In the first act of the Metropolitan Opera's new Don Pasquale, Baritone Frank Guarrera peeks behind a screen where Coloratura Roberta Peters is making an onstage costume change. "Brava," he sings with a leer. "Brava, brava!" That sentiment might well serve as comment on the whole production. Peters & Co. have turned Gaetano Donizetti's old (1843) comic opera into something to cheer about.
Anybody peeking behind the scenes before performance time would have found most of the interest focused on something new in Met history (though long used by European opera houses): a revolving stage. The question was whether it would ever...