Composer: Giaochino Rossini
Libretto (adapted): Ian McMillan
Conductor: Ben Crick
Director: Alex Chisholm
This one-off semi-staged production was the start of the first Bradford Opera Festival, coupled with short pop-up operas in town and city centres throughout the metropolitan district – and a very promising start it was. All the publicity focussed on the adapted libretto by Yorkshire bard, Ian McMillan (“Rossini’s best loved comic opera put into proper Yorkshire”) and it was cleverly and sympathetically done, no herd of “Ee By Gums” rampaging mindlessly through Rossini’s elaborate decorations, but no shortage of vulgarisms (and, indeed, vulgarity) to please the populace.
Instead we had Basilio turned (very effectively) Yorkshire in Julian Close’s droll, sonorously sung interpretation and Rosina (a particularly mettlesome Felicity Burkhard) picking up the local dialect from a book and using it, with wicked relish, whenever occasion demanded. Figaro was a bit more difficult to classify, but such was the impact of Oscar Castellino’s all-bells-and-whistles performance it didn’t really matter.
It was a pity that McMillan’s adaptation could not have been checked out with side titles, but St. George’s Hall is not made for such things and finance would probably not allow. More seriously, the programme should have had a synopsis – audience members unfamiliar with the opera must have struggled in the early stages to make sense of a story line that coheres around Count Almaviva’s attempts to woo Rosina, ward to Dr Bartolo – and, he hopes, his bride. In the role of Lindoro, a poor student, he enlists the help of ingenious barber Figaro, assumes various disguises and wins her by dint of bribing Don Basilio, her venial music teacher.
Before the start the St George’s Hall stage seemed alarmingly full with the 35-piece Yorkshire Symphony Orchestra, but in fact the area in front proved remarkably effective in Alex Chisholm’s ingenious production, very wide and not too shallow, with clever use of the auditorium to add in (Rosina popping up in the circle), even if there was never quite enough room for the flat-capped chorus.
Despite the emphasis on the libretto, musical standards were very high. The Yorkshire Symphony Orchestra under Ben Crick negotiated Rossini’s rapid tempos with precision, notably in those fiendish crescendos, and kept control of the dynamics, only very occasionally drowning the singers with an excess of enthusiasm. And the singers – despite a rather odd interpretation of the small part of Bertha, the maid – were equally excellent. Samuel Kibble (Almaviva) and Felicity Buckland (Rosina), both having negotiated testing opening arias, settled into the fun of it and sang with increasing flexibility, he enjoying his disguise roles as policeman (changed from soldier) and – especially – music teacher. Arshak Kyzikyan didn’t seem one of Nature’s Bartolos – having neither the buffo clowning nor the menace – but he had all the notes and carried off the part effectively. Oscar Castellano gave a virtuoso performance as Figaro, blazing on with “Largo al Factotum”, all flamboyant gestures and dramatic delivery, and went on to give a performance of wily capering trickery which never quite overbalanced the production.
Now how would this Figaro fit within the confines of Mozart’s more subtle The Marriage of Figaro? That, apparently, is the plan for Bradford Opera Festival, emphasised by the “To be continued” sign at the end of the show. Ian McMillan is probably already in training for the mazy vocal intricacies of the Act 2 finale!
Reviewed on 23rd November 2023
