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The Barber of Seville

Published Monday 6 July 2009 at 10:35 by Edward Bhesania

There’s no doubt that Leiser and Caurier’s Royal Opera Barber, new in 2005, is funny. But they’ve allowed their regular set and costume designers, Christian Fenouillat and Agostino Cavalca, to somewhat hijack the production.

The pastel box-set of Bartolo’s sparsely furnished home features concealed doors - a sharp comment on his ward Rosina’s trapped isolation. But that message hardly hits home when the coloured vertical lines, already fairly crude, jumble into a kind of animated Bridget Riley, as the whole set lifts and tilts, reflecting the ensemble’s confusion in the Act 1 finale. It’s a mechanical miracle better left to the fairground.

With some garish costumes - Figaro looks alarmingly Smurf-like, Almaviva is swamped in frills and bright colours, the policemen have plastic white helmets and black PVC capes - and the heart-shaped balloons at the end, the campness is gratuitous.

Thankfully Pietro Spagnoli is a can-do, life-loving Figaro, Joyce DiDonato is a spittingly feisty Rosina and Juan Diego Florez amuses in Almaviva’s cameos as drunken soldier and obsequious singing teacher. Alessandro Corbelli’s Bartolo is simply a marvel of comic acting and Feruccio Furlanetto is a skin-crawlingly oily Don Basilio who gains almost sexual pleasure from his plans to slander Almaviva. The singing all round easily meets the high expectations created by such a top-flight cast, with the applause following DiDonato’s Una Voce Poco Fa, exceeded only by the audience eruption after Florez’s Cessare Di Piu Resistere. Shortly after the former, DiDonato slipped and hurt her right leg. Although she gallantly continued her performance (many were unaware of the injury), she returned after the interval on a crutch. It was announced she had sprained her ankle, although it turns out she broke the fibula of her right leg. Perhaps by completing the performance, she was reflecting Rosina’s steely resolve, but certainly DiDonato suddenly found herself playing two heroines at once.

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