Time—Early nineteenth century.
Place—Rome.
"Don Pasquale" concerns an old man about to marry. He also is wealthy. Though determined himself to have a wife, on the other hand he is very angry with his nephew, Ernesto, for wishing to marry, and threatens to disinherit him. Ernesto is greatly disturbed by these threats. So is his lady-love, the sprightly young widow, Norina, when he reports them to her.
Pasquale's friend, Dr. Malatesta, not being able to dissuade him from marriage, pretends to acquiesce in it. He proposes that his sister shall be the bride, and describes her as a timid, naïve, ingenuous girl, brought up, he says, in a convent. She is, however, none other than Norina, the clever young widow, who is in no degree related to Malatesta. She quickly enters into the plot, which involves a mock marriage with Don Pasquale. An interview takes place. The modest graces of the supposed convent girl charm the old man. The marriage—a mock ceremony, of course—is hurriedly celebrated, so hurriedly that there is no time to inform the distracted Ernesto that the proceedings are bogus.
Norina now displays toward Don Pasquale an ungovernable temper. Moreover she spends money like water, and devotes all her energies to nearly driving the old man crazy. When he protests, she boxes his ears. He is on the point of suicide. Then at last Malatesta lets him know that he has been duped. Notary and contract are fictitious. He is free. With joy he transfers to Ernesto his conjugal burden—and an income.
Act I plays in a room in Don Pasquale's house and later in a room in Norina's, where she is reading a romance. She is singing "Quel guardo" (Glances so soft) and "So anch'io la virtù magica" (I, too, thy magic virtues know) in which she appears to be echoing in thought what she has been reading about in the book.
[[Listen]]
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So anch'io la virtù magica D'un guardo a tempo e loco |
The duet, in which she and Malatesta agree upon the plot—the "duet of the rehearsal"—is one of the sprightly numbers of the score.