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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

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