Gioachino Rossini's "The Barber of Seville"
Wichita Grand Opera
May 31, 2014
Executive Producer: Parvan Bakardiev
Production Concept & Design: Margaret Ann Pent
Conductor: Ken Hakoda
Director: James Marvel
CAST:
FIGARO - Michael Nansel
ROSINA - Sharin Apostolou
COUNT ALMAVIVA - Brenton Ryan
DOCTOR BARTOLO - Charles Turley
DON BASILIO - William Powers
FIORELLO - Kevin Eckard
BERTA - Kaitlyn Costello
Set Designer: Stefan Pavlov
Lighting Designer: Tyler Lessin
Rossini's opera recounts the events of the first of the three plays by French playwright Pierre Beaumarchais that revolve around the clever and enterprising character named Figaro. Mozart's opera Le nozze di Figaro, composed 30 years earlier in 1786, is based on the second part of the Beaumarchais trilogy. The first Beaumarchais play was originally conceived as an opéra comique, but was rejected as such by the Comédie-Italienne. The play as it is now known was premiered in 1775 by the Comédie-Française at the Théâtre des Tuileries in Paris.
Other operas based on the first play were composed by Giovanni Paisiello (his Il barbiere di Siviglia premiered in 1782), by Nicolas Isouard in 1796, and then by Francesco Morlacchi in 1816. Though the work of Paisiello triumphed for a time, only Rossini's version has stood the test of time and continues to be a mainstay of operatic repertoire. On 11 November 1868, two days before Rossini's death, the composer Costantino Dall'Argine (1842–1877) premiered an opera based on the same libretto as Rossini's work, bearing a dedication to Rossini. The premiere was not a failure, but critics condemned the "audacity" of the young composer and the work is now forgotten.
Rossini was well known for being remarkably productive, completing an average of two operas per year for 19 years, and in some years writing as many as four. Musicologists believe that, true to form, the music for Il Barbiere di Siviglia was composed in just under three weeks, although the famous overture was actually recycled from two earlier Rossini operas, Aureliano in Palmira and Elisabetta, regina d'Inghilterra and thus contains none of the thematic material in Il Barbiere di Siviglia itself.
Rossini's BARBER OF SEVILLE - Wichita Grand Opera - COMPLETE
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