Review: Don Pasquale, Mansfield Palace Theatre

That’s when the enterprising Swansea City Opera made a return visit to town with Donizetti’s comic masterpiece ‘Don Pasquale.’

And for those who braved the snow, it was an evening of excellent entertainment in the best “bel canto” tradition from a quality quartet that delivered on every note in this beautifully staged production in 1840s costumes.

This was more than evident in this, the most popular of Donizetti’s 66 operas, in a story of love, deception and marrying at your peril, something that elderly bachelor Don Pasquale (Paul Hudson) found out after being tricked into marrying a younger woman to disinherit his nephew, Ernesto (Ben Kerslake).

But the brains behind this cunning plan was family friend Malesta (Aris Nadirian) who was more interested in advancing the cause of his sister, Norina (Helen Massey) getting hitched to Ernesto . . . something that Don Pasquale finally agreed to as well signing up to the sentiments “that old men marry at their peril.”

For those marking their diaries, there’s more opera in store later in the year when Mid Wales Opera stop off at the Palace on 13th October with the comedy confection ‘Albert Herring,’ part of the group’s contribution to the 100th birthday celebrations of composer Benjamin Britten.

Further details can be found at www.mansfield.gov.uk/palacetheatre or by visiting www.britten100.org or www.midwalesopera.co.uk

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Earlier in the month the weather was not a problem, more choosing what to watch from a triple treat from Welsh National Opera at Birmingham’s Hippodrome.

Subtitled ‘Free Spirits,’ the programme featured three works -- Berg’s ‘Lulu,’ Janacek’s ‘The Cunning Little Vixen’ and ‘Madam Butterfly’ by Puccini -- composed within just over 30 years of each other in the early 1900s, yet still crowd pullers for a new generation of music lovers.

And it was heartening to see the audience for ‘Madam Butterfly’ included several school trips, whose young charges were no doubt bowled over by this ever-popular story of love and loss between geisha girl ‘Butterfly’ (sung with style and conviction by Australian soprano Cheryl Barker) and American naval officer Pinkerton (Gwyn Hughes Jones).