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HOT’s ‘Barber’
By Ruth O. Bingham
a cut above
Special to the Star-BulletinLeroy stole the show. Dogs always do. But then, when was the last time you saw a dog in an opera?
Mike Reid's portly bulldog, looking as wrinkled and grumpy-sweet as his onstage master, the old Dr. Bartolo, made his operatic debut yesterday in a (thankfully) nonsinging role. Leroy so loved the limelight, however, Dr. Bartolo finally had to carry him off, losing a hat in the process and leaving the audience in hysterics.
The audience found much to laugh about in Hawaii Opera Theatre's effervescent production of Rossini's "Barber of Seville," thanks to director Matthew Lata's excellent staging, a cleverly designed rented set, Peter Dean Beck's lighting and a fine cast.
Lata contributed the most, making nonsensical sense of details within the whole. Susanna, for example -- whom the barber will wed in Hawaii next year in the sequel to this opera, Mozart's "Marriage of Figaro" -- was added as a supernumerary. Lata also transformed Don Basilio's slander aria into a dramatic tempest and discovered logic for Berta's lament by finally pairing her with Dr. Bartolo. One of Lata's most charming additions involved expanding an often underplayed joke about enthusiastic but money-hungry musicians, comically rendered by the chorus, into a recurring visual motif.
Toward the end, the cast, caught up in the excitement of comic success, allowed clever staging to distract both themselves and the audience from singing most noticeably in Berta's aria, but by then hardly anyone was inclined to notice.
The plot, which loses too much in translation to summarize here, was both clearer and more complex as a result of Lata's staging. A simple, rather ingenious set that elicited oohs and aahs added dimensions to the plot as well, opening like a doll house to reveal interiors and closing to shut pandemonium in and the passing world out.
Beck's lighting enfolded the plot into a single day, revealing its slow progression from predawn till past midnight through the barred skylight of Dr. Bartolo's home, Rosina's prison.
Opera, however, hinges on voices; all else provides at most a setting and support.
Fortunately, HOT's "Barber" was well cast, physically as well as vocally: William Parcher's Dr. Bartolo was a crotchety but likable old man whose falsetto imitation of a castrato was hilarious. His Act I aria bombasted and pattered with surprising ease, even as he headed upstage and upstairs. Philip Cokorinos' Basilio thundered a reverberant and rather demonic "mad scientist" of a music teacher (a profession I suppose would drive anyone mad). John Bellemer's somewhat stiff Count Almaviva endeared with his nobly clear tenor. And Susanna Guzman's rich mezzo glowed, adding fire to Rosina's spirited nature, a feature that is lost when sopranos appropriate the role.
But Jeff Mattsy, as the irresistibly irrepressible Figaro, shone brightest. Light of foot and manner, handsome, charming -- with his robust baritone, he was impossible not to love. When the lovers, Count Almaviva and Rosina, did finally unite, the opera culminated not in the traditional love duet, but, tellingly, in a trio: Figaro had a hand even in that.
During Rossini's swift orchestral patter, conductor Mark Flint strove to maintain that fiendishly tricky balance between tempos slow enough to stay together but fast enough to be exciting.
No live performance is CD-perfect, and HOT's "Barber" was no exception: The orchestra at times overpowered singers; an added intermission interrupted Act I; ensembles wavered in parts; but scintillating fun prevailed, and quibbling was left to the critics.
