Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: WEDNESDAY, February 1, 1995 TAG: 9502010051
SECTION: CURRENT PAGE: NRV-6 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
SOURCE: SETH WILLIAMSON CORRESPONDENT
DATELINE: RADFORD LENGTH: Medium
The New York City Opera National Company said sayonara to Radford University for a while Monday night with a funny and beautifully performed production of Rossini's "The Barber of Seville."
City Opera's yearly visit to Radford has become something of a winter tradition, but the company inked a contract for a West Coast tour next year that will put an end to its stop in Radford, at least for the time being. The university is considering replacing City Opera with the San Francisco Opera or another comparable touring company.
Monday night's "Barber" in the nearly full Preston Hall was a specimen example of everything that's good about this organization's national touring company. Not every City Opera show in Radford has scaled the heights of operatic immortality, of course, with one or two ho-hum productions and a few bush-league singers over the years.
But Richard McKee's production of the comic bel canto classic had this company's characteristic virtues on display in abundance. It was a mainstream, middle-of-the-road production of an operatic staple that contained no Peter Sellars-style funny business or odd conceptual innovations.
The set was handsome, the costumes eye-catching, brilliantly colored and faithful to 18th-century Spain. The redoubtable Joseph Colaneri conducted, as usual, entirely from memory, and his small 26-piece orchestra played well.
The singers represented probably the finest and most well-balanced cast the company ever brought to Radford. Because City Opera's National Company merged with the main company over a year ago, the touring group contains singers who are regularly heard in the parent organization's New York City productions, and the improvement is noticeable.
The only serious musical problem was the electric piano. The continuo accompaniment to the recitativo was played masterfully, but for some reason the orchestra brought an electronic instrument that sounded painfully artificial - and when a loose amplifier wire jiggled in the opera's finale, everybody from the violin section to the rear balcony jumped out of their seats.
I have seen the "Barber" many times, from the English National Opera in London to San Francisco, but this show was easily the funniest of them all. The lion's share of the credit goes to bass- baritone Thomas Hammons and bass Ding Gao, who created the magnificently sleazy team of Dr. Bartolo and Don Basilio.
Hammons' toad-like, snuff-dipping doctor, panting with eagerness to marry his lovely young ward Rosina, was the picture of pomposity. The decrepit music master Don Basilio, sung beautifully by Ding Gao, was the classic man with a price. This pair was a continual fountain of physical comedy arising from the most commonplace of stage situations.
A good example was their duet "La calunnia e un venticello," in which Basilio, with his ridiculously exaggerated hat, proposes to eliminate Count Almaviva as a rival for Rosina's affections by means of subtly planted slanders.
Seated beside Bartolo, Basilio claims he'll manage it ever so gently ("Leggermente, dolcemente"), rising from his chair and inching back down again a notch at a time with each note, as the mesmerized Bartolo tracks his movements syllable by syllable. This Marx Brothers stage business was continual when this pair was onstage -which was most of the night -and had the audience in stitches.
Baritone Daniel Mobbs was a fine Figaro, though his voice sounded tired toward the end of his great aria "Largo al factotum." Tenor Richard Drews as Count Almaviva showed a talent for comedy himself in his guise as the bogus music master Don Alonso, greeting Dr. Bartolo with a smarmy, strangled "Ben di core, pace, gioia."
Rosina was sung by Julia Anne Wolf, and it was good to hear a mezzo in this role, as Rossini conceived it. For a long era the role was inexplicably given to coloratura sopranos, who transposed the crucial aria "Una voce poco fa" a half-step up and frequently scrapped entirely other tunes written by Rossini for the part.
The darker coloring of Wolf's voice made for a better contrast with Almaviva's tenor and a generally more sultry approach to the role. Her "Una voce poca fa," with just the right amount of vocal decoration, was one of the two or three high points of the night.
After a magnificent third-act finale, the cast got many bravos and a standing ovation.
Seth Williamson produces news features and a weekday afternoon classical music program on public radio station WVTF.
by CNB