The Barber of Seville

Opera Theatre of St. Louis

By the time the final notes of Opera Theatre's new production of Rossini's The Barber of Seville have sounded, the stage looks a bit like a hotel suite after a one-night stay by a heavy metal band. Cameron Anderson's design for Dr. Bartolo's house - something roughly akin to Dr. Frankenstien's laboratory as envisioned by the late animator Chuck Jones - is chaotic enough to begin with. After the cast, under the direction of Ken Cazan, has finished dashing about and (with annoying frequency) rolling around on the floor of that set, however, it's a muddled, chaotic mess ripe for the labors of theatrical Hercules.

This, as it happens, is a rather good metaphor for what's wrong with the production. Like that set, Cazan's approach to the show is so cluttered with ideas (some of them wildly inappropriate) and manic stage business (some of it annoying) that the final product is an incoherent and tedious mess. Cazan appears to feel that his job is to keep the cast in constant motion so that the audience will have something to look at while all that boring old music is playing - even if that means drawing focus away from whoever is singing at the time. God forbid we should actually just listen to the score for a couple of minutes!

The fact that the principals of this Barber are able to sing that score so well and enunciate George Mead's English libretto (the same one OTSL used ten years ago) so clearly, despite being placed in positions that make breath control exceptionally difficult (kneeling, bending over, lying and writhing about on the floor), is a testament to both their virtuosity and their stamina. This is certainly a young singer's production; anyone over the age of 50 would be risking cardiac arrest.

As Figaro, the self-appointed Factotum of Seville, baritone Hugh Russell shows the same comic skill and solid musicianship that he brought to the role of Sander in Beauty and the Beast last year. Despite some minor problems in his opening cavatina (which will almost certainly have disappeared by the time you read this) tenor Alek Shrader delivers both the vocal and comic goods as the love-struck Count Almaviva, as does bass Patrick Carfizzi in the role of Dr. Bartolo.

The latter rattles off those sixteenth- and thirty-second-notes in Bartolo's Act I (Rossini's Act II) scene with Rosina with deceptive ease and earned appropriately enthusiastic applause from the opening night audience as a result - despite having to contend with wrong-headed direction that attempts to turn this classic buffoon into a contemporary abusive villain.

Mezzo Kate Lindsey, who was such a compelling Mercedes in Carmen two years ago, is a completely captivating Rosina here. She sings beautifully and is convincingly sexy - an essential point if we're going to understand why Bartolo and Almaviva find her so alluring.

Bass-baritone Joshua Winograde makes an auspicious OTSL debut as the easily corruptible Don Basilio. I'm not sure that making him into a druggie who swipes samples from Bartolo's lab is all that funny overall, but your mileage may vary. Winograde certainly brings great comic timing to the role in any case, as does mezzo Jana Batty in the part of the housekeeper Berta, yearning with unrequited lust for her employer.

Dean Williamson does a fine job down in the orchestra pit and chorus master Sandra Horst has made the choral scenes models of clarity - assisted, no doubt, by soprano Erie Mills, here billed as the English Diction Specialist.

Director Cazan has elected to move the action to the 1920s, apparently for no other reason than the fact that he happened to be reading a biography of Federico García Lorca when he started work on the project. The change of era gives costume designer Katheryn E. Grillo a chance to produce some colorful period outfits but distorts many of the social relationships. There's nothing wrong in moving the action of an opera or any other dramatic work in time and/or space if doing so has some dramaturgical justification and keeps the internal logic of the piece in place. When the justification is essentially random and the logic falls apart, however, a disservice is done to both the original creators and the audience.

The Opera Theatre of St. Louis production of The Barber of Seville runs through June 24th in rotating repertory with three other operas; call 314-961-0644 or visit them on line. Ticket prices being what they are, I can't really recommend it, despite my affection for the opera itself. The cast, chorus and orchestra are spinning musical gold, but (to keep up the fairy tale metaphor) the director has buried it under a ton of straw.

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