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OPERA REVIEW
October 7, 2003
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By Olivia Stapp
Rossini's The Barber of Seville has filled opera houses with laughter
for close to two hundred years, and Tuesday's opening night at the San Francisco War Memorial House was no exception. The production was highly innovative and featured an exuberant cast of capable singers. However, the star of the evening was a dazzling Malibu-modern style two-story house that rotated to reveal either an exterior with required balcony or an interior featuring many rooms that were filled with simultaneous activity.
The Stuttgart architect/stage designer Hans Dieter Schaal's set, which was originally projected to weigh 35,000 pounds, had to be undergirded with a steel structure to keep the stage from collapsing, and finally weighed in at 45,000 pounds in toto. (That, of course, did not include the weight of the performers.) It was a mechanical marvel, turning noiselessly, thanks to Larry Klein, the technical director wunderkind of the San Francisco Opera who was in charge of the costly gargantuan construction. The skillful lighting of Paul Pyant greatly enhanced, by subtle illumination of interior spaces, the already brilliant stage design.
When the tenor,Yann Beuron (Count Almaviva) makes his first entrance from under a manhole at a road construction site at the side of the stage, we are given our first intimation that we are about to be treated to an evening where the directorial stance appears to have, if not an active disdain for tradition, at least a hearty disregard for it. Good! It is time for a breath of fresh air. We are alive with anticipation, and Stuttgart director Johannes Schaaf does not disappoint. He is an inexhaustible supplier of très recherché shtick, contrivance, absurdity, and sight gags.
Helene Schneiderman (Rosina) Nathan Gunn (Figaro) Yann Beuron (Count Almaviva) Photos by Ken Friedman There is almost continuous background movement in the upstairs-downstairs set, as the director seems to succumb to the anxiety that we might perchance notice the singers, instead of his own clever offerings. Figaro (Nathan Gunn) arrives on a red motor scooter, dressed in a Red Baron get-up, his long denim coat swirling behind. During the course of his great aria, “Largo al factotum,” he is made to shave first the beard, and then the legs, of a woman(?) who is standing on her head on his scooter. Who is she? Perhaps our leading lady? No! She is an acrobat hired to stand on her head and distract us from listening to the baritone sing the virtuoso second half of what is probably the most famous aria in opera. Because the opera is cluttered with gags, the singing is continually being depreciated. Opera singers who can act are hybridized into theater actors who, incidentally, can also sing. The revered and splendid bass Paul Plishka (Dr. Bartolo) sings his difficult aria while his manservant is dusting the private parts of a life-sized medical model in his office. The audience titters. The same servant, Ambrogio, hilariously mimed by 2003 Adler Fellow Ricardo Herrera, is caught playing strip poker under a sheet with the maid Berta (the estimable Catherine Cook). The chorus is a gang of larcenous ruffians, who steal all the Count's clothes, down to his underwear, strip Figaro's motor bike, and empty Dr. Bartolo's entire house, including a hospital bedpan. All this happens during soloist's arias, duets, and ensembles. The audience is kept laughing. This shift in focus from performer to directorial innovation (the new orthodoxy) undermines, in this case, Rossini's most-performed masterpiece by obliterating it as a vehicle for both bravura vocalism and refined Italinate wit in favor of graceless farce.
The high-spirited baritone Nathan Gunn portrayed Figaro as fun-loving bumpkin and sang with ease and elegance, although his richly hued voice occasionally sounded light, tending more toward a pop than an operatic sound. Helene Schneiderman, a member of the Stuttgart ensemble since 1982, who did a memorable performance here in last year's Alcina, here portrayed Rosina with pristine coloratura. Don Basilio, the bass Phillip Ens, also from the Stuttgart ensemble, sang well. Tenor Yann Beuron ministered his lovely sound with great musicality. Outstanding as always, was the superb bass Paul Plishka. Hugh Russell (Fiorello) displayed opulent vocal verve. The costumes by designer Yan Tax spanned the ages from the 18th century to the present, giving the work a timeless quality that recalled the period of the original composition (1816) while seeming to be also contemporary. Hungarian-born Stefan Soltesz, debuting in San Francisco, conducted with crisply defined Mediterranean brio and precision. The orchestra played outstandingly for him. Bryndon Hassman embellished the proceedings with droll commentary from the harpsichord.
(Olivia Stapp is an opera director, formerly artistic director of Festival Opera (1995-2001), and has had a major international career as a soprano.)
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Yann Beuron (Count Almaviva)
Helene Schneiderman (Rosina)