Austin Pendleton Directs Boston Midsummer Opera's DON PASQUALE, Now thru 7/29

For its seventh season Boston Midsummer Opera (BMO) presents the comic piece, Donizetti's Don Pasquale, playing at the Tsai Performance Center at Boston University for three performances only, tonight, July 25, 27, and 29. Obie Award winner/Tony Award nominee Austin Pendleton directs the fully staged and costumed production. Music director and nationally acclaimed conductor Susan Davenny Wyner leads the performances, which will be performed with orchestra and sung in English. Metropolitan Opera bass Ricardo Lugo will sing the role of Don Pasquale.

Don Pasquale is an opera whose score bursts with life and lyricism and whose drama has a few surprises along the way, especially at Don Pasquale's expense. The old bachelor Don Pasquale plans to marry in order to punish his rebellious nephew, Ernesto, who is in love with the young widow Norina. Pasquale wants an heir so he can cut the young man off without a penny. He consults Dr. Malatesta, who suggests as a bride his own beautiful younger sister. Feeling his youth returning, the delighted Pasquale tells Malatesta to arrange a meeting at once. Ernesto learns that his friend Malatesta has arranged Pasquale's marriage and feels betrayed, but little does he know that Dr. Malatesta is in fact plotting on Norina and Ernesto's behalf. Will Don Pasquale end up happy and with a wife by his side, or will he join the others in observing that a spirited young bride is not always the best match for a curmudgeonly old bachelor?

Puerto Rican bass Ricardo Lugo (Don Pasquale) is a versatile, much in demand international performer, making his BMO debut in Don Pasquale. This season he returns to the Metropolitan Opera for productions of Ariadne auf Naxos and La fanciulla del west. His work at the Metropolitan Opera during the 2009--2010 season included productions of Ariadne auf Naxos and The Nose, and he has also participated in the Met's productions of Macbeth, Adriana Lecouvreur, The Gambler and Salome. Mr. Lugo has appeared as Timur in Puccini's Turandot with DiCapo Opera Theater, and his concert engagements have included Verdi's Requiem with the Mexico State Symphony, the Music in the Mountains Festival in Colorado, and Beethoven's Missa Solemnis with New Mexico Symphony Orchestra.

Soprano Leslie Ann Bradley (Norina) attended Tanglewood and the Académie International de musique Maurice Ravel in France, studying with the renowned Françoise Pollet. Her success there was marked by receiving the Prix du chant Pierre Bernac as winner of the Academy's voice competition. She was featured in Rossini's Petite Messe Solennelle with both the Grand Philharmonic Choir and Hamilton's Bach-Elgar Choir, sang Micaëla in Peter Brook's Tragedy of Carmen with the Boston Midsummer Opera, and was heard in Orff's Carmina Burana with the Victoria Symphony. Hailed for her performance in Beethoven's Missa Solemnis with the Winnipeg Symphony, Ms. Bradley debuted last season with the Calgary Philharmonic in Carmina Burana. Further engagements included recitals for Toronto Summer Music and a New Year's Day concert in Victoria devoted to the music of operetta. In 2011-2012, she sang Carmina Burana for Brott Summer Music, Brahms' Requiem for the Mendelssohn Choir, appeared in recital for the Elora Festival and Aldeburgh Connection and was Micaëla in Carmen for Pacific Opera Victoria. Leslie Ann Bradley was a Metropolitan Opera Council Auditions Northeast Regional prize-winner.

Baritone David Kravitz (Dr. Malatesta) was last seen with BMO in its 2011 production of TheItalian Girl in Algiers and with the BMO in its 2006 production, The Marriages of Mozart. He made his New York City Opera debut in Strauss's Intermezzo, and his European debut at Monte Carlo's Salle Garnier in the world premiere of Tod Machover's Death and the Powers which subsequently traveled to Chicago Opera Theater and the American Repertory Theater. He also returned to Opera Boston for Hindemith's rarely-heard opera Cardillac, and sang Nick Shadow in Emmanuel Music's production of The Rake's Progress.

Tenor ALex Richardson (Ernesto) makes his BMO debut in Don Pasquale. He has performed with Santa Fe Opera and the Atlanta and Chicago Symphonies. As a Tanglewood Institute Fellow, Mr. Richardson sang the role of Vogelgesang in Act III of Wagner's Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg under the baton of Maestro James Levine and also performed solos in Stravinsky's Pulcinella with Maestro Rafael Frühbeck de Burgos. Included among his roles performed are Fenton in Falstaff, Camille in The Merry Widow, Rodolfo in La Bohème, Cavaradossi in Tosca, Alfred in Die Fledermaus, and the title role in Albert Herring. He was a Metropolitan Opera Council Auditions regional prize-winner for the Northeast and Rocky Mountain regions.

More Articles by This Author...