First Class, The new Palermo production of the Barber of Seville in Music & Vision September 25

First Class
The new Palermo production of
Rossini's 'The Barber of Seville',
a casual worker in Almodóvar's Seville,
recommended by GIUSEPPE PENNISI

Palermo's 'Teatro Massimo' is a rare bird in Italian lyric opera landscape -- fourteen public-private foundations and nearly thirty 'teatri di tradizione', mostly managed by the local Municipalities. Whilst most of them are struggling to pay their debts and to avoid default (if not bankruptcy), after a difficult period and the rescheduling of a major debt organized with an international bank, over the last five fiscal years, the Teatro Massimo has balanced its accounts (and amortized its rescheduled debt) and reported a small surplus every year. This has required a 30% cut in production cost along with an increase in productivity: in 2010, its calendar provides for 104 performances, excluding the special matinée program for students (thirty-thousand young spectators over the course of the year). This compares with 125 opera performance at La Scala in Milan and only twenty-four at San Carlo in Naples. The reduction in costs and increase in production have been made possible through a network of alliances of major opera houses in Europe and in the USA, as well as by the employment of young but promising singers, thus offering opportunities to the new generation and paying lower cachet than other theatres. Also, whenever possible, the stage production of traditional operas are conceived to attract new audience, even though the number of 'season' subscribers is high and has increased in the last few years. The recovery of the Teatro Massimo is a case study that deserves to be examined by other theatres and also to be taught in performing arts management schools.

Dmitry Korchak as Count Almaviva and Fabio Capitanucci as Figaro in Rossini's 'The Barber of Seville' at Palermo's Teatro Massimo. Photo © 2010 Franco Lannino/Studio Camera
Thus, your reviewer had many reasons to fly to Palermo for the opening night (18 September 2010) of a new production of an old, but always functioning, dog like Rossini's Il Barbiere di Siviglia. The plot, with its brilliantly drawn characters and amusing situations, was a source of the happiest inspiration to Rossini who, at the age of twenty-four, was already a consummate musician, a bigoted thinker but an experienced lover of the thirty-one-year-old mistress of his employer (the impresario Domenico Barabaja) in a very happy-go-lucky ménage à trois. The score overflows with musical gems; their value can be fully appreciated only in the hand of a good conductor, an excellent orchestra and a cast of singers who can deal with virtuoso arias as well as act like top class comedians. The music is imbued with the true spirit of comedy with the enchanting arias revealing most perspicacious musical portraits of all characters. Briefly, the arias are not only melodious, but delicately characterized and subtly humorous. The cunning Figaro is described by a swift allegro vivace, the conceited Bartolo by a pompous andande maestoso, and the peppery Rosina by a scherzo. The various ensembles are equally delightful, as for instance that agitated finale to Act I and the comic entrance of the Count disguised as a music master in Act II. Also, Il Barbiere embraces the full range of comic opera expression, from the rapid chatter of parlato through to the sigh of love to robust jokes.

A scene from Rossini's 'The Barber of Seville' at Palermo's Teatro Massimo. Photo © 2010 Franco Lannino/Studio Camera
Michele Mariotti, born thirty years ago in Pesaro (Rossini's birth place), is a new rising star in the Italian conducting firmament. Il Barbiere was the first opera he conducted five years ago, just out of Conservatory; a few months ago his Barbiere was a major hit at La Scala. He knows every note and every trap of the score and shows a true empathy for the orchestra and the singers. On 18 September he offered an almost perfect musical direction. Why 'almost'? The coulisses of Teatro Massimo say that he decided to follow the 'traditional cut' of the last tenor aria Cessa di più resister, so dear to Rockwell Blake and now to Juan Diego Florèz. The aria had been cut for decades before Blake and Florès re-introduced it. There were two reasons for its long absence: firstly, the brilliant but impervious vocalizing (full of high Cs) required, and secondly, dramaturgically, the aria is not essential to the plot, but nearly an interruption of the action. I do not agree with these reasons, especially if the tenor is Dmitry Korchack (nearly as old as Maestro Mariotti) who is perfectly able to sing it, as shown in other recent performances in other theatres.

Ketevan Kemoklidze as Rosina and Dmitry Korchak as Count Almaviva in Rossini's 'The Barber of Seville' at Palermo's Teatro Massimo. Photo © 2010 Franco Lannino/Studio Camera
Rosina is the twenty-eight-year-old Georgian mezzo Ketevan Kemoklidze, who has just won the international Operalia competition. She gave an excellent demonstration of her vocal and acting skills, especially in Una voce poco fà and in the whirlpool ensembles in the second scene of Act I and in Act II; she has a great career ahead if she sticks with this type of vocality.

Nicola Alaimo as Don Bartolo and Fabio Capitanucci as Figaro in Rossini's 'The Barber of Seville' at Palermo's Teatro Massimo. Photo © 2010 Franco Lannino/Studio Camera
Fabio Maria Capitanucci (Figaro) and Nicola Alaimo (Bartolo) have about the same age of the three principals of the cast; with the fifty-year-old Simone Alaimo (Basilio) and the delightful Giovanna Donadini (Berta), completing a first class cast, both vocally and scenically.

A scene from Rossini's 'The Barber of Seville' at Palermo's Teatro Massimo. Photo © 2010 Franco Lannino/Studio Camera
Normally, I deal with the stage direction, sets and costumes before reviewing the musical aspects. For this Barbiere the staging deserves a special mention: Francesco Micheli (thirty-eight years old, and comparatively young on the Italian operatic scene) offers a Barbiere which is not the usual slapstick farce: Seville is seen through the eyes and the painting of Mirò and Cesari Sterbini's libretto through the mind of Pedro Almodóvar. Thus Bartolo, the guardian of Rosina, is also her old lover-protector (as it used to be in the late eighteenth century). The 'ward' has smelled better eros and better sex with the 'young student Lindoro' (the Count of Almavivan in disguise). And Figaro? He is a casual worker in search of a permanent occupation ; meantime, he is a jack-of-all-trades (not only a barber), selling his services to the old power (Bartolo and Basilio) and the new power-to-be (Almaviva and Rosina). We know that he will get a steady job in the employ of the Count who would try to sleep with his wife the very night of their wedding. The Mirò sets are by Angelo Canu, and the costumes by Marja Hoffmann. They are part of the Teatro Massimo permanent staff; sets and costumes were produced in the theatre's workshop. To further heighten the Mirò/Almodóovar atmosphere, sets and costumes are very bright. The principals wore shantung silk costumes: black for the old guard, shocking yellow for Rosina, blue for Almaviva and red for Figaro.

Dmitry Korchak as Count Almaviva, Ketevan Kemoklidze as Rosina and Fabio Capitanucci as Figaro in Rossini's 'The Barber of Seville' at Palermo's Teatro Massimo. Photo © 2010 Franco Lannino/Studio Camera
A budget but high quality production. We want a DVD!
Copyright © 25 September 2010 Giuseppe Pennisi,
Rome, Italy

GIOACCHINO ROSSINI
THE BARBER OF SEVILLE
ITALY
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