Word: buoso
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Even so, the action is limp through the first ten minutes or so. While the house lights are still up, old Buoso Donati shuffles to his desk and conspicuously examines his will before collapsing into bed and dying, coughing and hacking exaggeratedly all the while--and inauspicious beginning...
This coarse pantomime misses the comic brio of buffa; instead we have the self-conscious and self-subverting irony of a "Saturday Night Live" sketch. The chaotic ensemble action of the first scene--where the various members of Buoso's family mourn his death only because they fear disinheritance--is only a slight improvement...
...include a potentially hilarious scene with the Bolognese doctor, and the satirically repeated invocation of Simone's gravitas because he "was once Mayor of Fucecchio" slips by unnoticed. In contrast, Gianni's fingerless salute is just as funny the thirdtime 'round as the first. In addition, thepresence of Buoso's corpse allows for a nicecoup de theatre during the confusion of thelawyer's visit in the opera's final minutes...
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