Cutting humour in Bard’s Barber of Seville
Bard on the Beach wraps up summer with tuneful show
OK, Chuck Jones’ 1950 opus The Rabbit of Seville may just be the second-funniest opera cartoon ever. (Jones’ 1957 Wagnerian spoof What’s Opera, Doc is incomparable.)
But, Gioachino Rossini’s original The Barber of Seville is just as funny, and it’s this year’s end-ofsummer opera production at Bard on the Beach.
Casts from the UBC Opera Ensemble did Barber in the Czech Republic earlier in the summer. Now, they’ve returned to Vancouver and will soon head back to school. But before that, there are four performances, Mondays at the Bard’s BMO Mainstage.
A strong case can be made for Rossini as classical music’s best known but most underrated composer.
Born in 1792, Rossini started work as a kid, writing what he called “six terrible sonatas” when he was just shy of his teens. Success came early. He was at the top of his profession by the time he was in his 20s. In all, he created 39 works for the stage before he packed it in — at age 35.
Rossini created operas in every sub-species of the day, from tragedy to farce and everything in between. Today we revere — but rarely stage — his final masterwork, William Tell (yes, the one with the overture that every North American associates with The Lone Ranger), and hear a handful of his other works on a regular basis.
But, his hit of all hits is The Barber of Seville, which first saw the light of day in February 1816 (composer aged 24) and hasn’t been out of the limelight for 200 years and counting. Its overture (“Welcome to my shop/Let me cut your mop,” as a certain long-eared cartoon character is wont to intone) is even more ubiquitous.
We hear it as the ultimate of opera buffa vivacity but, surprise, it was apparently adapted from two decidedly unfunny earlier opuses: Elizabeth, Queen of England and Aureliano in Palmira.
Choosing to go with Barber for the Bard makes consummate sense. Not unlike contemporary sitcoms, comic operas tend to have a good selection of roles, so there are lots of singing opportunities. Rossini’s comedy stems from character and situations, not lavish stage effects, so it’s as funny in a semi-staged version as it is with more elaborate sets and expensive production values.
The music is tuneful — lots of those “I know this number” moments. And, singing Rossini is good for young voices; he was a pro’s pro who knew all the tricks to make voices sound fantastic without overtaxing his singers.
Fans of Nancy Hermiston’s UBC Opera Ensemble know to expect both quality and enthusiasm from the company, and it’s a given there will be talent galore on display. The presence of the Vancouver Opera Orchestra in the pit, and the practised hand of Leslie Dala on the podium, adds extra lustre to the enterprise.
But, to go back to the world’s greatest comic opera and its brilliant composer for another moment, it’s disconcerting to know that fame and fortune and a spectacular comic sensibility didn’t bring Rossini happiness. He was afflicted by what today would be called severe depression.
He got out of the opera game at an opportune moment: styles were changing, and Rossini seemed to instinctively know that his refined late-classical idiom was on the way out. But, he didn’t quite give up music. While he kept fairly quiet about it, he wrote a strange and wonderful collection of odd little pieces called Sins of My Old Age and a remarkable solemn mass.
Rossini lived out just under four decades in opulent but often troubled retirement in Paris. He was renowned for his wit, his culinary enthusiasms (Tournedos Rossini is as much a culinary classic as The Barber is an operatic one) and his boundless generosity.
If personal happiness eluded him, the joy he’s brought the world of opera is incalculable.