Barber of Seville review: Rossini opera blunted by bluster

We’re sorry, this feature is currently unavailable. We’re working to restore it. Please try again later.

Advertisement

This was published 8 years ago

Barber of Seville review: Rossini opera blunted by bluster

By Michael Shmith

OPERA
THE BARBER OF SEVILLE ★★1/2
Melbourne Opera
Athenaeum Theatre, until July 3


The Barber of Seville is many things, but above all, it must be dramatically stylish and musically precise, with its array of arias and ensembles and recitatives falling into place with immaculate timing. The night should float by. Rossini – indeed, Beaumarchais before him – intended it to be just that way.

This revival of Melbourne Opera's nine-year-old production of The Barber did not oblige. Instead, director Hugh Halliday fragmented the action into a series of comedy sketches, as if Benny Hill or the nudge-nudge-wink-wink man from Monty Python were prompting from the wings. Jiggery-pokery and faded old jokery were the order of the night, with non-stop pouts and shouts, funny dances and prances, falsetto voices, and a litany of single-entendres. The English translation, punctuated with frequent asides, ensured you knew exactly what the next rhyme was going to be. Hardly razor-sharp.

Many found all this amusing. I found it a long and tedious evening. Anna Cordingley's simple set – a little too exiguous for my taste – and Scott Allan's purposeful lighting both lacked sophistication.

Musically, things were not much better. Greg Hocking's routine conducting lacked elasticity and charm, with some ragged playing from the Melbourne Opera Orchestra (good continuo playing, though).

Singing was mixed. A good and lusty Barber from Phillip Calcagno, and a lyrical Almaviva from Brenton Spiteri. Sally-Anne Russell's pretty and busy Rosina was honeyed of tone, but her character too emphatically drawn: Rosina is not that vengeful or greedy or shrewish. Roger Howell's Bartolo and David Gould's Basilio generally blustered and blundered their way about. Jodie Debono's maid, Berta, did well, as did Michael Lampard, Richard Wilson and Nicholas Webb in smaller roles.

Ultimately, Rossini deserved better. He composed a comic opera, not a farce. At one stage, as the nine-man chorus pranced and danced and sang, my companion whispered, "Very Gilbert & Sullivan".

Most Viewed in Culture

Loading