http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2009/jul/06/il-barbiere-di-siviglia-review
Il Barbiere di Siviglia
Royal Opera House, London
****
Tim Ashley
guardian.co.uk, Monday 6 July 2009 22.00 BST
The Royal Opera's latest revival of Rossini's Il Barbiere di Siviglia boasts the most extraordinary cast to be heard in the piece for some time, and also, it would seem, one of the most accident-prone. Partway through act one, Joyce DiDonato (Rosina) slipped on stage, but continued on crutches with an announcement that she had sprained her ankle (which has subsequently been confirmed as a break). In act two, meanwhile, her Almaviva, Juan Diego Flórez, narrowly missed being clobbered by the lid of an open grand piano.
Musically, however, it was bliss. There is thoughtfulness as well as brilliance in Antonio Pappano's conducting, which gives us greater emotional resonance than usual in this work without diluting its abrasive comedy. Pietro Spagnoli's Figaro, similarly, is a man whose impudent charm masks considerable moral strength. Even with that crutch, DiDonato's rebelliousness and gleaming tone shone through. Flórez has fun slumming it in fatigues and over-decorates his lines a little, but his technique still dazzles and his arias brought the house down. The bad guys are fabulous, too, with Alessandro Corbelli's cantankerous Bartolo nicely contrasted with Feruccio Furlanetto's odious Basilio.
The production, by Patrice Caurier and Moshe Leiser, has been given a makeover, but continues to be problematic. The boxy, stripy set is still hideous, and there's too much stylisation for a comedy that deals with such themes as class, money and social mobility. But go and hear it, for the sake of the singing. We understand that DiDonato – on crutches - will be continuing the run.
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Classical
Rossini, Il barbiere di Siviglia, Royal Opera House, London
******
(Rated 5/ 5 )
Reviewed by Edward Seckerson
Sunday, 5 July 2009
Rossini’s Barber of Seville is packed with showstoppers; but when did we last see it cast at such strength, sung with such tongue and vocal chord twisting relish, and conducted with such panache that every number did just that – stopped the show? Answer: the current revival of Moshe Leiser and Patrice Caurier’s wild and wacky staging at the Royal Opera House.
They must have added a quarter of an hour to the running time in applause. Indeed when Juan Diego Florez came to nail Count Almaviva’s “Cessa di piu resistere” in the closing scene – an aria so fiendish in the speed and difficulty of the coloratura that it was once deemed unsingable and invariably cut – such was the bedlam that broke out in the audience that Alessandro Corbelli’s Doctor Bartolo had to look at his pocket watch (in character, of course) in order to get the show re-started and finished. It was that kind of night.
You know you are on to a good thing with Barber when the overture doesn’t sound so familiar. Antonio Pappano doesn’t do routine, ever, and here the rhythms were so fleshly minted and the clarinet and bassoons solos so ripe and streetwise that you actually wondered what came next. It was like that throughout the evening with such ear-pricking dynamics and rapier reflexes from the orchestra that you truly began to reassess and rediscover Rossini.
Ditto the staging. Christian Fenouillat’s candy-striped box of tricks works a treat with doors and windows and staircase only appearing for entrances and exits so you really do feel like Rosina, trapped under house-arrest. And when everyone’s heads go woozy in the virtuosic act one finale, so does the set. Has there ever been a more literal interpretation of “dazed and confused”?
Joyce DiDonato’s dazzling Rosina was hanging on for dear life at that point having stumbled and sprained her ankle in the second scene. She battled on, of course, singing with delicious innuendo and fabulous aplomb, and the crutch she used came in useful when she trashed the set in the storm scene. But then no one was ever buying that “I am a well behaved girl” line. DiDonato has the attitude; she owns this role.
Alessandro Corbelli could have created Bartolo, all bluster and great comic timing; Ferruccio Furlanetto’s Basilio brought borderline insanity and precarious physical contortions to the mounting hysteria of his slander aria; and Pietro Spagnoli’s feisty Figaro had everybody’s number. And Florez? How does he do it? It’s called technique.
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Il Barbiere di Siviglia laughs off unlucky break
By Nick Kimberley
**** Nick Kimberley's rating
***** Reader rating
08.07.09
Nick Kimberley
Show must go on: Joyce DiDonato in Il Barbiere di Siviglia
In most circumstances, consigning the heroine of Rossini’s ll Barbiere di Siviglia to a wheelchair would count as cranky post-modernism. Last night at the Royal Opera House, it was stark necessity.
On Saturday the American mezzo-soprano Joyce DiDonato was singing the role of Rosina. Everything went swimmingly until, just after her showpiece aria, she slipped and twisted her ankle; or so she thought.
Trouper that she is, she limped on, returning after the interval with a crutch. The show over, she was rushed to hospital, only to learn that she’d broken a bone in her foot.
Last night, her leg in a fetching pink cast, she took the stage in a wheelchair, but whatever the accident did to her foot, it had done no damage to the bone, muscle and cartilage that support her fabulous coloratura.
Meet the cast: Joyce DiDonato, with Pietro Spagnoli,
left, Alessandro Corbelli, conductor Antonio Pappano
and Juan Diego Flórez
The set for Moshe Leiser and Patrice Caurier’s production is a raised box, which leaves a runway at the front of the stage, along which DiDonato propelled her wheelchair.
It may not exactly be what Rossini had in mind, but it did no real harm. If anything, her separateness established Rosina as the more or less still centre around which the rather strenuous comedy revolves.
While the acting was more knockabout than characterful, the singing for once made it possible to believe that all Rossini’s staccatos, crescendos and pitter-pattering consonants were a natural form of expression.
Figaro, the barber of the title, was energetically incarnated by Pietro Spagnoli, who on any other night would have been the star. Yet while DiDonato was the focus of attention, the biggest round of applause went to the Almaviva of Juan Diego Flórez, whose tenor soared easily through almost every challenge that Rossini threw down. His duets with DiDonato perfectly demonstrated what bel canto means.
Backstage after the show, DiDonato was elated: “If Moshe and Patrice had said before we started, ‘We’re going to put you in a wheelchair’, I would have declared it pure Eurotrash and stormed out. I got introduced to my wheelchair at about 5 o’clock and had just half an hour of preparation onstage beforehand. In the story, Rosina is caged; the beautiful thing is that tonight that became something quite literal: I felt trapped in the wheelchair. That helped dramatically. This was one of the most thrilling nights I’ve ever spent in the theatre.”
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Until 18 July. Information: 020 7212 9460. www.roh.org.uk
Il barbiere di Siviglia, Royal Opera House, London
By Richard Fairman
*****
Published: July 7 2009 22:28
Last updated: July 7 2009 22:28
Opening an opera on the weekend of the Wimbledon tennis finals can be risky. As though to counter any rival sporting attraction, the Royal Opera has given this revival of Il barbiere di Siviglia a star cast who sang with an agility and accuracy every bit as dazzling as the passing shots being seen south of the river.
This is the first time Moshe Leiser and Patrice Caurier’s production has been revived since it was new in 2005. Almost the whole opera is played inside a large box, like some children’s toy with entrances and exits that open up out of nowhere. But otherwise it is a traditional show – lively, true to Rossini’s spirit and just the right side of garish with its bold, poster-paint colours.
There was only one moment of worry on Saturday. Joyce DiDonato had just made a brilliant job of Rosina’s opening aria – she sings it in the mezzo key, but dashes upstairs into the soprano territory as if it is no trouble at all – when she slipped badly and fractured her fibia. Undaunted, she gamely pressed on, propped up on a crutch after the interval, and her singing scampered around the semiquavers as nimbly as ever.
For speed of coloratura it would be hard to put a wafer between her and Juan Diego Flórez’s Count Almaviva. Flórez is the Rossini tenor of the day. He throws off top notes as if he is used to singing half a dozen high Cs before breakfast, and looks the part as a tall, dark youthful Spanish charmer. For good measure he sang the whole of Almaviva’s closing aria, which is usually cut (for good reason), and made it the high point of the evening.
There was no weak link. Pietro Spagnoli announced himself as a Figaro with plenty of punch in his singing. The expert Alessandro Corbelli showed how much comic fun can be had with crusty old Doctor Bartolo, and Ferruccio Furlanetto, booming like a rumbling thunderclap of doom and gloom, made a wicked caricature out of Don Basilio. With music director Antonio Pappano charging up the Royal Opera orchestra to playing of high energy, this is a completely winning revival of Il barbiere – game, set and match.
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http://www.musicweb-international.com/SandH/2009/Jul-Dec09/barber0407.htm
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Rossini, Il barbiere di Siviglia: Soloists, The Royal Opera House Chorus, Orchestra of the Royal Opera House, Antonio Pappano (conductor). Royal Opera House, London, 4.7.2009 (MB)
Figaro – Pietro Spagnoli
Rosina – Joyce DiDonato
Count Almaviva – Juan Diego Flórez
Doctor Bartolo – Alessandro Corbelli
Don Basilio – Ferruccio Furlanetto
Fiorello – Changhan Lim
Berta – Jennifer Rhys-Davies
Officer – Christopher Lackner
Ambrogio – Bryan Secombe
Notary – Andrew Macnair
Patrice Caurier and Moshe Leiser (directors)
Christian Fenouillat (designs)
Agostino Cavalca (costumes)
Christophe Forey (lighting)
The Royal Opera House Chorus (chorus master: Renato Balsadonna)
Pietro Spagnoli as Figaro and Juan Diego Flórez as Almaviva
This was the best performance I have heard from Antonio Pappano at the Royal Opera House, or indeed anywhere else. I cannot bring myself to be wildly excited by nineteenth-century Italian opera – clearly unlike most of the audience – but this is clearly his thing and he would be well advised to concentrate upon this repertoire. Wagner, Beethoven, and Berg are avowedly not and he would be equally well advised to steer clear of them. The orchestra was on colourful, sprightly form, right from the beginning of the overture, and there was a clear sense of structure throughout. (How very unlike this conductor’s Wagner!) Whatever Rossini’s musical and dramatic limitations, his command of musical form, albeit in a somewhat old-fashioned way, is always apparent, a clear contrast with, for instance, Verdi. There are no depths to be plumbed here but there is a musical story to be old – and told it was.
Moreover, Pappano was extremely fortunate in his cast, which could scarcely have been bettered. Joyce DiDonato proved a heroine in more than one sense. Injuring her leg at some point during the first act, she insisted upon carrying on, despite her pain – and her crutches. Singing of cramp in her foot caused much amusement all round. None of this, however, affected her pinpoint coloratura accuracy, nor as expressive a delivery as Rossini’s style allows: far better to be slightly distanced, which she was not, than to approach the mawkishness of the composer’s dubious successors. Juan Diego Flórez was equally astonishing in his despatch of the technically fiendish demands his part presents. He also showed himself to be a fine comic actor, never seeking the limelight, in spite of a disruptive audience reaction that owed more to the football stadium than to dramatic appreciation. Florez’s voice is not large but he marshals it extraordinarily well. I fell to wondering whether it might be heard to advantage in more satisfying repertoire. Perhaps certain, but only certain, Mozart roles? In any case, the question would appear redundant, since he seems quite happy to devote himself to Rossini and Donizetti.
Joyce DiDonato as Rosina
Pietro Spagnoli substituted for Simon Keenlyside. This Figaro had plenty of stage presence and a good command of musical character too. If not so dominant as might sometimes be the case, this was owed to the strength of ensemble rather than to any deficiency on Spagnoli’s part. Speaking of ensemble, there was at least as much joy to be had from Alessandro Corbelli’s Bartolo and Ferruccio Furlanetto’s Basilio as anyone else. Their native command of Italian paid great dividends, in terms of the natural, unaffected quality of their comedy and verbal response. Jennifer Rhys-Davies proved an equally characterful, indeed rather lovable, Berta, although it seemed a pity that she was made to play her aria for laughs, when a degree of poignancy would have seemed more fitting. The Royal Opera Chorus was on excellent form too.
I could not warm to Moshe Leiser and Patrice Caurier’s production, any more than I had the first time around. This, I suspect, is largely because it tries so very hard to be ‘heartwarming’, rather like those dreadful ‘romantic comedies’ that so plague modern British cinema, or, perhaps worse still, the Roberto Benigni film, La vita è bella. The latter’s treatment of its subject matter seems to me to border on the offensive. There is nothing by which to be offended here, but the bright, primary colours, the designs that resemble boxes of sweets and their contents, and the general tone of whimsy: for some of us grumpier souls, it is perhaps all a bit much. More seriously, Rossini’s formalism, the alienating quality his characters might be persuaded to take on, is shunned in favour of crowd-pleasing sentimentalism. Still, the musical performances were without exception of a very high standard.
Mark Berry
Pictures © Bill Cooper
Note: As we go to press, it has just been announced that Joyce DiDonato actually fractured her ankle during this performance and will sing the rest of the run from a wheelchair. "I don't know that I have ever experienced an evening quite like this one before,' she said, 'but I'm certain that I have invoked a new policy regarding well-wishers. From here on out, I declare that no-one, please, ever, ever, ever, wish me again, in the American fashion, to 'break a leg'."
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http://www.whatsonstage.com/index.php?pg=207&story=E8831246891043&title=Il+barbiere+di+Siviglia
Il barbiere di Siviglia
Venue: Royal Opera House
Where: West End
Date Reviewed: 6 July 2009
WOS Rating: ****
Average Reader Rating: *****
Reader Reviews: View and add to our user reviews
Pietro Spagnoli and Alessandro Corbelli
(photo: Bill Cooper)
Exactly a month after I had been so drained by a monochrome Lulu, I was back at the Royal Opera for another first night conducted by music director Antonio Pappano. Ah, what a difference not only a month, but also a witty use of colour can bring – for this first revival of Moshe Leiser and Patrice Caurier’s production of Rossini’s melodramma buffa Il barbiere di Siviglia.
It’s two-and-a-half years since this, the third of the directorial pairs’ Rossini trilogy here (following Il turco in Italia and La cenerentola) was first seen and it is certainly the most spirited and colourful of the three. From the off, under a looming new moon, humour is to the fore, with Count Almaviva’s accompanying band, dressed as orchestral musicians, complete with instruments (including a double bass), clambering over the precipitous rake of the set.
Presumably the timing of this revival was determined by the amassing of a stellar cast. Of course, Simon Keenlyside has withdrawn from the title role on doctors’ advice, but Pietro Spagnoli is a handsome replacement. He’s making his Royal Opera debut, but is a seasoned Figaro across Europe as well as appearing, along with Juan Diego Flórez, on a Decca DVD of the opera. His voice may tend to the forte too much, but he has bags of character and certainly made his mark, entering through the auditorium with his opening hit cavatina, Largo al factotum. The hits keep coming, with Flórez – new to the production, and singing Almaviva (aka Lindoro and Don Alonso in his non aristocratic disguises) in London for the first time – and Joyce DiDonato, returning to the role of Rosina she created her back in December 2005, both contributing fine and wildly acclaimed singing.
You might call this a “Britpop barbiere” with a Bridget Riley-esque diagonally striped multi-coloured set, with certain furnishings with Damien Hirst-like polka-dotted coverings, even though the sky-blue Keystone Cop suits of the long arm of the Sevillian law might be harder to find artistic forbears. Such vividness is matched by the comic business, with Alessandro Corbelli as a hyperactive Dr Bartolo (giving to falling asleep and falling off chairs) and a climactic First Act where the earth really does move, in a technically treacherous earthquake simulation.
Perhaps that’s why some booed the creative team at the end, as DiDonato slipped and twisted her ankle. With a request for our understanding after the interval, she used a crutch in the Second Act. The spontaneous applause for her pluckiness was enhanced at Rosina’s very next entrance, where she complains she has cramp in her foot!
There is sterling support too from Ferruccio Furlanetto as dour Don Baslio, Jennifer Rhys-Davies, returning to the role of Berta with which she made her house debut 16 years ago, and Jette Parker young artist Changhan Lin as Fiorello.
There was no doubt of the audience’s desire for a joyful evening. The applause and cheers were as loud and prolonged as those in SW19 this week. Towards the end Corbelli checked his watch after Flórez’s pure-toned rendition of the Count’s aria Cessa di più resistere as if there had been a bet as to how long it had to be before he was allowed an encore. Pappano sat at the harpsichord motionless and the applause (quite possibly orchestrated) eventually died down so Rossini, not any individual singer, triumphed.
Perfect for a summer’s evening, this production of Il barbiere breaks the Royal Opera’s tragic trajectory at the end of this season (all but Lulu, Italian: La traviata, Un ballo and, forthcoming, Tosca) and sees conductor, orchestra, company and soloists at the top of their game.
Delightful, so don’t miss the big screening around the country on 15 July.
Nick Breckenfield