The Barber of Seville, English Touring Opera, review

The most striking feature of this otherwise pleasant but unremarkable production of Rossini’s The Barber of Seville is one that you shouldn’t really notice – the text is sung in English, in a good translation by David Parry, without the aid of surtitles.

Twenty years ago this may have been the norm, but today it’s a very rare state of affairs, and the admirable ease and clarity with which the singers projected on this occasion reminded me that we have come to rely too much on the crutch of the written word and not enough on our own ears. Because we are all aurally lazy, we love surtitles. But the truth is that they prevent the drama from communicating with the immediacy that the composer intended.

There isn’t much else to say about English Touring Opera’s staging. The director Thomas Guthrie and his designer Rhys Jarman have given the setting a traditional presentation evocative of 18th-century Seville, and the commedia dell’arte farce in which the young outwit the old is enacted with good humour by a well-rehearsed cast.

It could have been pushed a bit harder: had Rosina been cattier, Don Basilio more reptilian, Figaro more noisily plebeian, I think the laughs would have been louder and more frequent. But Guthrie’s approach keeps it all gently amiable, and I am sure audiences around the country will come away satisfied if not enthralled.

Paul McGrath conducts a responsive small orchestra with a light touch and a nice sense of phrase. There were moments when I felt he could have risked faster tempos, but on a first night, I suppose that his priority was keeping the ensemble firm – an aim he achieved.

Kitty Whately, the laureate in last year’s Ferrier competition, sang with style and grace as Rosina. Her voice is on the small side, but disciplined by a firm technique, and she has a winning stage personality. Nicholas Sharratt had a fair stab at Almaviva’s serenade and the high-lying virtuoso aria in Act 2. Andrew Slater and Alan Fairs did the comic business as the silly old fools Bartolo and Basilio.

The one slight disappointment was Grant Doyle, whose Figaro seemed under-par and stolidly lacking in the character’s youthful animal energy. If his tralalalala opening aria doesn’t kick up a storm and light the audience up, the opera never takes wing, and I fear that was rather the case here.

Touring until 25 May. Details: englishtouringopera.org.uk