Editorial note: please welcome Opera Obsession's first guest blogger: none other than Alex, my Musicologist Roommate, covering New York opera happenings in my absence.
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On Saturday, I jumped at the opportunity to see On Site Opera’s production of Giovanni Paisiello’s The Barber of Seville (1775) at the Fabbri Mansion on the Upper East Side. Having never seen a production of the lesser-known Barber, I was excited to experience the earliest adaptation of Beaumarchais’ famous Figaro play. The orchestra, a small chamber group made up of just guitar, flute, clarinet, bassoon, and a string quartet, led by Geoffrey McDonald was lively and just enough to support the small cast of characters without overpowering them. I especially enjoyed the use of guitar in place of harpsichord, which both updated the classical sound of the original orchestration and added a subtle Andalusian flare to the overall character of the score.
The mansion, now called the House of the Redeemer, is an Italian Renaissance revival house and was the perfect setting for this intimate and interactive production. The opera began outside for act one. Figaro and Almaviva, played by Andrew Wilkowske and David Blalock respectively, meet in the outdoor courtyard and gesture to the high window and balcony that were later the setting for Rosina’s act one arias. When Rosina, played by Monica Yunus, drops the music from “The Useless Precaution” from the balcony onto the courtyard for the Count to retrieve, the practical elements of the house itself serve to transport the audience into the drama of the opera. For act two, the audience moved upstairs to the Fabbri Mansion’s palatial library. Yet again, the mansion allowed the production to immerse the audience in the action. When Figaro and Rosina hear Dr. Bartolo, played by Rod Nelman, coming toward the library, Figaro runs to the corner of the room and opens a secret room hidden behind one of the library’s bookcases. OSO’s choice to use the Fabbri Mansion as the setting for this particular opera presented the audience with a truly immersive and unique opera experience that I enjoyed immensely.
yet) I joined an audience of family, friends, and faculty (the latter including Catherine Malfitano, in a fabulous purple wrap) for an enjoyable foray into an opera which seems to deserve to be less of a rarity. Update: Greetings, deluge of readers looking for a Nina review! If you were involved with the performance, thanks again. Whoever you are, thanks for stopping by; I hope you enjoy.