The Barber of Seville, Opera San Jose, Feb. 20 2011

It has been quite a while since I’ve seen a “This performance is sold out” sign in front of the box office at the California Theatre, but there it was on Sunday—congratulations!

After the sprightly overture (which Rossini had borrowed from his Aureliano and Palmiera and Elizabeth, Queen of England), the curtain went up on a traditional set showing us a street in Seville. In the center, a two-story building with a front door and a wall fountain below, a balcony above and to the right, and directly above the front door, a translucent window through which we could see characters approaching the balcony. On the street, to the left, flower bed and a lamp post, and to the left of that, another building with a front door, separated from Dr. Bartolo’s house by a tiny alley. To the right, an alleyway entrance flanked by two palm trees, and further to the right, the door to a smaller house.

At the end of the first scene, Figaro and Almaviva stepped to the front of the stage to launch the finale with La bottega? while the curtain came down to cover the rotating of the set to display the interior of the house, where the remainder of the action will take place. We see the other side of the front door, with two massive sliding bolts above and below the latch; much stage business was made of opening and closing these bolts. In front, an easy chair and a sofa and a small writing desk; doors to the left and right. The overall color scheme was ochre; the first floor had a wainscoting with red and black diamonds over the ochre.

Our cast:
Figaro: Krassen Karagiozov
Almaviva: Michael Dailey
Rosina: Betany Coffland
Dr. Bartolo: Silas Elash
Don Basilio: Isaiah Musik-Ayala
Fiorello: Anders Froehlich
Berta: Tori Grayum

The stand-out performer was Karagiozov, who sang Figaro with the authority and vocal heft that the role calls for, though he lacked the last bit of stage presence that a Joseph Wright would have brought. (Wright sang Don Giovanni a few years ago, and it was fun seeing him enjoying being the Don.) I'm not sure that Elash’s voice was shown off to its best effect as Dr. Bartolo; I would love to hear him in Don Basilio’s La calunnia.

Jose Maria Condemi’s staging baffled me. It wasn’t offensive (for that, I refer to the Macbeth in San Francisco a few years ago), but I just didn't get the points that were trying to be made. Figaro enters, blindfolded, with four women pawing at him, as though he is The Stud Of Seville. Whereas the text calls for Fiorello’s musicians to praise Almaviva for their generous payment, these musicians wave their coins under his nose and point their instruments at him as though he has underpaid them. Berta always had a pipe in her mouth. I like to anticipate what the director might do with the Act 1 finale, for which all sorts of clever stagings have been devised. Here, the soldiers sent to arrest the “drunken” Almaviva wind up rotating in place, while various carrots are swung overhead. Huh?

It seemed that the Act 2 finale was cut just a little bit to bring the curtain down a few seconds before 11:00, at which time overtime charges kick in.

Overall, the performance did not sparkle as much as it might have. For that, and the baffling staging, I will award a “beta,” but barely.