Pittsburgh Opera shines in season-opening 'Barber of Seville'
Laughter reigns at the Benedum Center this week, as Pittsburgh Opera opens its season with a brilliant production of "The Barber of Seville."
The company offers a smart modern take on the classic comedy -- an earthy and hilarious staging conceived by John Copley and using colorful sets and costumes inspired by French surrealist painter Rene Magritte, along with the wise and witty conducting of Julius Rudel and an exceptionally strong cast of singers.
The opera is based on the first of a trilogy of plays by Jean-Augustin Beaumarchais. Figaro is the barber of Seville, an ambitious man who is a facilitator for lovers and much else. In "The Barber of Seville," Figaro helps young Count Almaviva win Rosina, 19-year-old ward of fat, old Dr. Bartolo, who covets her. Intrigues and misunderstandings are fodder for comedy -- at least onstage -- and the play and opera abound in opportunities for inventive details.
The surrealism of the staging, complete with chairs hanging in mid-air and raining men, provides a cheerful environment for comic exaggeration. When Figaro shaves Dr. Bartolo, bald head as well as face, he puts on so much shaving creme the doctor might as well have been hit with a creme pie.
Yet the jokes are more than bits. Figaro's arched pose at the start of his most famous aria leads to one of the evening's many high points. Earle Partriarco as Figaro dresses while he sings "Largo, al factotum," the aria in which he tells almost breathlessly how he is here and there and everywhere. Patriarco commanded the stage, showing equal facility for rapid patter and grand gesture and especially a talent for physical humor.
Kevin Glavin was a brilliant comic bass, once again, as Dr. Bartolo. The local singer sang extremely well with plenty of volume, employing a wide array of vocal gestures from the ultra-clipped delivery of words at the end of a phrase to soaring frustration.
The two lovers were very good. Almavivas often begin slowly, as tenor Paul Austin Kelly did Saturday night. But he warmed up quickly and was in the fine voice for his second serenade. He was physically exuberant and excellent in his disguises.
Mezzo-soprano Paula Rasmussen was a superb Rosina. Her voice has welcome warmth, even plushness, yet her agility was impressive, too. Her coloratura wasn't merely technical singing -- she accented flurries of notes for dramatic purpose.
Burak Bilgili was flexibility itself as music master Don Basilio, whose conducting gyrations at the end of Act II had many in the audience in stitches.
Suzanna Guzman's portrayal of Berta was especially impressive. Her only aria is in the last act, and sings of the foolishness of love and her despair as an older woman of finding it. It was typical of the production's sense of dramatic gesture that when Guzman comes to her desires, she takes off her dowdy nightgown to reveal her true nature with a bright red dress.
Conductors usually are seen but not heard; however, Julius Rudel added crisp and knowing performance at the harpsichord to his admirably clear baton work. Rudel, 82, set smart tempi; everything had pace. A tempo that might sound slow at first proved not to be dragging, because Rudel knows what space is needed later in the number for Rossini's extra gestures to tell.
Beyond tempi, however, Rudel's sense of balances was unfailingly just and considerate of the singers. Above all, Rudel's conducting made the music live -- really grow and develop as it progresses. He challenged the orchestra to phrase and give the music significance with moments of unexpected and welcome warmth as well as to project boldly extroverted personality.
The orchestra was fairly small, but the string section was generally agile if not exemplary in ensemble. However, the uneven quality within the woodwind section was apparent.
Rossini's "The Barber of Seville" is one of the few comic operatic masterpieces, but it takes a brilliant performance such as Pittsburgh Opera is offering to gratify an audience the way people were at the Benedum Saturday night.
Pittsburgh Opera's production of "The Barber of Seville" continues at 7 p.m. Tuesday, 8 p.m. Friday and Oct. 17, and 2 p.m. Sunday and Oct. 19 at the Benedeum Center, Seventh Street, Downtown. Tickets: $16 to $115. (412) 456-6666 or www.pittsburghopera.org.
