Review: Vancouver Opera’s The Barber of Seville fails to catch fire
Credit to Author: Aleesha Harris| Date: Wed, 19 Feb 2020 20:00:08 +0000
Continues Thursday, Feb. 20 at 7:30 p.m. and Sunday, Feb. 23 at 2 p.m.
Queen Elizabeth Theatre, 630 Hamilton St.
Tickets, information: From $41.75 at vancouveropera.ca
Vancouver Opera’s latest production of Rossini’s perennial favourite The Barber of Seville has a lot going for it. From the moment the curtain rises — after, for once, an overture played as an overture with no superfluous stage action — we are presented with an environment that signals “Comedy Tonight!”
Ken MacDonald’s set is gloriously daffy but sophisticated. Director Ashlie Corcoran, whose day job is artistic director of Arts Club Theatre, creates a staging filled with coy, comic turns. Her approach is inventive and loaded with details, both broad and fine, that should have served the production well.
Barber’s big numbers are democratically handed out to a generally strong ensemble cast.
As Count Almaviva, Victoria tenor Isaiah Bell was uneven. Mezzo Julie Boulianne as Rosina was spot on, with a rich tone, good flexibility and a strong sense of Rossini style. Baritone Taehyun Jun was delightful in the role of Don Basilio, vocally first rate and entirely prepared to enter into the comic spirit of his part and the production.
Lyric baritone Edward Nelson made a very fine Figaro indeed, a congenital schemer who’s always a step, or three, ahead of everyone else. Confident yet not bombastic, Nelson makes it clear that Figaro is well aware that clever counts for only so much in a world of privilege and power. And he was able to sail through all the nimble moves demanded by Corcoran with ease. He was a joy to watch every second he was on the stage.
California baritone Edward Nelson sings Figaro in Vancouver Opera’s Barber of Seville.
So with all that is good about the production, why did I leave the theatre disappointed that one of my favourite comic operas failed to catch fire? It’s all about timing.
Canadian conductor Nathan Brock, back in this country after stints in Europe, flattered his singers and rarely pushed his orchestra out of its comfort zones. This wasn’t necessarily a problem in arias and ensemble pieces, but in the copious recitatives that drive the story, an overriding desire for vocal beauty was at odds with pacing.
Comfort also killed the comedy. The first act dragged, while the second act never quite got off the ground. There was a surfeit of caution mixed with self-conscious cuteness. (Do we really need a whiff of Wagner’s Treulich geführt in the fortepiano to underscore an impending marriage? Oh, so precious; oh, so opera insider.)
What could — I’d argue should — have been played as breakneck farce, languished. And with all this loving lingering, one had time to see how calculated and thin a goodly number of Corcoran’s cunning ideas proved.
While the opening night audience was amused, Rossini would have preferred them rolling in the aisles.
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