Barber of Seville

We saw the Barber of Seville last night. It was a highly entertaining, hilarious, and musically creative opera. There were also many familiar musical moments that I had never before known were from this opera: this snippet from the overture and "Figaro, Figaro, Figarro!!!" for example.

The music ranged from Spanish-style serenades to four part rounds.The plot is basically another love story - Count Almaviva is serenading Rosina, the young, beautiful and wealthy ward of a nasty old doctor, Dr. Bartolo. Dr Bartolo keeps her inside and away from men at all times though, so this makes it difficult for the count. Plus the doctor wants to marry Rosina himself.

Enter Figaro, the friendly, neighborhood barber who does everything from shaves to teeth-pulling to helping arrange elopings. He helps the count come up with silly costumes and personas to gain access to the Bartolo residence. Hilarity ensues as the Count masquerades as a drunken soldier waving his sword around and claiming he must be quartered at the Doctor's house. He addresses the doctor as Dr Buffalo, Dr Barbaro, and so forth. The Doctor gets increasingly agitated. This costume doesn't work out in the end, so the Count tries pretending he is the substitute music teacher for Rosina. This works better, though the original music teacher shows up halfway through the lesson to much confusion.

The zany plot keeps up till the final scene, when the Count and Figaro have snuck into Rosina's bedroom, where she learns his true identity and they embrace (yes I neglected that the count pretends to be Lindoro, a poor student). They go to climb out the window again, but the ladder they climbed up is gone. Then the marriage notary shows up, to marry Rosina and the Doctor, but the Count and Rosina get married to each other instead. Then the Doctor rushes in. He accepts that he has been tricked, and that he practically forced them to get married because he had removed the ladder from the window and were stuck in the same room as the notary. Something like that.

The cast was very strong- Count Almaviva sang in a beautful tenor, plus he played a mean guitar while serenading Rosina. He also got to have a lot of fun with his various disguises - drunken solder, a nasal music teacher, etc. Figaro was a rich and strong baritone, and he was constantly hamming it up for the crowd and had the stage all to himself. Rosina had a great voice as well, but she didn't strike me quite as much as the others. Perhaps she was just outstaged by the outrageous antics of the Count and Figaro. All in all, this was a really fun opera and I won't hesitate to see this one again.

Santa Fe Opera The Barber of Seville Performance Dates: July 2, 8, 13, 22; August 1, 8, 13, 16, 19, 25