Gioacchino Rossini
Il barbiere di Siviglia
Opéra National de Paris, 2002

  Roberto Saccà (Il Conte d'Almaviva)
Carlos Chausson (Bartolo)
Joyce DiDonato (Rosina)
Dalibor Jenis (Figaro)
Kristinn Sigmundsson (Basilio)
Nicholas Garrett (Fiorello)
Jeannette Fischer (Berta)
Denis Aubry (Un Ufficiale)
 
  Orchestre et Choeurs
de l’Opéra National de Paris
 
  BRUNO CAMPANELLA
 
  Stage Director
Coline Serreau
 

  Release Dates
March 2006
 

 Item Code (NTSC)
DVWW-OPBARB (for worldwide)
 
 UPC Code (NTSC)
824121001582
 
   
  

 TDK presents the latest in their series of recordings from the prestigious Opéra National de Paris. This production of Rossini’s Il Barbiere di Siviglia, staged by Coline Serreau, was presented at the Opera Bastille for the first time in 2002. It was the successful film director’s second opera project.

The international cast features one of the leading lyric mezzos working in the Rossini repertoire – American Joyce DiDonato sings Rosina. German-Italian star tenor Roberto Saccà takes the role of her seducer, Count Almaviva and Czech baritone Dalibor Jenis, currently one of the best Figaros available, completes the leading trio. Delicate Spanish bass baritone Carlos Chausson playing Bartolo, Rosina’s guardian, and Icelandic bass Kristinn Sigmundsson as the curious music teacher Basilio provide suitable buffo material for the opera’s various comic scenes.
Bruno Campanella, one of the leading interpreters of the Belcanto repertoire worldwide led this musically excellent event from the pit.

French director Coline Serreau, best known for her film „Three men and a baby“ and her 70’s feminist documentaries sets the opera in a Seville under Osmanic occupation. For Serreau, the story of the imprisoned Rosina remains current in modern society where „the imprisonment of half of mankind is still the rule“.
She finds images that capture Rosina’s gradual movement towards liberation. A balcony gives her opportunities to make contact with the outside world while she is held captive in a desert fortress. In the second act, the interior of her apartment features cool colours representing sea, sky and fresh air. It is here that she renews her contact with Almaviva – now disguised as a soldier – and swears that she wants to break free of her golden cage. When she is finally released from the house, the desert blossoms around the couple as they leave the place of Rosina’s unhappiness.

Both the set design by Jean-Marc Stehlé and Antoine Fontaine and the costumes by Elsa Pavanel provide a mixture of historical realism and fairy-tale fantasy, thus supporting Serreau’s aim to present the serious topic of female emancipation within a comic story.
The director makes the most of the comic and acting talent of all her singers (including Jeanette Fischer, appearing as Rosina‘s maid Berta in a very comical choreography) and of the inherent buffo qualities of the opera. The enjoyable staging with its ironic twists and acrobatic slapstick choreography provides for a very entertaining theatrical experience, skilfully captured on this live DVD recording.