Il barbiere di Siviglia (The Barber of Seville)
Details
In Brief
It is safe to say that one of the most beloved and most performed works in the comic opera genre is Gioachino Rossini's Il barbiere di Siviglia. Thus, it cannot be missing from the OPERA repertoire. In the revival of his previous staging, which was originally performed in Szombathely in the summer of 2016 and then at Müpa Budapest, Csaba Káel director, who has already entertained audiences of the OPERA with numerous other productions, places this work in the silent film era, magnifying the humorous situations in a lighter and endlessly witty musical setting. The production also seeks to dust off the centuries-old traditions of performance and to present the opera in its original freshness.
Parental guidance
Events
Premiere: June 29, 2024
Synopsis
Act I
Count Almaviva has fallen in love with Rosina, Doctor Bartolo’s ward, a girl of no rank – so much so that he would even risk mésalliance. What he does not know yet is how to win her heart. We find him wandering outside Bartolo’s well-guarded residence, but all he can achieve with his serenade given with an occasional band is to awaken the whole household. It is at this moment when Figaro appears. The profession of a barber is hardly more than an excuse for him to go in and out of houses, deliver messages from ladies to gentlemen, solve problems, make business, complicate lives and loves… and collect coins given as a tip. Figaro is a frequent visitor in Bartolo’s house, so only a little trick is needed to assist the Count closer to his aim. Disguised as a poor student called Lindoro, the Count declares his love to Rosina, but does not have the chance to hear the long-awaited answer because the serenade arranged by Figaro is disturbed.
Bartolo hears the news that Count Almaviva is in the city; and has the feeling that something is wrong around the house. He decides to marry Rosina – and her dowry – the very same day, and hurries to Basilio. Figaro also sets to work and makes new plans: he is about to disguise Count Almaviva as a drunken soldier and get him inside the house with the help of a faked billet. The enamoured Rosina is determined to do anything she can to rid herself of Bartolo and his house. She writes a letter to Lindoro offering her love and asking to be saved. But how could she deliver the message to a young man she does not know? Figaro appears and hides in the room where he overhears a conversation between Basilio and Bartolo. Calling himself a “maestro”, Basilio is willing to do anything for money, including slander and swindle. He and Bartolo decide to construct the marriage certificate at once and contract the marriage that very day. Figaro informs Rosina about all this and departs to deliver the letter to the Count.
Bartolo discovers that the girl has been carrying on a secret correspondence; he lists undeniable evidence one after the other, but Rosina, scared of nothing, perseveres and is unwilling to admit it – Bartolo bursts with anger. Almaviva, disguised as an intoxicated soldier, rushes into Bartolo’s house demanding to be quartered. However tricky the girl is, and however determined Almaviva may be, Bartolo will not give in. Passions flare, the Count loses temper and makes a rush at Bartolo – even Figaro cannot calm him down. Hearing the wrangle, patrolling policemen turn up unexpectedly. They arrest the Count and are about to take him to prison. There is no way out: Almaviva reveals his identity to the officer. He is astonished, shocked, then scared – the Count is set free. No one understands the situation, and confusion explodes.
Act II
Almaviva, dressed as a music teacher, turns up in the doctor’s house insisting that he has come to give a music lesson to Rosina instead of the ailing Basilio. To dispel Bartolo’s suspicion, the Count hands the girl’s letter over to him. He claims to have come across it by chance and suggests that it should be a most suitable means for discrediting Almaviva. In spite of all this, Bartolo decides to be present at the singing lesson. He is not deterred even by the fact that the only time when Figaro can shave him is that very moment. The clever barber takes advantage of the situation by filching the key of Rosina’s balcony. Less comforting is the fact that Basilio enters unexpectedly. Only arguments as heavy as the Count’s purse can make him leave. In spite of this, Bartolo exposes the careless lovers, and drives them out of the room. The doctor, who is afraid of another trick, sends Basilio for the notary so that the marriage could soon be carried through.
Bartolo shows Rosina the ominous letter to convince her that Lindoro is a false-hearted and deceitful man who wants to hand her over to Count Almaviva. Rosina is so distressed that he agrees to marry her guardian and reveals to him Figaro’s plans concerning her elopement. While Bartolo runs away for the police in the stormy night, the Count and the barber climb through the window to confront a desperate and exasperated Rosina.
The misunderstandings are immediately cleared up when “Lindoro” exposes himself – and the guardian’s intrigue; he convinces the girl that the poor student and the powerful Count Almaviva are the same person. The happy lovers now manage to take advantage of Bartolo’s trap. The notary, arriving in the decisive moment, soon marries them, and Basilio’s corruptness also proves to be beneficial – only the threat of a pistol is needed. The singing tutor thus becomes a witness who verifies the signing of Almaviva and Rosina’s marriage contract. Naturally it is his employer, arriving too late with the policemen, who has to be disappointed.
Media
Reviews
“The performance enchanted the audience not only with its special milieu, charming humour, captivatingly witty, dynamic and playful music: we saw great performances in terms of both singing and acting. (...) The combination of modern and traditional elements – which characterised the entire production – created the feeling that the story could take place anywhere, anytime. This simultaneously innovative and timeless approach, as well as the momentum and humour of the performance, can contribute to making classical music attractive to a wide range of people of different ages and musical tastes.”
Orsolya Tukács, Magyar Nemzet
“Csaba Káel once again embarked on a bold undertaking. Bold… and successful. For the idea of staging the action against a silent-film backdrop is original, but at first far from self-evident, indeed, surprising. (…) Yet it detracted nothing from the essence of the performance; on the contrary, in a certain sense it even highlighted it. What remains with me most of all, however, is the humor that the singers and the director brought into it. Refined humor, without tipping over into burlesque, almost restrained, yet precise. A kind of humour that Rossini himself would probably not have disowned, and higher praise than that can hardly be expressed.”
Pierre Waline, Journal Francophone de Budapest
Opera guide
Introduction
Il barbiere di Siviglia hits hard. It not only knocked Paisiello’s work of the same title out of the repertoire, but it still strikes modern audiences straight in the heart. On the hit list of comic operas, it would still finish in the top three (top two?). The buffa of buffas owes its success not merely to its sparkling, flawless, and inexhaustibly virtuosic music, but also to the brilliant construction of the drama and its witty libretto. Sir Charles Hallé, the eminent conductor, recorded that when he asked Donizetti whether it was true that Rossini had composed The Barber of Seville in just two weeks, the great contemporary replied: “I can imagine it. He was always the laziest man in the world!”
It is almost unbelievable that this “thrown-together” (or perhaps strangely inspired) work can contain nearly a dozen hits of the operatic repertoire. “Monsieur Crescendo,” as Rossini was mockingly dubbed in Paris, truly outdid himself here as well, one need only think of the famous Figaro entrance (“Largo al factotum”). What is balanced, elegant, and at most clever in Paisiello becomes passionately human, individual, and inimitably energetic here. This is probably connected to the refreshing of pedantic elegance with more earthy commedia dell’arte elements, something Rossini never shied away from. The two works relate to each other like a huge volcano before eruption and in full eruption. Rosina’s coloratura passages posed a genuine challenge: it is no coincidence that this was one of Maria Callas’s great and debatable roles. Stendhal fits Rossini into a splendid tableau when he speaks of his true virtues: “Mozart far surpasses him in the tender and melancholic genre, Cimarosa in the comic and passionate style; but as far as movement, speed, zest, and the effects arising from them are concerned, he is the first.”
Zoltán Csehy
Is Figaro really the protagonist?
Almaviva, at that scandalous Roman premiere, which was followed by thousands upon thousands of unquestionable successes in every corner of the world, was, as is well known, the title borne by Rossini’s most famous opera out of courtesy and as a precaution. (Courtesy toward the elderly Paisiello, and a futile precaution – inutile precauzione – to ward off the expected attacks of the claque siding with the retired Maestro.) Of course, we know that even then the protagonist was Figaro, and he will remain so forever. But is it not strange, or at least thought-provoking, that in The Barber of Seville Almaviva has three solo numbers, Rosina, and even Doctor Bartolo have two each, while Figaro has only a single one? True, that one is none other than the most famous of comic-opera entrances, the “Largo al factotum,” but still: numerically, the title character sings exactly as many solo songs as Basilio and the often so ill-treated Berta. And if we add that, upon closer inspection, Figaro does not in fact play an exclusive, success-piling role in the complication of the plot (and certainly not in its resolution) either—we might waver just a little. Is Figaro really the protagonist of The Barber of Seville? Of course he is! Only, the primacy of the finest barber is ensured not by the number of arias, nor even by the character’s stealthily triumphant ingenuity, but by the fact that we consistently find him at the focus of the opera’s kinetic energies and cheerful exuberance. He is the “illuminating centre” and the “mover” of the comic opera of comic operas, as Géza Fodor so vividly put it.
László Ferenc
Comic opera grafted onto silent film – The director’s thoughts
The Barber of Seville reveals Rossini’s creative genius across the widest possible spectrum. It represents the branch of the Italian musical-theatrical tradition that springs from commedia dell’arte. For me, it is also a bull’s-eye in terms of character formation; perhaps his only comparable masterpiece is Cinderella. Of course, I would not underestimate William Tell or Moses, but the cheeky humour of The Barber of Seville, the way Rossini handles the music, shapes it, stretches and varies the phrases and virtuosic runs—bears witness to exceptional talent. The complexity and lifelike quality of the characters offer excellent opportunities for a director on the opera stage.
Cinema essentially began with “documentary films”; the Lumière brothers presented their now-legendary short films in December 1895. As early as 1896 they visited Budapest and filmed, for example, horse-drawn carriages driving onto the Chain Bridge. This was followed by Méliès-style “theatre filming,” in which plots and “stage actions” were already being recorded, making ever bolder use of the possibilities offered by the moving image. Since, unlike outdoor-shot documentaries, there was no natural light in indoor spaces, special lighting was used, and vivid, high-contrast makeup emphasized the actors’ facial expressions. Cameras were hand-cranked, so the recording speed was not uniform. From this arose the “jerkiness,” the slowing down and speeding up, that to this day gives silent films their distinctive charm.
I felt that Rossini’s humour and approach to subject matter could be well transposed into this medium: the story of The Barber of Seville comes to life within the framework of an evening shoot taking place in a film studio. The sets are slightly surreal, evoking expressionism, and the costumes are also caricatured. During the overture, the crew assembles, and two cameras are cranked on stage. One of the sources of humour in the production is that we occasionally show the recorded, archaizing, scratchy, grimy black-and-white scenes projected onto the backdrop, accompanied by plot-explaining intertitles characteristic of the period.
Csaba Káel