100 YEARS OLD AND STILL HAVING CULTURED FUN...

OH CHIRPY chaps from Charing Cross! Oh convivial crowds from Cambridge! Oh delighted denizens of Ditchling in East Sussex, how lucky you all are! For these were the last three venues to see the glorious production of Rossini’s The Barber Of Seville given by the amazing people from Pop-up Opera.

The Charing Cross Theatre, London, Court Gardens Farm in Ditchling and Fitzwilliam College, Cambridge were the last three stops on their whirlwind tour and to judge from my own joy on seeing it in Cambridge, I am confident that the audiences at the other locations also had a splendid time and emerged grinning from ear to ear.

My own trip to see it was particularly fortuitous. My haircuts this season have got terribly out of sync with the weather and for the past few weeks I have been desperately in need of a cut. Being a cowardly sort of chap though, I have been putting it off until the weather improves. Why, incidentally, don’t they rename cowardice as PreTraumatic Stress Syndrome? It sounds much better that way and would properly recognise the potential health and safety benefits of pusillanimity.

Anyway, feeling a little guilty about not going to the barber, I went to The Barber instead and my spirits were lifted immediately. Pop-up, you see, have a uniquely jolly way of presenting opera, especially comic opera, which manages to preserve complete respect for the original music and words while performing them in a manner that will be adored by modern audiences.

First, they insist on performing in the original language. The long vowels of Italian make it much better to sing in than English and Italian words fit the rhythms of the music better than any translation could hope to do.

That, of course, runs the risk that the audience won’t understand what’s going on but the brilliant Pop-up solution is to project captions in the style of silent movies to explain what’s happening. Not only is this far more succinct than a surtitled translation but it introduces an opportunity to add witty comments, especially when the humour of the original is flagging.

Rossini’s Barber has been the funniest of all operas since its first performance 200 years ago. With the addition of Pop-up’s glorious captions, it has become funnier than ever.

But while all the mayhem of the ridiculous storyline and the lunatic captioning are going on, we are treated to some exceptionally fine singing. With the established opera companies able to acquire the services of the world’s finest singers with huge fees, Pop-up has a knack of attracting the very best young singers from our music schools. The entire cast of this Barber were faultless and their voices were a joy to listen to.

Performing in such venues as barns or back rooms of pubs as well as the occasional concert hall, they adapt to suit the surroundings, which adds to the hilarity. You’ve missed the Barber now unless you fancy a trip to Corfu in September but popupopera.co.uk has details of future productions. If you fancy a low-priced, real operatic treat, you won’t do better than Pop-up.