Crowd pleasing Barber delights Longborough audiences

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If you want a crowd pleaser of a show for a summer afternoon, Longborough’s Il barbiere di Siviglia (The Barber of Seville) hits the spot. From its daft contemporary Max Johns’ Spanish setting, raucous translation and slapstick humour, this is fun all the way. We just have the staircase, balcony and outside area of a small apartment block which, with a bit of fiddling around with furniture, can be the inside of one of the apartments.

Translator Nick Fowler has some eye-brow raising ways of expressing the Italian libretto fitting in with director Louise Bakker’s production which is equally bold and Carry On. Into this mix we have Anisha Fields eye-popping costume designs, which our gloriously sung Rosina from Lauren Young bravely at times flounces around the stage. She literally flings herself into the choreography and proves a splendid comic actress. Fortunately she wins our praises vocally, rather than just for her game for a laugh performance.

Lauren Young and Joseph Doody

We have a very strong young and charismatic British baritone Henry Neill as the Barber, having been shown not as the great success of Seville, but a rather desperate plier of his wares, being shooed off when he tries to stake his pitch alongside balloon and trinket sellers. From singing a masterly opening aria Largo al factotum this is a Figaro that deserves the title role, which can sometimes seem to really belong to Rosina with her sparkling arias and real brains behind the plot twists.

There was some charming singing from Joseph Doody’s debut here as Almaviva with his characterisation as a wet, posh boy who our Rosina will have for breakfast. Just as we have to look beyond the zany characterisations to appreciate some find singing, so too with Rosina’s guardian, Dr Bartolo, given impeccably by Benjamin Bevan despite looking appalling in longs socks and ill-fitting shorts.

Henry Neill

Shafali Jalota as the usually older housekeeper Berta, delivers her big aria with polish (no pun intended) as she slops arounds with her mop, having discarded her rainbow-coloured duster. Trevor Eliot Bowes is a fine sounding Basilio who also can use facial gestures to great effect in dramatic nuance while also game enough to wear a shockingly short kimono-type bathrobe in one scene. We also had a delightful Fiorello from Kieran Rayner.

Benjamin Bevan and Lauren Young

This is first and foremost played for laughs whether that is the wonderfully funny Rosina who excels in every chance for frivolity to the addition of Tom Jones’ Delilah (with Rosina substituted in the chorus) when Dr Bartolo wants to show them all how it should be done. He reads a copy of El Sol, by the way, as the singing lesson progresses.

In the pit the resident conductor of Irish National Opera Elaine Kelly kept the audience happily entertained with bright playing, from that so famous overture to the theatrical thrills that accompany the madcap antics on the stage. This is delightful comedy, but it also contains some most memorable Rossini music and ravishing arias.

The Longborough chorus members join in all of this silliness with gusto, whether as combats-wearing squaddies, those poolside novelty sellers, joining in the mayhem whenever needed including waving a serrano ham in the air. The audience at the intimate 500-seat theatre lapped it up.

The contrast with the seriousness of the previous opening night of Debussy’s Pelléas et Mélisande could not have been greater. Hard to believe the creative team for the two shows included set designer (Max Johns) and costume designer (Anisha Fields).

Until July 13

https://lfo.org.uk/opera/il-barbiere-di-siviglia

Images by Clive Barda

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