Reviews 2005
Reviews 2005
✭✭✭✭✩
by Francisco Asenjo Barbieri, directed by Guillermo Silva-Marin
Toronto Operetta Theatre, Jane Mallett Theatre, Toronto
February 18-20, 2005
"¡Olé! for El Barberillo"
With its production of Francisco Asenjo Barbieri’s zarzuela “El Barberillo de Lavapiés”, the Toronto Operetta Theatre has added another feather to its cap. The TOT has presented excerpts of zarzuelas or zarzuelas semi-staged with piano accompaniment, but this TOT production marks the first appearance in Canada of a fully-staged zarzuela with orchestra. The event is important enough as a milestone in Canadian music theater history, but the fact that the show proves to be highly enjoyable on its own is even more important. Toronto owes the TOT a debt of gratitude for opening a window onto what for many will be an unfamiliar musical genre.
Like the German “Singspiel” or French “opéra comique”, the Spanish zarzuela alternates song with spoken dialogue. Unlike its German and French counterparts, however, the zarzuela has a much longer history extending back to back to 1657 when a comedy by Pedro Calderón de la Barca, with music by Juan de Hidalgo was performed for Philip IV of Spain and his court. The new genre became known as La Zarzuela after one of the king's hunting lodges surrounded by “zarzas” or bramble bushes. Francisco Asenjo Barbieri (1823-94) began the revival of the zarzuela in the 19th century to counteract the influence Italian opera with a uniquely Spanish musical form.
“El Barberillo de Lavapiés” (1874) is considered Barbieri’s greatest comic zarzuela. Set in the low class Lavapiés district of Madrid in the time of Carlos III (1759-1788), the operetta tells two parallel love stories. On the one hand, Lamparilla, the “little barber” of the title, is in love with the seamstress La Paloma, whose devotion to the Virgin and her doves seems to preclude the idea of marriage. Meanwhile, Estrella, the Marchioness of Bierzo, lady-in-waiting to the Infanta and friend of La Paloma, is in love with Don Luis. The problem is that Estrella is part of a conspiracy plotting the downfall of Grimaldi, the repressive Chief Minister of Spain, and Don Luis is his nephew. The fact that Estrella can tell Don Luis so little of her doings only makes him increasingly jealous.
A serious political storyline is characteristic of zarzuela, but that doesn’t prevent the music from being joyous. One Spanish dance-inspired melody follows the next seeming to grow only more inventive and infectious as the operetta progresses. Baritone Alexander Dobson has always made a good impression in minor roles, but the role of Lamparilla really gives him a chance to shine. He is naturally at home on stage and his ebullient good humour enlivens every scene. Add to that the resonance and unerring precision and vigour of his singing and one could hardly imagine the role better played. If any one performance gives the work its zest it is his.
Mezzo Gisele Fredette as La Paloma was clearly under the weather and her voice grew hoarser and weaker throughout the show. But, trooper that she is, she projects much of La Paloma’s genial nature through the sheer force of her personality.
Last year soprano Meredith Hall and tenor Colin Ainsworth took a break from their usual realm of baroque opera to enliven the TOT production of Calixa Lavalée’s operetta “The Widow” with their highly cultured voices. This year they return to play Estrella and Don Luis to great effect. Hall displays her usual purity of tone and clarity of diction, but the stunner of the evening is her duet with Fredette “Aquí estoy ya vestida” in which La Paloma instructs the noblewoman how to act like a commoner. Here Hall unexpectedly deploys a lustrous lower register of surpassing beauty and allure. Her baroque repertoire so favours sparking heights, this is the first time we’ve had a chance to hear these enchanting depths. Ainsworth displays his usual crystalline tone and proves himself a fine actor. It’s too bad Barbieri didn’t think to give this ambiguous character a solo aria, but he did provide some compensation in the lovely duet for Estrella and Luis, “En una casa solariega”.
Sean Curran as Don Juan, a co-conspirator with Estrella, is much more effective as an actor than as a singer, while Arlene Alvarado and Tamara Rusque as two of La Paloma’s seamstresses lend their lovely voices to a seductive ode in praise of camisoles that opens Scene 2 of Act 2.
Multi-talented TOT Artistic Director Guillermo Silva-Marin not only directed the show, but translated the dialogue and designed the set and the very effective lighting. The set, consisting of seven unframed doors, is one of the cleverest ever seen at the TOT. What one feature is most essential to a tale of spies and counterspies but doors to be searched or hidden behind? Silva-Marin uses them to great effect on the many occasions Grimaldi’s Walloon guards invade the district in search of conspirators. Conductor José Hernández led the 11-member band in his own special orchestration of the score bringing out all of its verve and rhythmic vivacity.
In the programme Silva-Marin lists at least ten more classic zarzuelas he is interested in. Let’s hope the success of “El Barberillo” encourages the TOT to explore more examples of the genre, an enterprise that would both educate and delight by providing the Toronto music scene with even greater variety.
©Christopher Hoile
Note: This review is a Stage Door exclusive.
Photo: Kate Pokrandt, Alexander Dobson, Matthew Zadow, Geoff Stevens, Gisele Fredette and Darrell Hicks.
2005-03-03
El Barberillo de Lavapiés