration. The singing was splendid, the portrait complete, up to and down to the notes at both ends of the role.

Young Jessica Tivens--a Californian who took one of the L.A. Spotlight Awards in 1996--seemed to have everything she needed for a stageworthy Norina: charm, poise, abundant and on-target high notes, the confidence of one born to do what she does.

Her stamina, among other qualities, was unflagging, and she made believable every gesture. Not the least of her attributes was the fact that she looked like a sister of Dr. Malatesta.

Russian-born baritone Maksim Ivanov took that role with relish, with the vocal technique demanded in all its variety and with a natural charm necessary in a near-charlatan. Ivanov and Johnson nearly stopped the show in their irresistible third act duet.

Perhaps the most effective moments came in the exposed places where tenor Ramone Diggs was alone on the stage, producing with his singing and acting the simultaneously touching and hilarious facets of Ernesto. In Act 2, before he even sang, Diggs created a memorable comedic sketch with his suitcase. The artistry shown in his singing deserved the bravos that came at the final curtain.