Empire Theatre, Eden Court, Inverness, 5 November 2011

SUCH was the impact of this Sir Thomas Allen production of Rossini’s all time favourite that it is scarcely believable that it was four years ago that it came to Inverness.

The main thing that struck the mind first time around was that Sir Thomas had brought a lifetime on the operatic stage to his production with little details that carpetbaggers would not even have thought about.

Cast of Scottish Opera's revival of The Barber of Seville

For this revival, still produced by Sir Thomas, most of these little snippets were still there, and a few new ones besides. Simon Higlett’s set is incredibly complicated, but such is the amount of work that has gone into the show that all went off without a hitch – at least if there was a hitch, it wasn’t apparent to the audience which packed the Empire Theatre to the gods for both performances.

The Barber of Seville is essentially a comic opera about money; how it brings greed out in people, how it can oil the wheels of life and how it can overcome people’s loyalties. It is based on the first of the Figaro trilogy by Pierre Beaumarchais that so scandalised the Parisian censors while at the same time enjoying many private performances. The three plays illustrate the relationships between the aristocracy and the people before, during and after the period of the French Revolution.

The scene is set during the overture as the street in Seville wakes up. Count Almaviva (Thomas Walker), Spain’s most eligible bachelor has followed Rosina (Claire Booth) and Dr Bartolo (Tiziano Bracci) whose ward she is, from Madrid. He serenades Rosina with the help of a street band arranged by the café owner, Fiorello (Adam Miller) but gets no response. Rosina is unable to react and that is as far as things go as Bartolo is so suspicious of everything she does. He is afraid to lose her and her fortune to another. In fact he is going to marry her himself that very day.

Figaro (Ville Rusanen) enters, with the first of the show-stoppers, the ‘Largo al Factotum’, probably the best know aria in all opera, and performed brilliantly. He and Almaviva recognise each other (in fact they had first appeared together in an earlier Beaumarchais play, Le Sacristain). Almaviva serenades Rosina again, but this time as a penniless student called Lindoro, and she responds by dropping a note to him from her balcony. And so another plot has to be hatched to get “Lindoro” into Bartolo’s house. He will go disguised as a drunken soldier with a billeting order from the regiment that has just arrived in Seville.

The genius of Simon Higlett’s set is now revealed as the street scene disappears to reveal the interior of Bartolo’s house, still in a state of chaos following his move from Madrid. Again the little details are legion; the broken plasterwork, the dodgy electrics, Rosina’s room looking like a cage. And it is from that cage that Rosina shows that she is no pushover as the feisty Claire Booth sings ‘Una voce poco fa’.

There is one more character to meet, the singing teacher Don Basilio, lugubriously portrayed by the bass Graeme Broadbent, and always open to a bribe as he suggests that the best way for Bartolo to get rid of Lindoro/Almaviva and Figaro is with a bit of good dishonest slander. The first act comes to a riotous conclusion as Lindoro arrives with his billeting papers, to which Bartolo presents his exemption. Uproar ensues and the police arrive to settle the breach of the peace, but leaving Rosina no further forward, still trapped in her cage.

Act Two opens with Plan B. Almaviva arrives in yet another disguise, this time as Don Basilio’s supposed assistant, Don Alonso, with a marvellous set of false teeth (apparently Thomas Walker’s own idea). This is where the whole plot descends into farce, complete with a shaving scene that was a little underplayed. But out of this confusion of mistaken identities and stolen ladders, everything ends happily as the notary is bribed into marrying Rosina to Almaviva, rather than to Bartolo, and we are left hoping that everyone lives happily ever after. Or do they? The second play of the trilogy, The Marriage of Figaro, tells us otherwise, and if that isn’t enough the final part, La Mère Coupable, leaves us in no doubt.

This was a five star show. Acting and singing – a universal five stars. The orchestra under maestro James Grossmith – five more stars. Design and production – once again five stars. And what about those nuns savouring their cigars as they celebrate the marriage of Almaviva and Rosina!

As Scottish Opera approaches its golden jubilee, it is reassuring to know that there is a treasury of world class productions in its repertoire, of which this Barber of Seville deserves special mention. When I think back to a young Scottish Opera’s minimalist version back in the 1960s of three curtained cubicles, there is just no comparison with what Inverness has just witnessed.

© James Munro, 2011

Links

• Scottish Opera