Director as Don can call the tune

Director Conal Coad, who also plays Don Pasquale, Ashley Catling as Ernesto and Lorina Gore as Norina perform their opera at venues from Kerikeri to Invercargill. Picture / Dean Treml

Conal Coad has become a popular presence on our operatic stages, creating those foolish old rascals who are the staple fare of opera buffa. Auckland has seen him as Don Magnifico in Rossini's La Cenerentola and as Sir John in Verdi's Falstaff, and on Saturday the bass-baritone will head the cast in NBR New Zealand Opera's production of Donizetti's Don Pasquale.

The difference this time is that Coad is also making his directorial debut.

"For years I've been saying to directors: Can I do this or that? Some say yes, some say no. And if they've said no, I always think: Why not?"

Now, with the staging up to him, he finds that his directorial philosophy is firmly on the side of the music.

"It's important that everything has to be sung audibly and the singers are put into a good position to do that."

Some directors from the world of theatre "don't give a stuff", Coad says.

"I've worked with two who have said things to me like, 'That's very boring, isn't it?'

"Well, if they don't like big numbers in an opera they should stay away from it."

Coad's last engagement, playing Don Pasquale for Garsington Opera in Britain, was not a happy experience, despite positive reviews.

"I disagreed with the interpretation," is Coad's flat assessment.

"Pasquale was a gloomy old man who didn't seem to have an enjoyable bone in his body, lurching around in the background. All this while the soprano's music was added to very considerably, turning it into a coloratura tour de force which unbalanced the work.

"The audiences loved it, but it wasn't especially enjoyable for me, even though I liked the director, Daniel Slater, and working with the people."

Coad's touring production has had judicious prunings and we'll be on our way home by 9.30pm, singing the tunes.

"It just sort of bubbles along," Coad says, "and I've kept all the main tunes and music."

An orchestra of just under 20 is "quite a respectable little sinfonietta and exactly the right colour for a work like Don Pasquale". As for a chorus, it was simply not necessary. "As long as you have one person to answer beck and call, you can pretty much do without it.

And the maid, he says wickedly, "will put a bit of a smile on most people's faces".

Coad is a practical man, too. The main reason for updating the work to 1900 is that he did not want to cope with crinolines on some of the smaller stages.

"I once saw Kiri as Violetta demolish a stage in Sydney with an enormous crinoline - two chairs went."

Above all, he feels that the big bonus is that this production uses English.

"It's easy to understand and it's funny. So often we singers see the audience's chins all night because they are reading surtitles above our heads.

"You may be acting your knickers off on stage and they're missing the jokes because they're just reading them."

There is praise for everyone involved. Wyn Davies is a musical director who "tells it like it is". And a youngish cast includes a heroine in Lorina Gore, "a real stage animal with a great voice".

With a touring schedule that takes the company from Kerikeri to Invercargill, Coad wants this Don Pasquale to be "incredibly entertaining for any audience that is not necessarily a very sophisticated opera-going one. We have a cast with exceedingly good voices, young voices with great futures.

"People will be saying one day that they first heard Lorina Gore and Ashley Catling when they were in Don Pasquale, and our two local boys, Andrew Conley and Phillip Rhodes, are both going to have wonderful careers."


Performance

* What: NBR NZ Opera, Don Pasquale

* Where and when: Bruce Mason Centre, Takapuna, Sat 7.30pm; Civic Theatre, Rotorua, Monday 7.30pm; Baycourt Theatre, Tauranga, Wednesday, 7.30pm