Rossini's opera The Barber of Seville (or the Useless Precaution) is so familiar that viewers may not notice how strange it is. The story is about a middle-aged miser scheming to marry his beautiful ward in order to control her sizeable dowry. Of course, the young woman, Rosina, dislikes the much older man who has, in effect, imprisoned her. But the miser, Dr. Bartolo, has a rival and the opera details how the young lovers scheme to defeat the old man's designs on Rosina. Of course, the titular "barber of Seville" is Figaro, a charming picaro, who acts as a factotum on behalf of the illicit lovers, exercising his ingenuity and access to all the characters -- he shaves men, cuts hair, sells wigs, does a little therapeutic bloodletting and administers enemas (he's a bit like Warren Beatty in Shampoo) -- to bring Rosina and her boyfriend together and, indeed, unite them in marriage. (Since this is a comedy, in fact, a close relative to the Italian commedia dell' arte farces, the lovers outwit the old man, humiliate him, and the curtain falls on a lusty wedding chorus. So far this plot outline seems pretty conventional -- the passion and ardor of the young lovers, with the conniving of Figaro, defeat the old man's venal intentions: love overcomes age and money. But this is a mischaracterization of the story: the male romantic protagonist is not all that much younger than Dr. Bartolo, the middle-aged miser. And, furthermore, this man, Count Almaviva, is rich and powerful, a sort of Midas-figure who lubricates the plot by liberally distributing purses of gold and silver -- financial gain is Figaro's apparent motivation for assisting Rosina and Almaviva in their liaison. Furthermore, Almaviva is posited as immensely powerful; at key points in the story, he demonstrates his noble credentials to the local military commander who blanches with fear and, immediately, does the Count's bidding. So, of course, the story's premise makes no real sense. Almaviva could simply buy Rosina from the old miser or, even, use his military connections to peremptorily seize her. This is not a case of penniless young lovers triumphing against societal forces prohibiting their relationship. Rather, this is the case of a young and handsome oligarch acting as a sort of gangster in affairs of the heart -- on the basis of his money and power, Almaviva makes people "offers that they can't refuse." The elderly miser doesn't have a chance against the influence and wealth of the Count. Furthermore, Almaviva's power really renders the intrigues engineered by Figaro completely gratuitous; Almaviva actually doesn't need Figaro's contrivances to succeed in winning Rosina. The plot posits that the rich and powerful Almaviva doesn't want to win Rosina on the basis of these attributes. In fact, he wants Rosina to love him for himself and, therefore, at the outset impersonates a indigent student named Lindoro. But the various playful disguises adopted by Almaviva can't conceal from the spectator that at every key juncture in the story, the hero just buys his way out of trouble or bends the local military officials to his will. (The libretto is based on a play by Beaumarchais usually described as foreshadowing the upheavel against the ancien regime that was the French Revolution -- this may be the case, but I don't see any traces of revolutionary ideology in the Barber of Seville; if anything, the story is conservative, even reactionary. Rossini's opera premiered in 1815.)
The Minnesota opera here revives a 1995 production of The Barber of Seville. I saw the show on May 10, 2025 and recall seeing it 1995 as well -- it is, in fact, quite memorable. The opera is conventionally staged with lavish, if traditional, scenery -- flats depicting Seville's streets and a courtyard in front of Rosina's balcony and some ornate baroque-era palace interiors. The actors are dressed in the style of the late 18th century and there is no attempt to gussy up the production with modernist gestures or high concept. The story takes place in the 1780's in Seville and features performers dressed in period costume, garments that look a little like variations of the things that people wear in Goya's court portraits. Everything is presented in a direct, clear style -- comedy is usually well-lit and lucid so that the gags and situational humor can be appreciated. You don't expect Rembrandt-lighting or dialectical montage in an episode of Friends or Mary Tyler Moore. The music is wonderful, many extended passages not at all inferior to Mozart (whose operatic style Rossini, more or less, imitates). The overture is full of achingly beautiful melodies and, even, presents a certain plaintive aspect -- but none of that superb music is in the opera proper; Rossini simply recycled tunes from earlier work to cobble together the famous overture. There are several rapid-fire machine-gun clip patter songs that require virtuosic delivery -- and these comic highlights were expertly performed. Figaro makes a great appearance, his name sounding several times offstage, and, then, sauntering into the middle of the action, smirking as he pushes a cart with wigs posed on featureless heads and the tools of his trade on-board. Self-assured and ingenious, Figaro engineers the two disguises in which Almaviva infiltrates the miser's household. In the first disguise, Almaviva impersonates a very drunk soldier billeted in the household. The man carries a big white bundle between his legs, a phallic appendage that he can jerk up into an erection as required. In the second disguise, Almaviva sneaks into Bartolo's palace dressed as a prudish, ecclesiastical music teacher -- he wears a sort of black scroll rolled up at the edges on his head and sings through his nose with a nasal braying. Rossini contrives to summon all his forces on stage for the finales of both the first and second and last act. A chorus of opera buffa soldiers with plumed hats appears in each finale. As the soldier's sing, they make the scarlet plumes on their hats twitch rhythmically like floppy metronomes. The show features an elderly servant in red livery who moves in slow, slow motion -- it's a Monty Python effect. There's also a spunky maid who is continuously inhaling snuff (supplied by Figaro) to cause her to sneeze explosively. The phrase "the useless precaution" is repeated at several key points in the story and, when Almaviva courts Rosina in the guise of the music teacher, she sings an aria under his direction with that name -- it's like the self-reflexive musical numbers in the last act of Don Giovanni. Comedy tends to be self-referential and violates the fourth wall -- there's lots of hamming it up for the audience. From time to time, Bartolo's discomfiture is signaled by whirling psychedelic lights -- Almaviva's exploits, as contrived by Figaro, create an almost eerie febrile aspect to some scenes. There's even a ballet interlude in which dancers with umbrellas weather a thunderstorm presented through elaborate program music and projected images of clouds, rain, and, then, glorious sunshine.
For modern viewers, the opera seems too long. You have to be in the right mood for this sort of tomfoolery. But, in general, I thought that the performance was pretty much flawless and Rossini's "perpetual motion" rhythms and gallops are always engaging. The show's got a pulse and its infectious.
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