SF Opera’s ‘Pasquale’ is charming, well-sung and thin

“Don Pasquale,” which has not been mounted on the stage of the War Memorial Opera House in an astonishing 32 years, is a work of simplicity and charm, but also slender invention.

Writing near the end of his career, Donizetti took on one of the most venerable dramatic premises in Italian comic opera, and fitted it out with music that burbles along with engaging directness.

The rich, foolish old man set on marrying a wife too young and clever for him is a figure that goes far back, but modern audiences are apt to know him best from “The Barber of Seville,” where he is embodied by Rossini’s far more inventive musical language, and also serves as just one dramatic strand among several.

Pelly’s production, which takes its design cue from Italian screen comedies of the 1950s and ’60s (with one gratuitous but entertaining nod in the direction of “Pulp Fiction”), underscores that note of cruelty to somewhat uncertain ends.

Pelly provides enough stage business to keep the story on the rails, and Chantal Thomas’ sets capture the emotional tenor of the narrative perfectly — including a wondrous coup in Act 3, far too witty to spoil here, to convey the extent to which Norina manages to upend Pasquale’s bachelor existence.

“Pasquale” marks the Opera debut of tenor Lawrence Brownlee, who has made an increasingly stellar name for himself in the bel canto operas of Donizetti, Rossini and Bellini.

[...] if Brownlee’s long-awaited arrival at the War Memorial was the headline news, his contribution was only a first among equals in a cast of superb singing actors.

In the title role, bass-baritone Maurizio Muraro proved himself a virtuosic master of both vocal energy and comic timing, in a performance that blended tonal robustness and the requisite touch of pathos.