✭✭✭✩✩
<b>by Gioacchino Rossini, directed by Joan Font
Canadian Opera Company, Four Seasons Centre, Toronto
April 17-May 22, 2015
</b>
“This <i>Barber</i> Has a Dull Edge”
The Canadian Opera Company’s new production of <i>The Barber of Seville </i>(1816) featured some lovely singing but was otherwise dull and unengaging. The problem was that Spanish director Joan Font and his production team, known collectively as “Els Comediants”, tried so hard to make the work funny by adding their own feeble visual jokes that they smothered the work’s abundant inherent humour. At the same time conductor Rory Macdonald seemed so intent on obtaining a big luscious sound from the orchestra that the score loss its natural effervescence.
The libretto based on <i>Le Barbier de Seville</i> (1775) by Pierre Caron de Beaumarchais (1732-99), the first of his trilogy of plays about the wily barber Figaro that continues with <i>Le Mariage de Figaro</i> (1784), that became the basis for the famous Mozart opera of 1786, and <i>La Mère coupable</i> (1792). The simple plot involves the love of Count Almaviva for the fair Rosina, ward of the jealous Dr. Bartolo who keeps her virtually as a prisoner in his house. Almaviva wants Rosina to love him for himself, not for his rank or wealth, and therefore woos her under the name Lindoro. Since his nightly serenades are not getting him any closer to Rosina, he needs some way to find a way into the house to speak to her directly rather than via letters as they have been doing.
Figaro hears of Almaviva’s plight and since he works as the stingy Bartolo’s factotum, he thinks of two ways to get Almaviva into the house. The first is to have Almaviva disguise himself as a drunken soldier who has orders to be billeted with Bartolo. When that plan goes awry, Figaro has Almaviva disguise himself as Don Alonso, the apprentice to Don Basilio, Rosina’s music teacher. Almaviva can enter under the pretence of replacing the supposedly ill Basilio. Time is of the essence since Bartolo has plans to wed Rosina himself as soon as possible.
Macdonald’s interpretation of the overture is one of the most bizarre I have ever heard. It is so heavy and doom-laden, it could serve to introduce a tragic opera like Verdi’s <i>La Forza del destino</i>. Throughout the rest of the work, Macdonald encourages slower-than-normal tempi and leaden pacing. In the period before intermission there seemed to be a battle between the orchestra and the singers for dominance, with the 52-piece orchestra winning several skirmishes. After intermission the balance improved between the pit and stage though the lightness and grace one associates with Rossini never made an appearance.
The design was marked by a conflict between the set and the costumes. For the street scene of Act 1, Joan Guillén’s unattractive set shows us a large triangular framework wrapped in white fabric, meant to represent a barbershop, opposite a large rectangular framework wrapped in black fabric meant to be Dr. Bartolo’s house. Albert Faura’s lighting allowed us to peer inside these buildings at the whim of the director. After the street scene the black rectangle pushes the white triangle aside and reveals its reverse side, the interior of Bartolo’s house, oddly reflective of 1960s Scandinavian spareness and apparently furnished by IKEA. The set was dominated by an enormous pink triangular piano-cum-desk-cum-bar with a keyboard of at least 176 keys. Font forced the action to take place almost exclusively around this huge “piano” situated on stage left by moving the singers around and often on top of it, leaving stage right underused.
Guillén’s costumes, in contrast, are based primarily on typical 19th-century Spanish outfits with short jackets and toreador pants for the men, but built of fabrics on a non-traditional palette of intense pastels. The exception to this style is Rosina’s knee-length white dress with a hoop in its hem that seemed to place her in the early 1960s. Font claims in his “Director’s Notes” that “The idea behind our Barber is timeless; it is not located in a specific space... The action of the opera ... could well happen in the 19th century or in today’s Toronto”. Someone needs to inform Font that he has a rather inaccurate view of Toronto. Guardians are not allowed to marry their wards here, very few people have a staff of personal servants anymore and when royals appear it is usually with much fanfare.
Font employes eleven non-singing actors whose main function seems to be to distract us from the singers. Font strangely does nothing to interfere with the harpsichord-accompanied recitatives only to unleash a host of gimmickry once an aria begins. For Figaro’s famous “Largo al factotum,” Font decides to illustrate the lyrics by introducing five extras dressed like Figaro all engaged in various dramas simultaneously on stage. Of course, rather than illustrating the lyrics, all this pointless activity distracts one’s attention from the aria itself. For Don Basilio’s “La calunnia,” Font has his extras dress an actor standing on the “piano” only to pull off his clothing with strings at the end, thus effectively shifting focus away from the singer the entire time. For conclusion of “Contro un cor che accende amore,” Font has Rosina and Almaviva climb into the “piano” whose open lid is shaped like the sail of a boat. Just as Rosina nears the end of the aria, he has Almaviva pull out an oar and start rowing the sailboat, thus eliciting peals of laughter that cover the singer’s final notes.
The most laborious example occurs just before the famous septet “Fredda ed immobile come una statua”. The police arrive at Dr, Bartolo’s house because of complaints of noise and see an argument with a drunken soldier in progress. While the performers are singing, Font has the actors as servants busy themselves with a huge chandelier on top of the “piano”. Inexplicably the police chief orders the servants to hoist the chandelier while of the servants is still on it – ha ha. Then during the septet, Font has the servant on the chandelier fool perilously with its bulbs (not candles) until just at the end of the chorus the chandelier falls, almost crashing onto the “piano” – ha ha, again. As with all of his added comedy, Font forces our eyes to look away from the singers to actions taking place elsewhere on stage, in this case in mid air. Obviously, Font believes that what he is doing is more interesting than what the singers are doing – rather the contrary of what one would look for in an opera director.
Despite this, the cast did remarkably well in holding their own. The revelation of the evening was the Rosina of Italian mezzo Serena Malfi. Gorgeous, velvety, strong and agile, Malfi’s voice made each of Rosina’s arias from “Una voce poco fa” onwards a gleaming thing of beauty amidst the chaos of the staging. Her natural acting style created an immediate bond with the audience that lasted the length of the opera.
This production marked the first time a Toronto audience has heard Canadian baritone Joshua Hopkins in one of his signature roles. An excellent actor with an ebullient stage presence, Hopkins played Figaro as Puckish figure, mischievous but somehow innocent as the same time. His voice has a warm, creamy quality like caramel that is also incredibly nimble and full of vitality.
Italian baritone Renato Girolami was clearly an old hand at playing the suspicious older men of opera like Dr. Bartolo. Unlike some specialists in this line, his characterization was fresh and devoid of shtick. He wielded an impressively rich voice and was adept at rapid-fire patter songs. As Don Basilo, Canadian bass Robert Gleadow, though burdened with the large false nose of the <i>Dottore</i> of <i>commedia dell’arte</i>, delivered a forcefully sung “La calunnia” without the vocal quirks so many Basilios add to it. Aviva Fortunata, blessed with a full, rich soprano, gave such a fine account of Berta’s “Il vecchiotto cerca moglie” one wished Rossini had given her character a larger role.
The one vocal disappointment was the Almaviva of America tenor Alek Shrader. A fine actor who threw himself fully into Almaviva’s disguises as a drunken soldier and Don Alonso, Shrader had a tenor best appreciated in the recitatives where it did not have to combat the full force of the orchestra. Marked with a rapid vibrato his voice became increasing pinched and nasal in its upper register and simultaneously lost its power to project.
This new COC <i>Barber</i> is a coproduction with Houston Grand Opera, Opéra National de Bordeaux and Opera Australia. Four companies now are stuck with a production which is yet another example of a director and design team so pleased with their own cleverness they care little whether it impinges on our appreciation of the singing or on presenting the opera’s story clearly. It’s too bad there was no Figaro early on to take his razor to such Bartolo-like hubris.
Almaviva, Rosina, Bartolo and Basilio are sung by other performers on May 9, 19 and 21. On May 15 the COC Ensemble Studio takes over the roles and the performance is offered at a discounted price. Consult <a href="http://www.coc.ca">www.coc.ca</a> for complete information.
©Christopher Hoile
Note: A version of this review will appear in <i>Opera News</i> later this year.
Photos: (from top) Renato Girolami, Clarence Frazer, Alek Shrader, Aviva Fortunata, Serena Malfi and Joshua Hopkins; the COC Chorus and Alek Shrader as Almaviva; Joshua Hopkins as Figaro and Serena Malfi as Rosina. ©2015 Michael Cooper.
For tickets, visit <a href="http://www.coc.ca">www.coc.ca</a>.
<b>2015-04-19</b>
<b>The Barber of Seville</b>