The Bar­ber of Seville is a very sil­ly opera.  Last night’s open­ing per­for­mance at the Opera House took that silli­ness to extremes, most­ly to good effect.

While very sil­ly, there’s no doubt that it’s also very good.  Orches­tra Welling­ton deliv­ered Rossini’s clas­sic under the grace­ful guid­ance of Wyn Davies, and the addi­tion of a Fortepi­ano and some bespoke per­cus­sion lent it real authen­tic­i­ty.

San­dra Piques Eddy and John Tessier as Rosi­na and Alma­vi­va were vocal­ly very well matched and had excel­lent chem­istry.  The score is more than a lit­tle chal­leng­ing, but they rose to it adept­ly and with con­sis­tent­ly high ener­gy through­out.  The rest of the cast were incred­i­bly hard-work­ing and yet every­one looked like they were hav­ing a riotous­ly fun time.

Mor­gan Pearse’s Figaro was superb, and he very much deserved the ova­tion he received.  I was imme­di­ate­ly impressed with the way his voice and phys­i­cal­i­ty were so well blend­ed.  Hilar­i­ous, com­mit­ted, and ridicu­lous­ly tal­ent­ed – I hope he comes back to Welling­ton for future NZ Opera pro­duc­tions.

This pro­duc­tion start­ed in Queens­land in 2016, the 200th anniver­sary of the opera.  Lindy Hume cel­e­brates this by hat-tip­ping the orig­i­nal 1816 pre­miere in fine details; for exam­ple, the cos­tum­ing cov­ers key eras since then.

Tra­cy Grant Lord has out­done her­self with that cos­tum­ing and her clev­er­ly trans­form­ing set.  Bright and live­ly, her work sup­ports the cast’s char­ac­ter­i­sa­tion per­fect­ly.

That live­li­ness skirts hys­te­ria towards the end of the first act.  The plot is con­fus­ing and the action fre­net­ic.  Every­one onstage, a mil­lion things hap­pen­ing, crazy lights and smoke… I could­n’t keep track of those fine details that had been so care­ful­ly con­struct­ed.  The sto­ry DOES descend into mad­ness at that point, but I was gen­uine­ly grate­ful for the inter­val.

That aside, I thor­ough­ly enjoyed this joy­ful, exu­ber­ant show.  I think any­one would, pro­vid­ed they have at least a lit­tle silli­ness in them.