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.