
Gabriel Bacquier
1924 - 2020Don Pasquale
Kirk Browning, John Dexter
Gabriel Bacquier, Beverly Sills
This John Dexter production, designed by Desmond Heeley, was a parting gift to the great American soprano Beverly Sills, who bid farewell to the Met as Norina, the smart young widow at the center of Donizetti’s comedy. The sensational Alfredo Kraus sings her beloved Ernesto. Håkan Hagegård, in his Met debut role and season, is Dr. Malatesta, the man who helps the young couple trick the crusty old bachelor of the title (Gabriel Bacquier at his comical best) into a fake marriage. This being a Donizetti comedy, it all turns out perfectly well at the end—and getting there is pure operatic fun.
Don Pasquale
The Metropolitan Opera: Don Giovanni
Kirk Browning
Joan Sutherland, James Morris
Imbuing the familiar Don Juan myth with a captivating combination of comedy, seductiveness, danger, and damnation, Mozart created an enduring masterpiece that has been a cornerstone of the repertory since its 1787 premiere. An early entry in the Met’s series of PBS telecasts, this 1978 performance captures a young James Morris in a smooth portrayal of the title role, with the legendary Joan Sutherland showing off her unsurpassed technique as Donna Anna and Gabriel Bacquier as a masterful Leporello.
The Metropolitan Opera: Don Giovanni
Manon of the Spring
Claude Berri
Yves Montand, Daniel Auteuil
In this, the sequel to Jean de Florette, Manon has grown into a beautiful young shepherdess living in the idyllic Provencal countryside. She plots vengeance on the men who greedily conspired to acquire her father's land years earlier.
Manon of the Spring
The Love for Three Oranges
Gabriel Bacquier, Jean-Luc Viala
With neat, plain building-block designs by Jacques Rapp, Louis Erlo's energetically-staged production of Prokofiev's surreal fairy-tale for the Lyon Opera is full of cartoon characters and swift farce. Based on a play by Carlo Gozzi, "L'Amour des Trois Oranges" tells the story of a doleful, hypochondriac Prince, who can only be cured through laughter. When he breaks into hysterics at the expense of the evil witch Fata Morgana, she curses him. His fate is to fall in love with three oranges
The Love for Three Oranges
Falstaff
Götz Friedrich
Gabriel Bacquier, Richard Stilwell
This performance, and the film that documents it, is superb! From its comically vulgar opening in the Garter Inn, where we are introduced to a rotund (and slightly pathetic) Falstaff - in a richly nuanced performance by baritone Gabriel Bacquier cocooned in prosthetic girth (his face is too thin for the enormity to be real) - to the supremely beautiful nocturnal magic of the Finale in Windsor Park, Solti is lovingly accompanied by the sublime Vienna Philharmonic. They play with such delicacy and elan what is an undeniably delicate score, that I lost myself in the instrumentation, forgot it was Verdi, thought it was Mozart, and couldn't remember which Mozartean Opera this was. The woodwinds and strings are singled out for special praise: perfect intonation and phrasing doesn't begin to do them justice. They breathe life into this score, propel it forward, act as a Chorus commenting on the action.
Falstaff