DONIZETTI’S BURIED TREASURE AND RUBBLE

POP finds music worth hearing
in a comedy better left buried

Pacific Opera Project did not pull Il fortunato inganno (The Fortunate Deception) from a library shelf. Artistic director Josh Shaw traced the score to Italy and a 1998 revival at the Festival della Valle d’Itria, three years after its first staging since 1823 at Sweden’s Vadstena Academy. The company has now given the opera its American premiere at the Garibaldina Society in Highland Park. It is being presented as dinner opera, with pasta, wine, and patrons seated at round tables. Six performances run through September 13.

Andrea Leone Tottola’s libretto is chiefly to blame for the opera’s disappearance. Aurelia (Avery Boettcher), wife of the impresario Lattanzio Lattughelli (E. Scott Levin), wants her niece to marry respectably. The obstacle is a Colonel (Kenneth Stavert) who considers opera singers unsuitable company, much less marriage material. His nephew (Fran Daniel Laucerica) has been raised to think the same way.

Aurelia decides to expose the Colonel’s hypocrisy by pretending to seduce him. There is a workable comedy in that idea, but Tottola keeps wandering away from it, piling on secondary intrigues and bits of business that never become funny. Donizetti was 25 and still years away from Lucia di Lammermoor. He repeatedly pivots from major to minor and back again, but the shifts often substitute for stronger musical ideas.

The vocal writing is another matter. In “La tenzon io non ricuso” (“I Do Not Refuse the Contest”), Boettcher dispatched high Ds and cascading bel canto runs with clean attack and no visible strain. The catfight duet “Io tel dissi, l’assicuro” (“I Told You So, I Assure You”) brings Aurelia up against Kira Dills-DeSurra’s Fulgenzia del Foletto, with both women pursuing Joel Balzun’s robustly sung composer, Bequardo. Their nastiness gives the music a welcome sting. It is the sharpest comic writing in the score.

The finale, “Il mortal più beato” (“The Happiest Mortal”), gathers speed as the ensemble writing accumulates. The confusion tightens, voices crowd together, and the opera briefly acquires the comic momentum missing from much of the evening.

Shaw moves the action to the 1960s. A silver curtain, a Liberace-style piano, strobe lights, and swivel chairs establish the period. The chairs also give the 11-member cast something to do on a shallow makeshift stage. The orchestra sits on the floor to one side, outside the singers’ easiest line of sight. Conductor Alexandra Enyart keeps everyone together. Eleven musicians have to supply the weight and color of an orchestra from a corner of a union hall. Under those conditions, the occasional lapse is less surprising than the amount that goes right.

The bright, primary-colored costuming carries more of the theatrical burden than the staging. Shaw too often falls back on chorus lines, synchronized sidesteps, and heads bobbing to the beat. A choreographer might have found more wit in the cramped space. Presumably, the money was needed elsewhere.

Boettcher, whom I praised in POP’s La scuola de’ gelosi (The School of Jealousy), is again impressive. Her tone remains radiant, but her phrasing matters more. She finds genuine feeling in music that could easily become an exhibition of technique.

Laucerica is especially impressive. His light, high-set tenor has a bright ring, and his upper register retains its body under pressure. Tottola gives him little character to play, while Donizetti offers only intermittent chances to sing. Laucerica makes those chances count.

Levin brings practiced comic timing to Lattughelli, while Stavert gives the Colonel enough pomposity to make his humiliation satisfying. Balzun’s firm baritone steadies the crowded ensembles. Dills-DeSurra attacks Fulgenzia’s jealousy with relish.

Il fortunato inganno remained buried for more than 170 years because much of it is not very good. POP cannot alter that judgment, nor should it try. Several pages of Donizetti’s score nevertheless deserved another hearing.

This is why Los Angeles needs Pacific Opera Project. Shaw will take a chance on a score nearly everyone else has forgotten, then put it on with professional singers and musicians without charging grand-opera prices. The company presents standards, too, but never treats opera as an heirloom under glass. Whether the title is famous or nearly lost, POP makes the occasion lively, social, and affordable. Shaw and his company are Los Angeles cultural treasures. The plot can go back underground. The music should not.

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photos by Nick Rutter

Il fortunato inganno
Pacific Opera Project
The Garibaldina, 4533 N. Figueroa St. in Los Angeles
Fri.–Sat. 7:30; Sun. 3
ends on Sept. 13, 2026
for tickets (starting at $15), visit Pacific Opera Project

for more shows, visit Theatre in LA

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