The Barber of Seville, a Guest Post by Lester M Choodle

Your author, Lester M Choodle, waiting for the train to Philadelphia

My name is Lester M. Choodle and I am guest blogging for Margaret. My credentials: I sit on a perch in Margaret's house and as such I view an inordinate amount of operas, independent films, Law & Order episodes, and 1970s sitcom reruns on SD TV. I also get to hear music of all genres. I could file a report on the latest Bruce Springsteen record as easily as this blogpost on Rossini.

You may be wondering why I am writing the blog when she is sitting right beside me for the entire excursion. It seems that Margaret publicly stated this week that Rossini Operas Buffo are not her favorites. "I like drama," she said. I (Lester) am here as an impartial observer so that you, Margaret's readers, can be assured an impartial report on this opera production.

We took the train to Philadelphia for this matinee performance.

Here I am on the train with my ticket:

We attended the pre-performance talk at the Academy of Music where we got to sit in the posh seats close to the stage to hear Composer-in-Residence Lembit Beecher filled us in on this opera's history. Evidently, the first performance of The Barber of Seville was a catastrophe. A cat actually ran onstage, twice, distracting the singers and the audience. The tenor singing the Count Almaviva part sang his favorite Spanish song (not from the opera) in the first act, accompanied by his own untuned guitar. The second performance was much smoother, no animals ran onstage, and the opera has been a hit ever since. This setting of this performance, directed by Michael Shell, was updated to somewhere in the late twentieth century, the technicolor costumes were extraordinary, and the singing actors were given opportunities to ham-up their comic performances with exaggerated dance moves. Shell claims the movies of Pedro Almodóvar served as inspiration.

After the talk, we made our way up to the highest balcony called the Amphitheater for the performance. Where else would an owl perch for a performance? Here I am perched on the high wooden back of the seat in front checking out the stage:

Here I am back in my red velvet seat with my program and opera glasses:

But enough about me...This opera was probably familiar to most people in the audience, possibly from Bugs Bunny or Alfalfa on the Little Rascals, but we were instructed by Michael Shell's Director's Notes in the program to watch and listen as if this is the first time. This was not difficult since the sets and jewel-toned costumes were updated to the late twentieth century. Close your eyes and it is 1816. Open them and it is Technicolor 1970s or thereabouts. Don Basilio, Rosina's music teacher, performs an interesting Elvis impersonation.

Do you remember the plot? Lovely Rosina is the ward of Dr. Bartolo, and he falls in love with her. She falls in love with dashing Count Almaviva who is disguised as "Lindoro" so that he can assess whether Rosina is in love with him or his money. Figaro, the barber and jack-of-all-trades, ultimately helps the two young people get together by distracting Dr. Bartolo. Almaviva gets the girl, but Bartolo keeps her dowry, so everyone is happy.

One of the best scenes of this production was Dr. Bartolo's nightmare. (This scene replaces the traditional thunderstorm.) Bartolo was obsessed by roosters, and about seven of them, human-sized, invaded his bedroom and danced around. Roosters! Dancing! Terrifying! Colorful!

Margaret asked me which character I would like to perform if I were a singer/dancer/actor. She suggested "Figaro because he gets to wear that great coat with the eyes on it?"
"Who"
"Figaro."
"Who"
"FIGARO!"
"Who"
"FIG--oh yeah, you're an owl." ['Who?' in Owlspeak means 'yeah.']

Here's a different Figaro with a different coat singing "Largo al Factotum," one of the most popular arias of this opera. It's a patter aria which means it has fast-moving text that has a tendency to get stuck in your head. (Don't say I didn't warn you!) This is one of the aspects of Opera Buffo that grates on Margaret's nerves and gave me the opportunity to guest-post on this one.

Margaret realizes that this is an important step in the evolution of opera and that Rossini was a true opera innovator. In fact, The Barber of Seville is one of the milestones of opera history that she discusses in her course, The Passion of Opera. I'll close this post with a few slides from her course showing Gioacchino Rossini, the Teatro Argentina in Rome where The Barber of Seville premiered, and two images of Rosina.

Nabucco in Philadelphia

The Academy of Music Chandelier

Opera Philadelphia usually surprises me with some kind of operatic innovation, and the current production of Nabucco is no exception. First of all, I was surprised by a phone call and email reminding me that "my performance" was on Sunday at 2:30, and if I was interested, there would be a pre-opera talk by Michael Bolton at 1:30. (This would be the Vice President of Community Programs for Opera Philadelphia, not Michael Bolton the song stylist. I just want to make that clear.) I like those, so I made sure to attend, and I learned about Nabucco and this production in particular. As informative and delightful as the talk was, it was not the innovation to which I was referring.

The post by my seat.

You have to understand a little about the history of Giuseppe Verdi and his opera Nabucco to understand how Opera Philadelphia made this production a story within a story. (That's the innovative part.) At the time that this opera premiered at La Scala in Milan, that city was being occupied by the Austrians. The Italians created some great art that represented how they felt, just not obviously. The Assyrians in this opera represented the Austrians (they sound similar), and the Jewish people represented the repressed Italians. Verdi himself came to be a symbol of the Risorgimento, the Italian movement to unify Italian cities into one country with Victor Emanuel as king. Word has it ('word' in my music history books) that Verdi and his collaborators did not necessarily want to be a symbol, but since he wanted a unified Italy, too, he didn't fight it. The battle cry of the movement became Viva VERDI! The letters of Verdi's name stood for Vittorio Emanuele, Re D’Italia (Victor Emanuel, King of Italy).

So Nabucco was performed in Milan during this Austrian occupation, and an emotional time was had by all. One of the choral numbers in the opera even became the unofficial Italian national anthem. This Philadelphia performance capitalized on this by staging a large (meaning lots of singers and other costumed people on the stage) production of this soon-to-be anthem. This included 19th-century costumed stage hands and opera house personnel singing along with the singers, and large pieces of patched-together (as oppressed people would do) pieces of red, white, and green fabric held to form the Italian flag. We in the audience had already made the transformation to 1842 occupied Milan because of the presence of stern Austrian guards at the beginning, during intermissions, and eventually at the end. We also saw some fancy high-class Austrians in costume enjoying the festivities on stage and some 19th-century stagehands. (I can't tell you everything in case you go to see this production in Philadelphia, Washington, or Minnesota.)

The Academy of Music in Philadelphia, opened in 1857 (fifteen years after Nabucco's Milan premiere)

So that's a lot of story and I haven't even summarized the plot of the opera yet. Nabucco (Nebuchadnezzar in English) is the king of the Babylonians (also referred to as Assyrians in the opera), and he is driving the Jews from their homeland, but not without torturing and killing men, women, and children. The story is from the Bible, but of course on the opera stage Nabucco goes mad and suffers a dramatic collapse. One of his daughters grabs the throne while it is still warm and in order to stay seated there hides evidence recently discovered that proves she may not be who she thinks she is . Nabucco's other daughter gets reunited with that special soldier. One of the highlights of any Nabucco production is the performance of "Va pensiero" ("Fly, thought, on wings of gold") which is also known as the "Chorus of the Hebrew Slaves." It has come to be the unofficial national anthem of Italy. Here's Riccardo Muti conducting this chorus in Rome, 2011: