A glorious jubilee If there is a cure for despondency anywhere, then certainly in the form of a production of the opera The Barber of Seville, and if Jean-Pierre Ponnel is listed in the directors, then with a 100% guarantee of healing without side effects.
Ponnel, as a true creator, had an absolute “sense of music”, and therefore even the work of forty years ago looks fresh and unstamped.
Claudio Abbado was responsible for the musical part, and in his hands the music sparkles and splashes with fun like champagne, inviting listeners to join a musical feast.
Well, the singing composition was just amazing. The main couple of lovers are sung/played by the Spanish Teresa Berganza (which is very symbolic) and the Peruvian Luigi Alva, who sang the part of Count Almaviva so often that his colleagues called him Alvaviva. Good and pompous Dr. Bartolo (Enzo Dara) and strange Don Basilio (Paolo Montarsolo).
But the main decoration of the production is Figaro performed by Herman Prey. Charming, cheerful crook, “Figaro is here, Figaro there”, everywhere keeps up, easily and effortlessly shaves, transfers notes of lovers, intrigues, fools, arranges the marriage of the count and Rosina, he is simply enchanting. The director will appreciate it, and in a few years Prey will play Figaro in an equally brilliant production of Mozart’s “The Marriage of Figaro”.
The scale of the production allows Ponnel to show small details that would be impossible to see on a big stage. Rosina, behind Bartolo sending an air kiss to Lindor, or affectionately hugging him during a singing lesson (the expression of his face at this moment is simply priceless); Bartolo himself, kissing Figaro's hand, thinking that it is Rosina; Don Basilio, climbing out the window for a coin or an aria of "Slander", turned with all these smokes into a kind of infernal spectacle.
In general, more than two hours fly by in one breath and not boring. Look and listen, it's really fun.
P.S. The barber turned 200 years old this year.
Bravo, bravissimo; fortunatissimo, fortunatissimo, fortunatissimo per verita!
8 out of 10