The Marriage of the Barber!
«Il
Barbiere di Siviglia» is a hilarious production by Bartlett Sher. It’s full of
fun, joy, surprises and, of course, lots of coloraturas:). One of the great
things about it is that the director and his team came up with an idea to broaden
the stage around the orchestra pit. It
helps to make an audience a real participant of the action whom the singers
often communicate with. John Del Carlo is a master of buffo parts! I’ve also seen
him in Met’s «Don Pasquale» in the same kind of role which perfectly fits his
appearance and a comic talent! The audience always laughed when Del Carlo was
on stage. Peter Mattei had a time of his life playing a crafty barber though I
have some questions about his singing. John Relyea, appearing in a small part
of Don Basilio, was amazing in «La calunnia». I was laughing during the whole
piece, I guess:). He made his character so obsessed with the idea of calumny
and it looked so funny! The main stars of this opera, Juan Diego Florez and
Joyce DiDonato, made a lovely duet and the audience went wild every time after
their solo arias!
In the
extract below you’ll find the lesson scene «Contro un Cor» where Almaviva pretends
to be a music teacher replacing Don Basilio in order to see Rosina. Rosina recognizes
him but Dr Bartolo doesn’t, fortunately for them:). This video demonstrates great
singing and acting of this cast!
The second production I’ve watched is «Le Nozze di Figaro». I can’t even find the best words to describe my feelings about it cause it’s just FANTASTIC!!! And the most interesting fact is that it’s a super conventional production! Nowadays many directors like to set the action in the modern times to make it more entertaining for the audience but actually it doesn’t always guarantee you that. Of course, the same situation can happen with a traditional staging but…here we have an opposite thing. I think that Met production of «The marriage of Figaro» is ideal from any angle you look at it! I was enjoying it from the first note to the last one cause every word, every music line was reflected with action or movement on stage. We need to thank the director Jonathan Miller for making Mozart visible in his production. All the cast did a great job as well. Bryn Terfel, Cecilia Bartoli, Renee Fleming, Dwayne Croft, Susanne Mentzer, Paul Plishka, Wendy White, Heinz Zednik, Danielle de Niese (What a cast!) – I wanna mention everybody cause here each of them lives his/her part 100%! You don’t see them as opera singers, they are Figaro, Susanna, Cherubino etc. Needless to say, that musically this cast is magnificent!!!
The best
demonstration of my point is the following scene from Act 2 where Count
Almaviva suspects his wife of having a love affair (which is not true) while
Countess, Rosina and Figaro try to protect themselves and to work out this
complicated situation. During the whole scene you can hear the tension in the
score which relates to the tension between characters on stage.
As you can
guess, I highly recommend you to watch these brilliant operas, despite the fact,
that new Met season includes them (but with other casts). I guarantee you’ll
have a great time!
And Happy
New Met Season!
Comments
Post a Comment