The Barber is back at the Coliseum

Rossini wrote 39 operas, including several serious ones, but as Beethoven said to him when they met in Vienna in 1822, “Give us plenty of Barbers.” Serious opera (opera seria in the eighteenth century) had a strictly conventional form, but comic opera allowed more leeway. Rossini’s The Barber of Seville is closely based on a French play of 1772 by Pierre Beaumarchais, originally conceived as an opéra comique with a spoken dialogue and accompanying music.

Some ten years later it was turned into a comic opera, first by Paisiello for the court at St Petersburg, where Catherine the Great had admired the Beaumarchais play. Rossini’s opera followed in 1816, when it had its premiere in Rome. It has been a firm favourite of opera-lovers ever since. This ENO production, created by Jonathan Miller and revived for the third time by Peter Relton, looks as fresh as ever. Despite the opera’s familiarity, some of its wittiest stage moments are quite unexpected.

As the ever-resourceful Barber himself, the British baritone Charles Rice was magnificent and his first big aria (Largo al factotum) generated huge applause. The singing was in English, as is normal at the ENO, and the excellent diction made surtitles almost unnecessary. Anna Devin as Rosina is fast making a serious career for herself. Here she showed incisive vocal technique and her characterisation of the role is a delight — this was a pretty minx you would not want to cross. Her guardian, the pompous Dr Bartolo, who secretly plans to marry her himself, was superbly played by bass-baritone Simon Bailey, with Alastair Miles returning to the bass role of his friend Don Basilio.

What initially attracts Rosina is the voice of her secret admirer (her una voce poco fa was delightfully sung), who pretends to be a poor student. He later turns out to be Count Almaviva, and was engagingly performed by South African tenor Innocent Masuku, showing deft vocal control. Disguised as a drunken officer to get into the Bartolo house (a device from the Italian Commedia dell’arte tradition), he showed admirable restraint in a situation that can go over the top in other hands.

When the real army arrives, this production gives us pure Gilbert and Sullivan. Only towards the end of the performance did I feel there might be too much slapstick, but the evergreen Lesley Garrett (who sang Rosina twenty-five years ago in this same production) showed subtle wit in her down-to-earth portrayal of Bartolo’s maid Berta.

Holding all this together from the orchestra pit, and making a fine ENO debut, was the young American conductor Roderick Cox. His tempo changes kept the drama moving forward with great energy. Altogether, it was a treat to see this wonderful Jonathan Miller production of the Barber return to the Coliseum.

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