The Barber of Seville, Coliseum - review

The English National Opera burns brightly with a new take on an old favourite
P32 Barber of Seville ©Alastair Muir
©Alastair Muir
9 March 2013

The show has to go on, but some shows just go on and on and on. Although Jonathan Miller’s staging of Rossini’s The Barber of Seville can’t yet rival The Mousetrap, it has been part of English National Opera’s repertoire for 25 years. All opera companies, ENO more than most, need their go-to productions to boost the box office but might it not be time to put this Barber to rest?

Not on the evidence of last night’s performance. Miller no longer takes charge of revivals, so the production is now managed by Peter Relton. At times a little more of Miller’s rude effrontery might not go amiss but the jokes, sight gags and pratfalls remain pretty well intact.

Conductor Jaime Martin (who used to play flute in the Coliseum pit) ensures that the orchestra is well-sprung and sprightly while the translation, by Amanda and Anthony Holden, has its own literate wit: “fossilised crustacean” rhyming with “incarceration”, to take a random example. Best of all, the laughs come, not from the surtitles but from what the singers deliver. That’s what opera in English is for.

There’s more to Rossini than good diction, however, and this cast tackles the inordinate coloratura and the explosive patter with such ease that you almost forget what outlandish things Rossini makes the human voice do.

If Andrew Kennedy has to push a little to make his light tenor fit the role of Almaviva, he never makes an ugly sound. Benedict Nelson’s Figaro is a little stolid but has energy to burn, while Andrew Shore, opera’s very own Les Dawson, gives an object lesson in comic timing.

The star, though, is Lucy Crowe, not as viperish as some Rosinas but with her own very individual ideas about how to embellish the vocal lines. Bright, accurate and vivacious, hers is bel canto singing of a high order.

Like the opera itself, the show runs a little short of steam in the second act, but this remains a genuinely funny opera staging, and they don’t come along every day.

Until March 17 (020 7845 9300, eno.org).

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