Skip to main content
The Barber of Seville
Washington National Opera

The Barber of Seville is an opera so easy to listen to—and one of the hardest to sing.   The Washington National Opera’s latest production makes an additional demand on the singers— their high notes accompanied by the low comedy of bumps, falls and trips.   The result is a lot of laughs to the great delight at the endless possible physical antics  done with such perfect timing with the music.

We expect the barber Figaro to be witty and wise in ways to get things done, for he is after all the factotum or jack of all trades,  as well as a perfect singer especially for the familiar tongue twister arias that Rossini has bestowed on him.   Baritone Andrey Zhilikhovsky does it all. 

Tenor Taylor Stayton as Count Almaviva  is certainly a charming royal but he too gets into the silliness as does his love, the lovely soprano Isabel Leonard as Rosina.   For all her elegance, she gets right in with  groovy moves.  

The two basses —Paolo Bordogna as Dr. Bartolo and Wei Wu as Don Basilio—   are expected to be ridiculous.  Their timing for their slapstick antics is right on with their singing.

The singing lesson in Act 2 has often been turned into "a show-stopping event.”  Intrigues pile up to add to the fun of confusion.  Close to the end, when the stage is emptied after being trashed with paper love notes, Alexandria Shiner as Berta the servant, gets to have her say in the lovely aria about the old man looking for a wife  as she faces the mess to clean up.

Mozart’s Marriage of Figaro  picks up the story after Almaviva and Rosina when the romance has gone out of their marriage.   Figaro will once again step in to fix things.    

For now, with  The Barber of Seville we know there is going to be a happy ending, to what has been a most happy show.


The Barber of Seville was first performed 200 years ago but it never gets old.  Now at The Kennedy Center to May 19, 2018

Popular posts from this blog

  Once is here again!   The Brooklyn Gallery Players reach into the treasure chest of great musicals to bring Once alive and on stage in Brooklyn (until to December 17, 2023). Director Mark Gallagher , and Music Directors David Fletcher and Brendon McCray have crafted a vibrant production, seamlessly integrating the 15 member cast in roles  as both actors and musicians. Set in Dublin, the  formula for the poignant love triangle  is simple. Patrick Newhart  plays Guy, an Irish musician who has given up  on love as he sings the award winning classic  Falling.  Newhart mastered the bombastic busking guitar style and performed each of his songs with intensity and passion Sophie Smith-Brody  is Girl,  a Czech woman  who will inspire him to try again both in  love and with music. Smith-Brody performed each of her disparate songs with aplomb,  from the opening classical piece to her plaintive solos – If You Want Me and The Hill.  The performance starts  with an “ impromptu”  p
Read more
               TINA - THE TINA TURNER MUSICAL  at The National Theatre              In the 1970s, I  had spent weeks climbing around ruins in Peru.  I heard music of the Andes all over.  I  was  finally at  Machu Picchu to spend the night so I could get up early  and climb to see the sunrise from the top of the ruins.   As I got to steps by the gatekeepe,  I could hear his boom box blaring across the Andes “I Wanna Take You Higher”  by Tina Turner.   You don’t have to go climbing the Andes to hear her songs — Tina-The Tina Turner Musical  isright here  at the National Theatre, Washington DC,  until  Oct. 23, 2022.    The show has broken all records with the awards it has received since in premiered in April 2018 in London.  No one questions that Tina is a musical legend but  for this show  accolades to  the stars Naomi Rodgers and Zurin Villanueva who alternate in the  spectacular role.   At every performance there will be people  who remember seeing Tina “back when” and
Read more
  Sarah Ruhl’s Orlando — sparkling wit and ageless wisdom —   at   Constellation Theatre — gone but not forgotten In Virginia Woolf’s Orlando A Biography ,  the eponymous hero undergoes many changes over the centuries— from roles in society and relationships to sex change.  Since the time travel gender bending work was published in 1928, this his/her story has continued to undergone adaptions to its original form, from analytical scholarly critiques to crowd pleasing  movies and stage plays.  Constellation Theatre Company continued  the tradition with its amazing presentation of Sarah Ruhl’s narrative play Orlando .    Five actors  take on dozens of roles as characters or in the  chorus to keep the story at its rapid pace,  condensing events spanning almost five centuries into 100 minutes.   Orlando (Mary Myers) is  ever the aristocrat whether as a page in the court of  Queen Elizabeth I (Alan Naylor)  or involved with a mysterious Russian princess (Edmee - Marie Faal) or pursued
Read more