SFO Season Nears the End with Rossini Revival

Baritone Joshua Hopkins in the title role of The Barber of Seville (photograph by Cory Weaver, courtesy of SFO)

Last night saw the return to the War Memorial Opera House of one of the best known works in the repertoire performed by the San Francisco Opera (SFO). The production was the revival of Emilio Sagi’s staging of Gioachino Rossini’s opera The Barber of Seville. This was the first of nine performances, three of which are matinees, concluding on Sunday, June 21. Four of the roles have been double-cast, those of the Count Almaviva (tenors Levy Sekgapane and Jack Swanson), Figaro (baritones Joshua Hopkins and Justin Austin), Rosina (Maria Kataeva and Hongni Wu) and Doctor Bartolo (Renato Girolami and Patrick Carfizzi). The production, staged by Emilio Sagi, was first performed in the Fall 2013 with a rich and engaging sense of humor. Last night’s cast provided as spirited an account as I had encountered when the production made its debut.

The overall narrative involves the wooing of Rosina by Almaviva with Figaro assisting the Count as his “fixer.” Rosina is Bartolo’s ward. Bartolo is suspicious of the Count, since he would prefer to marry Rosina himself. Fortunately, Figaro has no trouble out-smarting Bartolo, and the opera concludes with the prospect of a happy wedding in sight. The narrative is based on the first of a trilogy of plays by Pierre-Augustin de Beaumarchais. Figaro appears in all three of them; and he is probably best known for his role in the second, The Marriage of Figaro, which Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart used for one of his own operas (K. 492).

This season saw Sagi’s staging of The Barber of Seville for the third time. Nevertheless, the underlying sense of humor never seems to go stale. This is probably due to the fact that Cesare Sterbini’s libretto for Rossini was delivered at an almost breakneck clip. There is never a dull moment in the narrative, giving the audience only the intermission between the two acts as a time to catch their breaths. Sagi’s staging consistently keeps up with all of Sterbini’s twists and turns, and Rossini’s music just as consistently maintains the energy of that narrative. This is particularly the case when the composer has an impeccable knack for gradual crescendos!

The Barber of Seville may be an “old favorite” for SFO, but I suspect that opera lovers will look forward to attending one of the remaining eight performances.