The Barber of Seville
Music by Gioacchino Rossini
Libretto by Cesare Sterbini
Based on Beaumarchais' Le Barbier de Séville
Stage Director, John Copley
Conductor, Donato Renzetti
Lyric Opera of Chicago
A review of the performance on Feb. 29, 2008
Imagine your own coiffeur being a master of deception, an artful manipulator, a charismatic factotum who brings frustrated young lovers together as confidently as he draws a razor up the lathered neck of a patron in his chair. Our Figaro is a tonsorial artist of quality, or so he boasts, whose various skills everyone is seeking, day and night, men and women, young and old. It's too bad he can't be everywhere at once, poor fellow.
Rossini's The Barber of Seville is opera buffa at its wittiest and most entertaining, despite the conventional plot in which a young couple in love overcome obstacles on their way to happiness, and further despite its stock characters from commedia dell'arte, such as the bumptious, crafty servant and the lecherous, greedy old man. Like much of Rossini's music, operatic or not, Barber is irrepressibly melodious. Its rhythms are aggressive, its harmonies delicious, and its textures rich. Its tongue-twisters, which challenge not only the singer's tongue but also the listener's ear, are astounding. And that distinctive Rossini crescendo, the man's signature in sound, blows in like a fortuitous wind to whip our anticipation into a rising spiral.
At February 29th's performance of Barber at Lyric Opera, the principals sang their roles with zest and polish. Trills and patters were masterful. With only one exception, they gave their characters vivid personalities and found the humor in both libretto and score, while resisting the temptation to rely on slapstick for laughs. The bright colors of the sets, inspired by the surrealist paintings of René Magritte, stoked the energetic mood.
Nathan Gunn cut a Figaro that was dashing and buoyant, but somewhat self-possessed. From the moment he rose from his bed wearing only a pair of shorts, and introduced himself as the barber of quality in "Largo al factotum", he had the audience on a hook. Of course, next to Beethoven's 5th Symphony, this aria may have the most famous opening measures in all of classical music, thanks to a crazy rabbit. Exuding cool bravado, Gunn's stage persona was magnetic and his baritone voice strong, but I can't say that either his musical creativity with "Largo" or his singing in general was extraordinary, at least vis-à-vis other baritones I've heard in this role.
As Almaviva, John Obsorn delivered a sparkling lyric tenor, which, unfortunately, dimmed at the low end of his tessitura. Nevertheless, he negotiated Rossini's vocal twists and turns with precision. His versatility was impressive, given that he had to play a character who himself impersonated three others: a lovesick student, a drunken soldier, and a music teacher. The third of those he carried off particularly well, with delightful exaggeration of the masquerade.
Joyce DiDonato was so natural in the role of Rosina that one can hardly believe that a judge at a singing competition in London once dismissed her as having "nothing to offer as an artist" (Opera News, Oct. 2007). DiDonato crafted a seductive and self-confident Rosina, despite her facade of naivete, who understood both her cultural imperative to be "innocent" and her personal imperative to be circumspect. DiDonato's execution of coloratura passages was dynamic and clean, a good example being "Una voce poco fa". This aria has a pivotal word, "ma" ("but"), which reveals the fact that Rosina has a limit on how much mistreatment she'll tolerate from others, and that she's willing to lower herself to their level if they violate that limit. DiDonato respected this tiny but powerful syllable and gave it the unique musical and theatrical emphasis it deserves.
Some singers who assume the role of Dr. Bartolo fashion him into a delusional nitwit. Andrew Shore, however, took the character in a different direction, with less bombast and with more sympathy for the man's dignity. Shore's flair for comedy still gave us a laughably self-important old man, but one whose human foibles were recognizable -- even a little pathetic.
Wayne Tigges chose not to make his Basilio either dour or macabre, or even eccentric. Instead, Tigges' Basilio was rather ordinary. Nevertheless, his booming bass-baritone filled the hall, and the darkness of his tone was a pleasure to the ears. Tigges' legato gave his music sleek contours without compromising his articulation in the faster or more staccato passages.
Despite having a smaller role, Lauren Curnow played Berta the maid sensuously and with vivacity. She seemed to have fun with the part, an impression that brought loud approval from the audience.
Like Curnow, Daniel Billings came across as enjoying his smaller role as Fiorello. Given that this character appears very early in the story, the performance can warm an audience's expectations or chill them. Billings understood this and imbued Fiorello with energy as he took the lead in bringing conviviality to the scene.
In its time, Beaumarchais' Figaro trilogy was considered seditious for questioning the social order, i.e., for promoting egalitarianism, for showing servants to be smarter than their masters, for championing love as a good reason for marriage, and so forth. What does it say about the skill of a composer and his librettist that an opera can transcend 200 years of cultural evolution and be enjoyed by an out-of-context modern audience? Congratulations to Lyric Opera for doing justice to Rossini and to his listeners.