The Barber of Seville, ETO

English Touring Opera's new production of Barber of Seville is traditional with a twist

Style and grace: Kitty Whately as Rosina Photo: Alastair Muir

By John Allison

English Touring Opera’s spring season for 2012 is one of its strongest in recent years, consisting of two fine yet simple operatic roadshows. Alongside a revival of James Conway’s Eugene Onegin, memorable for its haunting symbolism, there’s a new and refreshingly straightforward Barber of Seville in which the director Thomas Guthrie aims for eye-catching clarity.

Traditional with a twist – bearded “ladies” suggest that Figaro will never lack for customers – the Rossini is costumed in period. Yet for all the attractive airiness of Rhys Jarman’s mint-green sets, it is the panache of the performers that will doubtless win new audiences on this long national tour.

A strongly communicative cast makes the case against surtitles by delivering David Parry’s translation with a clarity that compels the audience to sit up and listen.

Kitty Whately, last year’s Kathleen Ferrier Award laureate, is winningly cast here as a feisty Rosina. Her compact mezzo is glinting throughout its range. Nicholas Sharratt is similarly strong as Count Almaviva, with a plangent tenor capable of negotiating even “Cessa di più resistere” with pleasing ease – albeit slightly telescoped, as the long opera is wisely snipped here and there.

Grant Doyle’s Figaro, Andrew Slater’s Bartolo and Alan Fairs’s Basilio all display good comic timing. Paul McGrath’s conducting may have been a little measured on the first night at the Hackney Empire, but musical values are high.

ETO, to May 25, www.englishtouringopera.org.uk
 
This review also appears in Seven magazine, free with the Sunday Telegraph 
 
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Link to original review here 

OPERA REVIEW - ROSSINI’S THE BARBER OF SEVILLE, ENGLISH TOURING OPERA

Grant Doyle, Nicholas Sharratt and Kitty Whately

THIS spring English Touring Opera has made a welcome return to popular works with Rossini’s glorious crowd-pleaser The Barber Of Seville.

Even better, it is set in the original time and place: Seville in the 18th century; so you can sit back and enjoy, without having to analyse some obscure directorial concept.

Rossini was only 24 when the opera was premiered in 1816, but the inventive composer was already in full flower. Nothing else he wrote quite topped this energetic comedy, based on the Beaumarchais play that was a prequel to The Marriage Of Figaro. The young heiress Rosina is rescued from a forced marriage to her guardian and, with the help of the resourceful Figaro, marries Count Almaviva, the man she loves.

Director Tom Guthrie’s production opens to Rhys Jarman’s set of four house fronts designed to swivel into an interior.

A backcloth silhouette of Seville changes colour depending on the time of day. Almaviva arrives with a ragbag band of musicians to serenade Rosina, incarcerated in her guardian Dr Bartolo’s house.

The comedy thereafter is fast and furious. Andrew Slater’s Bartolo is a monstrous sawbones of a doctor who terrifies his patients. He is matched by Alan Fairs’s creepy Don Basilio. In the chaos caused by the arrival of the police to arrest the disguised Almaviva, Seville’s skyline tilts as if we are on a stormy sea, a topsy-turvy moment.

Kitty Whately, winner of the 2011 Kathleen Ferrier Award, is a sparkling Rosina, with a bright mezzo voice. Nicholas Sharratt’s Almaviva sails through the coloratura and the high Cs, even having a commendable stab at the often omitted aria “Cessa di piu resistere”, though he needs to correct his forward-leaning stance.

Grant Doyle keeps up the pace as the ubiquitous Figaro, as does the orchestra under Paul McGrath. The English translation dispenses with the usual surtitles. As all the cast have clear diction, this gives immediacy to the sung words.

ROSSINI'S THE BARBER OF SEVILLE

4/5


English Touring Opera
 (This week: Exeter Northcott: 01392 493493; then touring: englishtouringopera.org.uk)

Link to original review here

Review of The Barber of Seville - Hackney Empire

L-R: Grant Doyle (Figaro), Kitty Whately (Rosina), Nicholas Sharratt (Almaviva), Cheryl Enever (Berta), Andrew Slater (Bartolo), Alan Fairs (Basilio) English Touring Opera // Rossini, The Barber of Seville Photo credit: Richard Hubert Smith

The English Touring Opera’s production of the Barber of Seville, sung in English, tunes in to modern sensibilities whilst keeping to the original context of Rossini’s opera and Beaumarchais’ play. The Hackney Empire is a wonderful venue in which to see this interpretation, with its beautiful interior and proscenium arch to frame performance, and with an audience demographic that is democratic rather than cliquey. All of which ties in nicely with the ETO’s policy to produce opera’ for everyone’. Their programme description of opera in 19th C Italy as a bawdy night out with the crowd shouting, interrupting when displeased with the performance, reminds us of a requirement and expectation to entertain.

Kitty Whately is a spirited Rosina; a beautiful orphan with a large dowry. She is a pleasure to listen to and her slightly clipped enunciation accentuates the comedy at times. Nicholas Sharratt playing Count Almaviva is dulcet in tone and aura; a winning embodiment of the aristocrat who gets his way through wealth and position, but is entirely dependent on his former servant, now the Barber, Figaro, to achieve his ends, and blindingly led by his passion for Rosina. The somewhat conceited nature of his character comes through, as with the notion that Rosina should prove her love for his personality not his money, pitched against her predicament. The assuming of disguises is executed to great dramatic effect as he moves from poor student to drunken soldier to music tutor before revealing himself as the love struck Count. Rosina is to be forcibly married to her guardian the aged Dr Bartolo; Andrew Slater conveys Bortolo’s pomposity and frustration with particular flair. Bartolo shouts at his ward, keeps her locked away and covets her wealth (certainly in this production more than her youth and beauty). Grant Doyle as Figaro has huge presence and magnetism; he out performs everyone else as Figaro should; the servant who empowers the action and controls his aristocratic masters, and so called betters. Cheryl Enever as Berta, Alan Fairs as Don Basilio, and chorus members complete the vivacity of the piece. Conductor Paul McGrath leads the orchestra with aplomb, contributing greatly to the overall rousing delivery of the production.

Tuning in to modern sensibilities the issue of money is at the heart of this production. The Count can get what he wants by means of his wealth and Figaro will achieve this for him, for money. Ultimately Bortolo gets to keep Rosina’s dowry and does not rue the loss of his bride. The ardour of ‘young love’ between Count Almaviva and Rosina is comic and impulsive – for Rosina faced with the alternative of her curmudgeonly, cantankerous aged guardian, her will and drive to escape are highly believable. Director Tom Guthrie encapsulates his feeling about the opera as ‘A love story where an old man is scuppered by young love.’

The action is presented within picture tableaux scenes. The central backdrop of looming storm clouds changes colour with the mood and context of the storytelling and the set design has a Pop Art flavour, including Warhol coloured portraits of Bortolo and Comic Strip speech bubbles. The rich colour and fabric of the costumes adds to the upbeat flavour of the production.

The English Touring Opera is on national tour until the end of May with the Barber of Seville and Eugene Onegin in theatres and three other productions for children in schools, halls and studio theatres. Look out for their Autumn season.

Bryony Hegarty

http://englishtouringopera.org.uk/

Link to original review here

Review: The Barber of Seville

Written by Julia Rank

Before Count Almaviva became a baritone and a lecher, he was a tenor and bit of a stalker. As Rossini’s The Barber of Seville is an operatic adaptation of the first play in Beaumarchais’s Figaro trilogy, it’s hard not to make comparisons with Mozart’s version of its continuation, The Marriage of Figaro, which came 30 years earlier. The Count’s courtship of his Countess-to-be is much more conventional romantic comedy territory and I couldn’t help but find it less interesting than the dizzying plotting and mind games of Figaro – it isn’t often that a (sort-of) sequel is superior.
In farcical fairytale style, the fabulously wealthy and nobly-born Count Almaviva has fallen head-over-heels for the lovely heiress Rosina, confined to the house by her guardian Doctor Bartolo, who plans to marry her himself. With the help of his old acquaintance, town barber Figaro (is the guardian-ward relationship plus barber in Sweeney Todd mere coincidence?), Almaviva is able to don various disguises in order to win Rosina’s heart and steal her away from her protector cum gaoler – unsurprisingly, things don’t go quite according to plan.

Thomas Guthrie’s straightforward production for English Touring Opera features capable, strongly-sung individual performances, but, on the first night, there was a lack of chemistry and vitality that dragged out the three-hour running time (though it did perk up in the second half). Sung in English (which doesn’t do the all the repeated phrases many favours) with a libretto by David Parry, the decision not to use surtitles proves to be a mixed blessing: it’s quite liberating to be able to focus on what’s going on onstage without any distractions, but there are several sections that are fairly incomprehensible without them. The words in Bartolo’s patter arias get lost and the police skirmish that concludes the first half is all bit of a muddle.

Nicholas Sharratt is an affable Almaviva and Kitty Whately makes a pert, inquisitive and likable Rosina; in fact, she’s very much like Susanna, Figaro’s future bride, which makes me think that she and Figaro (played with natural authority by Grant Doyle), with whom she has more in common than the Count, should have ended up together. Andrew Slater enjoys most of the broadest comedy as the doddery old Bartolo with a haphazard medical style, scolding Rosina while brandishing his amputation saw.

There’s something quite suburban (that isn’t meant in a disparaging way) about Rhys Jarman’s easy-to-tour set, which uses flat boards representing houses and shops with light-up windows that turn inwards to become interiors. Against the silhouette of a cityscape with the man in the moon looking down, it has a cosy and slightly claustrophobic small town feel.

As the tour continues, the cast should ease into playing their characters in front of the audience. It’s a pleasure to see something other than panto in the Hackney Empire, which must be one of London’s most beautiful theatres, and adds up to a solid evening, if not the most exciting.

The Barber of Seville is touring until May 25. For full details, visit the English Touring Opera website.

ETO serve up classic comedy in The Barber of Seville

The Barber of Seville and Eugene Onegin, the two operas being toured by English Touring Opera this season, share two things: they are both highly melodic stalwarts of the repertoire, and their plots both revolve around the writing of love letters. Beyond that, however, they couldn't be more different: Onegin laden with angst and regret, and The Barber the most frivolous and frothiest of romantic comedies. Rossini's characters are straight out of commedia dell'arte (the old fool infatuated with a young girl, the scheming and boastful servant, the pretty but clever put-upon girl), and the action is there to match.

Thomas Guthrie's production for ETO, which opened last night at the Hackney Empire, is uncomplicated, uncontroversial and plays it solidly for laughs. It's helped by a great performance from the orchestra under Paul McGrath, who keeps everything light, upbeat and full of orchestral colour without overdoing the crescendi or the acceleration: the singers always have space to make their notes heard, even in the fast sections. From the very first notes of the overture, I was happy that the most was being made of Rossini's tuneful score.

All the roles were well sung. The strongest performance of the show was Andrew Slater's pompously self-important Dr. Bartolo. Slater was powerful in the slower passages and with perfectly controlled articulation in the rapid-fire basso buffo numbers; he commanded the stage and the action right until the point at the end when he is finally discomfited. Grant Doyle was an engaging Figaro, and seemed to lift Nicholas Sharratt as Almaviva, who was at his best in the duets between master and servant. Alan Fairs was splendidly amusing in Don Basilio's big number about slander, and Kitty Whately was an appealing Rosina. Comic acting was excellent throughout. The production has many amusing bits of invention (I loved the conceit that the soldiers in Act I are wounded and that Dr. Bartolo is having to operate on them – incompetently, of course) and it was notable how well the singers combined with the orchestra to bring out Rossini's many musical gags.

Translating opera is an unforgiving business. David Parry's translation does an excellent job: the dialogue is in clear language which is modern without sounding forced or anachronistic and makes use of lots of rhyme to add comic effect. It does lose out in some of the word-setting: when (in Figaro's opening introduction to himself) "di qualità" is translated as "par excellence", it makes perfect sense and is thoroughly good-humoured, but the last syllable is almost impossible to sing. Broadly, the cast did well with it: surtitles were not used, but most of the words were understandable, apart from in the big ensemble pieces in which everyone is singing at the same time.

Given the constraints of requiring sets that can pack up flat into the back of a truck, Rhys Jarman's designs were impressive. Large panels shifted around the stage to produce rooms in Bartolo's house or the street; the panels and a painted backdrop of a cloudy skyline were cleverly lit to produce different times of day.

If you come to this production looking for the cutting edge of opera, you're in the wrong show. The Barber of Seville comes from a period of opera in which the conventions were well understood – recitatives, cavatinas, duets/trios and big chorus numbers are clearly delineated and easy to follow, and the different stock roles are immediately familiar. This production isn't taking any risks; rather, it renders a well-beloved work faithfully, inventively and humourously. If you want to hear classic comic opera or simply want some lovely music and an evening's escape, I can't think of better.

David Karlin

The Barber of Seville

by Graham Rogers

Rossini’s effervescent masterpiece The Barber of Seville is usually an enjoyable experience - but this new English Touring Opera production, with David Parry’s lively translation, is more fun than most.

Director Thomas Guthrie has an instinct for delicious humour. Hilarious conspiratorial touches, such as the pit orchestra striking up before the stage ‘musicians’ have begun to play, deserve all the laughs they get.

Grant Doyle’s charismatic Figaro is a delight, and Andrew Slater’s Bartolo an essay in comic timing. His tone-deaf rendition of a trite song to Rosina is priceless, and his marvellously clear patter leaves even Gilbert and Sullivan’s Major General standing. Kitty Whately displays a beautiful voice (insecurity at the very top notwithstanding) and feisty personality as Rosina, and Nicholas Sharratt is a personable Count

The orchestra is spirited, and it is great to have Rossini’s glockenspiel adding extra sparkle to tutti climaxes - gamely played by a one-man percussionist simultaneously pedalling cymbals and bass drum.

Even with Paul McGrath’s incisive conducting maintaining momentum, it is a long evening. The potential benefit of losing Berta the maid’s aria is negated by the restoration of Almaviva’s mammoth bravura showcase, which Rossini himself realised pointlessly delays the denouement (he recycled it in La Cenerentola). Even so, the time whizzes by. Hugely entertaining and highly recommended.

Link to original review here

The Barber of Seville, English Touring Opera, ETO, Hackney Empire, March 2012

Clever designs and glorious costumes by Rhys Jarman give a fine dramatic underpinning for this production of Rossini’s Barber, and Grant Doyle made a marvellous entrance as the barber, Figaro.

All images by Richard Hubert Smith

This was the first night, and after a nervous start things came together in Act II. Kitty Whately made a beautifully inspiring Rosina, mistress of the situation despite the machinations of her guardian Dr. Bartolo along with his friend and her singing teacher Don Basilio. Alan Fairs was a super Basilio, giving this amoral and ridiculous character a slightly threatening aspect in his dealings with Bartolo, and the doctor himself was commandingly performed, with excellent diction, by Andrew Slater, whose attempt at joining the singing lesson in Act II was wittily out of tune. The role of Rosina’s lover, Count Almaviva in his various disguises is not an easy one to pull off well, but after a shaky start, Nicholas Sharratt proved himself a passionate and determined fellow.

Direction by Thomas Guthrie gave perhaps too much humour to the stage action at some points, but this might settle down later in the tour. For instance in late Act I when Almaviva surreptitiously shows the police chief his identity the entire police squad is utterly cowed, but then rather strangely a moment later they grab hold of him without the least hesitation. The orchestra under the direction of Paul McGrath was a bit ragged in parts, and I would have liked to see more lightness of touch in the overture where the Rossinian bounce was lacking.

But in terms of sets, costumes and lighting this is a lovely production, and the singing was very fine. Kitty Whately is someone to watch out for, and Grant Doyle is a superbly versatile performer who played the lead role in a new opera at Covent Garden’s Linbury Studio, which was arguably the best new production the Royal Opera House put on in 2011. He continues in the role until April 13.
After a second performance at the Hackney Empire on Saturday, 10 March, this production tours to: Exeter Northcott, 20, 22, 23 March; Hall for Cornwall, Truro, 26, 28 March; Lighthouse, Poole, 30 March; York Theatre Royal, 3 Apr; Norwich Theatre Royal, 10 Apr; Snape Maltings Concert Hall, 13 Apr; Lyceum Theatre, Sheffield, 16, 18 Apr; The Hawth, Crawley, 20 Apr; G Live Guildford, 23 Apr; Buxton Opera House, 26, 28 Apr; Everyman Theatre, Cheltenham, 1, 3, 4 May; Warwick Arts Centre, 9, 12 May; Gala Theatre, Durham, 14 May; Perth Festival, Perth Theatre, 17, 19 May; Cambridge Arts Theatre, 22, 24, 25 May — for details click here.

Mark Ronan

Link to original review here