The Barber of Seville is a Comedic Delight at the Minnesota Opera

The Barber of Seville closes out the Minnesota Opera’s 2024-25 season and it turns out to be my favorite of their productions. As the lights dimmed in the theater and the audience cheered as the conductor took his place and began the Overture my mind conjured up visions of a talking grey rabbit and a hunter with a speech impediment. The music by Gioachino Rossini is one of probably two or three operas that someone who has never seen an opera will immediately recognize. There was a moment during the Overture when I swear I heard Bugs Bunny singing “Can’t you see that I’m much sweeter, I’m your little senoriter. For a moment, I worried that the night might be plagued by intrusive thoughts of wascally wabbits. But to my delight the action on stage pushed all such images from my mind and I was extremely engaged with the production. My opera experience has been growing since I began The Stages of MN, from having seen one in my pre-blog days to I would guesstimate about twenty now. It’s never going to be my favorite performance art, but my appreciation is steadily growing. This production in particular I found to be very accessible and charmingly funny.

The plot feels like something out of a Gilbert and Sullivan opera. Count Almaviva is in love with Rosina, who loves him as well though she knows him by the disguise he has assumed as that of a poor student named Lindoro. At two points in the story, as Lindoro, he will assume a third disguise, first as a drunken soldier and later as a substitute teacher named Don Alonso. He must do this to try and get into the house of Dr Bartolo who is Rosina’s guardian and intends to marry him herself. The Count is assisted in his schemes to gain access to Rosina by his friend Figaro, the Barber of the title. Dr Bartolo is aware of the Count’s intentions and is making his own schemes to thwart him with Rosina’s music teacher Don Basilio. It sounds rather confusing but it isn’t partly due to one of the downsides of Opera’s, which is the belief on the part of the writers of operas, if something is worth singing, it’s worth singing five times, in a row. I’m used to that at this point and accept it, but what this production did surprise me with is how funny, fresh, and modern it felt. I wouldn’t be surprised to learn that Stage Director Chuck Hudson was acknowledging the cultural impact of The Rabbit of Seville with a wink to the audience in a couple of places where the humor was delightfully cartoonish.

The cast was very good all around standouts included Takaoki Onishi as Figaro, Kathgerine Beck as Rosina, Lunga Eric Hallam as Count Almaviva and Stefan Egerstrom as the surprisingly deep voiced Don Basilio. Matthew Anchel gave a very good performance as Dr. Bartolo, but there were several instances when he was singing that I couldn’t hear a single sound from him. The really delightful thing about all the performances was not the vocals (which of course were tremendous) but the acting. The reality is that first and foremost at the Opera, the voice reins supreme, a great singer can stand on stage and sing and carry off the role brilliantly without even doing much in the way of acting. But in this case, all of the performances where as strong as the vocals, it’s a comic opera so there isn’t necessarily a lot of rich character building expected. But as any actor with tell you comedy is hard, and they all pull of the comedic performances superbly.

As is always the case with the Minnesota Opera Orchestra they sounded elegant under Principal Conductor Christopher Franklin. Usually the Overture is something I wish they would cut, but tonight I was thoroughly enjoying it. One of the things that keeps me coming back to at least a couple productions of the Minnesota Opera a year are the design elements and this was no different. The Scenic Design by Allen Moyer relied heavily on painted backdrops but they were accented so well by set pieces that I rather enjoyed the overall aesthetic. There were no corners cut in the costume department, the designs by Mathew J. Lefebvre were richly textured and striking to behold. I do also want to credit Lighting Designer Eric Watkins along with Moyer for a scene that acts as a little ballet during Act II of people with umbrellas navigating their way through a thunderstorm, it’s very effectively done and while disposable to the plot, I’m sure glad it was there.

The MN Opera’s production of The Barber of Seville runs through May 18th at the Ordway Center for Performing Arts in downtown St. Paul. For more information and to purchase tickets go to https://mnopera.org/season/2024-2025/the-barber-of-seville/

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