Notes by Kim Witman, Artistic Director of Wolf Trap Opera Company
It would be difficult to overstate the influence that the Italian commedia
dell'arte tradition has had on the history of opera. The Italian Comedy that
originated in the Renaissance was the most successful form of theatre for more
than three centuries! The characters are eternal and have been handed down to us
as Harlequin, Pierrot, Scapin, Punch, and Scaramouche. It inspired the works of
Shakespeare and Molière, as well as modern artists like Charlie Chaplin, Marcel
Marceau, and The Marx Brothers. In fact, every television sitcom owes its
characters, in part, to the stock characters of the Italian commedia
dell'arte.
This
"Theatre of Craft" was one of the earliest forms of the theater as we
know it today. It began during a period of time when theater plays were classic,
stylish, cold and rigorous, an often performed by amateurs - in contrast, commedia
was colorful, imaginative, and improvisatory. The professional performers had to
possess the wit and imagination of playwrights, for they were called upon to
improvise on various scenarios. Half-masks were used, like the masks of the
Carnavale in Venice; comic bits and complicated physical stage business called lazzi
were created; and women were allowed to act in these performances long before
the practice was adopted in other styles.
Imagine,
if you will, a group of actors who play out their comic scenarios in a series of
episodes. The situations change, but the characters remain ever the same. There
is a crochety older gentleman ("Pantalone"), a scholarly fellow who
seems to never stop talking ("Dottore"), a witty young servant girl
("Colombina"), and a saucy wench ("Ruffiana").
A
comic opera plot? Or the cast of the television sitcom "Frasier"?
Frasier himself is the very incarnation of the commedia character of the "Dottore"
(he even bears a slight resemblance to the commedia Dottore's mask with
its large protruding forehead!), his father a quintessential "Pantalone",
Daphne the prototype of the clever maidservant "Colombina", and Roz
the sassy sidekick "Ruffiana".
Even
the operatic convention of the aria owes a debt to commedia. A lengthy
monologue characteristic of the "Dottore" was called a tirata (hence
our term "tirade"). The tirata was sometimes underscored with music,
and it is often considered the forerunner of the opera aria. In a perfect
example, Basilio in Beaumarchais' Le barbier de Seville (and Rossini's Il
barbiere di Siviglia) holds forth in a bravura tirata about slander and
calumny.
The
inhabitants of Don Pasquale have close relatives in the commedia world:
Pasquale
himself is a classic Pantalone. A greedy and meddling old man, he is wealthy,
and his money appears to be more of a burden than a blessing. Pantalone is often
thwarted by a younger man, and if he is married, his wife is young and pretty
and deceives him at every turn. He is a man ripe in years who is blinded by an
amorous passion.
Doctor
Malatesta is, of course, the Dottore figure from the commedia scenario.
He is a friend of Pantalone and hands out advice on everything. (The know-it-all
character of Dottore originated as a satire on Renaissance university men.) In Don
Pasquale, the good Doctor's name serves as a colorful reminder of his part
in foiling Pasquale's plans, for in Italian, malatesta means headache!
Ernesto
and Norina are, of course, the Lovers from the commedia scenario. Ernesto
means honest or earnest, and Norina comes from the Greek word for grace and
light. The Lovers were unmasked, young, and beautiful. They were played by
actors of cultivation and intelligence. Colombina, the female of the pair,
needed to be able to hold her own in every situation, and emerge with ease and
dignity from the most involved intrigues. Norina is actually a composite of two commedia
women: Colombina, the witty maidservant, and Ruffiana, a saucy impudent girl.
The
famous Italian playwright Carlo Goldoni called commedia dell'arte the
"storm in the center of the calm". Although commedia may make
us think of slapstick, we should never imagine that it was sloppy or arbitrary.
The improvisations took place over a rigid framework, and great skill was
required. As in music, virtuosity in this most artistic of comedies came from
precision and articulation.
George
Sand wrote: "The commedia dell'arte… is a portrayal of real
characters traced from remote antiquity down to the present day, in an
uninterrupted tradition of fantastic humour which is in essence quite serious
and, one might almost say, even sad, like every satire which lays bare the
spiritual poverty of mankind." Much has been made of Donizetti's apparent
break with tradition by making the character of Pasquale truly human and
empathetic. Indeed, audiences had been laughing at a silly, jilted old bachelor
figure for centuries. But in this composer's hands, when the title character
sings "È finita, Don Pasquale", he's no longer a laughable old
man, but a friend whose dignity has been wounded. Pantalone returns to his
origins, becomes three-dimensional once more, and gains our sympathy.
Donizetti,
a master of sparkling humor, endured great tragedy in the eleven years between L'elisir
d'amore and Don Pasquale, his two comic masterpieces. He and his
young wife lost three children in infancy, his parents died, and his wife
succumbed to a cholera epidemic. And by the time Pasquale premiered in 1843, the
composer was beginning to suffer from a terminal illness. He was
institutionalized within two years and died in 1848.
Although
he lived in the shadow of the genius Rossini, and the young upstart Bellini was
nipping at his heels, Donizetti was always the consummate colleague. He was a
friendly and sincere man who was supportive to his fellow composers and other
artists. We can imagine that he had the wit of Harlequin, the wisdom of the
Dottore, and the self-deprecation of Pantalone. And his gift to us is this jewel
of an opera, full of both humor and humanity.