With razor-sharp timing, gymnastic vocals and uproarious performances, this production of The Barber of Seville is a riot of theatrical delight
Cape Town Opera’s The Barber of Seville is bold, brash and hilarious, and before the titular barber, aka Figaro, even appears on stage, you feel his larger-than-life presence, signalled by the boastful lyrics of that famous aria, Largo al factotum (“make way for the factotum”), in which he praises himself and sings about how indispensable he is.
Even if you’ve never seen or heard the opera in full, you will recognise the song — it’s the one that contains those immortal lines, “Figaro! Figaro! Figaro!”
Bright, cheeky, quick-witted and lucid, baritone Thando Zwane’s Figaro is in many ways a personification of this perky opera. And, despite those preening introductory lyrics, you cannot help but fall instantly in love with him; his charms are irresistible, his voice sublime.
In this new production of the farcical Italian opera, director Sylvaine Strike has cleverly overlaid multiple realities, creating a kind of meta-theatre. While it reaches back across time to the ancient roots of comedy, it also pulls us into a slipstream where parallel timelines are unfolding: there’s the original 18th-century French farce by Pierre-Augustin Caron de Beaumarchais, there’s the 1816 comic opera by Gioachino Rossini, and there’s the subsequent 200 years during which the composer’s groundbreaking music has become part of our very understanding of what comedy sounds like.
In this slightly unhinged world, there’s a bearded lady and there’s a chorus of soldiers who spontaneously bust a few dance moves. There are illicitly penned letters and farcical plans (executed like something out of a silent-era movie) involving a ladder that gets carried onto stage but is never used. There’s the thinly disguised handsome lover and his hapless opponent, a doddering old man, who have their sights set on marrying the same young beauty.
And there’s a moment when a somnambulant servant steps out of the opera and deigns to tell Rossini, who is at the piano creating the music in real time, how to do his job.
Aside from the many ways in which physical comedy is deployed to make the farce land properly, there is the compositional style, with its galloping melodies, spiralling crazy-fast builds and up-and-down crescendoes — all of it, the stuff of madcap hilarity, which went on to inform the likes of Charlie Chaplin, Laurel and Hardy and countless other comedy forms.
The music was, in its time, absolutely groundbreaking. Travel back 200 years and what Rossini was creating was fresh, new, experimental, avant-garde, outrageous. This was intended to be a bel canto opera — a container for beautiful and expressive singing — which it absolutely is. But it’s also more than that because the music he created has become the kind of sound we’ve come to associate with comedy. You can pretty much see the comic chases and exaggerated emotions, visualise the timing of the slapstick, feel the tempo and the escalating comic tension in the rhythm of his music.
This opera will help you understand why Rossini was known as “Mr Crescendo”, because he was an absolute master of creating a sense of mounting mayhem, something that underscores the calculus of farce.
You see the mayhem and the visual shenanigans in the music as the notes build and build and build, as if the score and the story are simultaneously racing towards some narrative climax. And there’s some seriously gymnastic singing required to successfully pull off what its musical complexities demand.
There are two casts; I watched the so-called “Red Cast”, which — aside from Zwane’s magnificent interpretation of Figaro — features Britain’s Got Talent finalist Innocent Masuku as Count Almaviva. Masuku plays the dashing romantic hero with such warmth and grace and allure, his seductive tenor voice a perfect match for his million-dollar smile.
And there is the positively radiant Rosina, who should in the context of her time be a chaste virgin who does precisely what she’s told, but is in Brittany Smith’s hands given so many layers. She is quite the beguiling temptress, in fact, concealing a few tricks up her sleeve, including a way of rolling an orange around that makes you wonder just how innocent and sweet she truly is.
The secondary roles — from Monde Masimini’s hysterically funny Don Basilio, who refuses to take a hint, to Lusibalwethu Sesanti’s ceaselessly dusting and sneezing and eavesdropping housekeeper, Berta — are proof that there are not small parts, especially when you have magnificent voices backing them up.
And there’s that bearded lady (Thando Mpushe in a non-singing comedy side-hustle), who is irrefutably the funniest and most endearing barber’s sidekick you will ever see.
The small chorus of big, burly men is a riot, and not only do they perform the comedy with instinctive swagger and twinkling eyes, but their moments of suddenly breaking into bits of choreographed dancing sweeps you up in the special magic of the opera.
In every scene, Strike has magnificently captured the essence of the humour, fine-tuned the comic timing and worked out the rhythms of farce in a way that has empowered the singers, enabled them to fully embrace the comedy and embody the physicality of their characters.
There is, as a result, never a dull moment.
Sassily staged, what hits hard too is just how much fun the cast is having — not only loving every moment, but elevating each of the individual parts by playing deeply into the truth of the characters. It creates an on-stage dynamic that’s irresistible — I was quite honestly gripped by the enfolding action.
Engaging, too, is the visual world. Designer Allegra Bernacchioni has fashioned a wackily-accented wardrobe that evokes a period in history but at the same time boldly incorporates snatches of modernity and adds a bit of an edge. There are tiny touches — almost like easter eggs — that, if you pay careful attention, bring additional layers of comedy and meaning onto the stage. Why, you might wonder, is the sleepyhead Ambrogio wearing garters under his nightshirt? And what’s with Figaro’s dark sunglasses, worn indoors? Somewhere, behind the scenes and offstage, these characters all have another life.
The opera may have been written 200 years ago and have its roots in comedia dell’arte, but its underlying social commentary is as relevant as ever.
“It’s an archetypal portrayal of society,” Strike says. “Those cantankerous old men who always seem to be in charge are there, and you’ve got to fight really hard to get them to look away, distract them so that you can make your own way in the world. That’s Rosina’s part of the story.”
Another truth that’s revealed is how it’s money that ultimately makes the world go round. “At the end of the day, all of it is contractual,” Strike says. “Figaro gets money. Basilio is paid for his silence. Everyone gets paid off. It’s about the power of money — and that’s something that doesn’t seem to have changed over the centuries.”
Humanity’s terrible truths notwithstanding, it’s an opera that lifts the spirits. Ultimately, you’re swept away not only by the dauntingly fast music and sensational voices that must keep up with the piano, but by the whole package. It’s as though permission has been given across the board to really take the opera to its intended inflexion point — it’s a 19th-century comedy blockbuster that’s full of social commentary and contains sharp parodies of personality types who persist to this day, like a good old-fashioned Disney musical on steroids.
It is a consummate production, beautiful and quirky, majestic and yet absolutely down to earth. Not only is it wickedly entertaining, laugh-out-loud funny and thrilling to listen to, but as a collaborative performance it’s absolutely gripping, the ensemble simply splendid. The piano accompaniment is dazzling, the voices intoxicating. You will probably leave the theatre humming, whistling, maybe even dancing a little two-step to Rossini’s earwormy creations.
The Barber of Seville is playing at Cape Town’s Theatre on the Bay until 17 August.