Showing @ Theatre Royal, Glasgow until Sat 01 Feb @ 19:15

Showing @ Festival Theatre, Edinburgh until Sat 22 Feb @19:15

Beginning 2014 with this well executed whimsical narrative, Scottish Opera have set their standards high for the rest of the year. Don Pasquale (Alfonso Antoniozzi) threatens to disinherit his nephew Ernesto if he marries Norina. His doctor Maltesta, with Norina’s help, hatches a plan involving disguise and double identities to teach the old man a salutary lesson and bring the lovers together.

Designer/director combo André Barbe and Renaud Doucet’s take on Gaetano Donizetti’s tale of the bamboozled miser and his lovelorn nephew is located in a run-down hotel in 1950s Italy. It revels in the scope the farcical tale offers them for fun and general silliness, and unlike so many comic opera productions there’s never the feeling they’re trying too hard.

Barbe’s clever split level set- hotel lobby and outdoor terrace makes sure the eye is always kept busy and the use of drying laundry as curtains is an inspired touch allowing plenty of comic business to be conducted around and behind the linen. With just four main characters and a large stage to fill Doucet has taken advantage of Scottish Opera’s talented chorus performers, giving them plenty of comic business to do downstage and many times their silent commentary on events threatens to steal the show.

As for the main cast, Antoniozzi making his Scottish Opera debut is a wonderful study in bafflement and despair with his commanding baritone voice at odds with his lack of real authority as he has the wool pulled so thoroughly over his eyes. The puppet master of the Don’s downfall is Dr Maltesta, here played by Nicholas Lester as a corduroy-wearing Pan, spreading gleeful mischief whose warm baritone seems able to convince anyone to follow his plans.

As Pasquale’s soppy and besotted nephew Ernesto, Aldo Di Toro possesses both a silky and captivating tenor, but also, as is true of all the performers, perfect comic timing. The plum role of Norina, the charming, determined and not a little ruthless paramour of Ernesto, is played by Ruth Jenkins-Róbertsson following her success with the company following her Zerlina and Papagena, and here puts her contralto to excellent use to bewitch and torture Don Pasquale.

This is a sure-footed and nimble piece of comic opera. Not only do you get the light lyrical music of Donizetti, perfectly performed, but you also get to see great comic timing in every role. Whilst it might not work out too well for the Don himself, for audiences this is a real slice of la dolce vita.