DCist Goes to the Opera: 'Barber of Seville'
Cast of "The Barber of Seville," Washington National Opera, 2009 (photo by Karin Cooper)
True, David Gately's production hardly qualifies as original, with pretty enough sets (designed by Allen Moyer) and costumes (James Scott), somewhat updated from the 1995 premiere and 2001 revival, placing the action in the late 18th or early 19th century, but it is a mostly pleasing if very traditional evening.
Gately's forte is the acting direction, and he makes every character's gestures and movement make sense with the details of the storyline. Sometimes he takes this attention to detail to a fault, exaggerating the "freeze frame" effects of the Rossinian finale, for example, with a slow-motion farce at the end of the first act, way over the top. He also makes Figaro, the fast-talking factotum who takes more credit for the opera's happy outcome than is really due him, into an actual all-powerful puppet master, a stand-in for the director himself, literally staging many of the scenes, posing the characters and putting props into their hands. The opera is, it's true, mildly amusing but the sense of forced hilarity, the kind that makes one's smiling muscles hurt from over-exertion, at times rang false.
The main reason to see this production is the chance to hear the opera in something resembling its original form, with Count Almaviva's demanding Act II aria Cessa di più resistere restored. As described by Richard Osborne in his Rossini biography, the opera's premiere, in 1816 at Rome's Teatro Argentina, was a notorious fiasco in terms of stage accidents and lack of singer preparation. At many subsequent performances, and most modern ones, directors and conductors cut this aria. Rossini himself approved of the excision, but unwilling to let the music be wasted, reworked the aria twice, most famously as "Non più mesta," the tour de force that concludes La Cenerentola and also as "Ah, non potrian resistere" in Le nozze di Teti e di Peleo.
L to R: Simone Alberghini (Figaro), Lawrence Brownlee (Almaviva), and Silvia Tro Santafé (Rosina) in "The Barber of Seville," Washington National Opera, 2009 (photo by Karin Cooper)
The rest of the cast was certainly fine, beginning first and foremost with the robust voice of Eric Owens as a kleptomaniacal Don Basilio. As Rosina, Spanish mezzo-soprano Silvia Tro Santafé had a durable, leathery sound, her wide vibrato troublesome only in a few spots that required smoother legato singing. In terms of the clarity of her runs and other passage work, she was a good match for Brownlee. Italian baritone Simone Alberghini was a charming, funny Figaro, with some potent high notes but a tendency to muck up the more demanding melismatic passages. The appeal of Donata DiStefano's Doctor Bartolo was more comedic than vocal, as he slurred and mugged his way through a role that fortunately does not require that much beautiful singing.
The other musical star of the evening was young conductor Michele Mariotti, in his first appearance with Washington National Opera. The talented Italian has Rossini credentials, going back to his studies at the Conservatorio Rossini in Pesaro, and indeed made his opera conducting debut with Barber in 2005. He had an elegant, patrician presence on the podium, conducting with clear, smooth gestures that instantly righted the many passages in this opera where orchestra or singers tend to rush and get off from one another. The WNO orchestra has rarely sounded this unified and rhythmically tight -- and in good intonation (except for a few spots early in the overture) and balance -- in recent memory.
Five more performances of The Barber of Seville remain, from this evening through Sunday (September 15 to 20, various times). Tickets are still available for all performances.