OPERA REVIEW : S.F. Borrows a Bizarre ‘Barbiere’

John Copley, the busy British stage director, has had his vulgar way with Rossini’s “Il Barbiere di Siviglia.”

He has had it--via the same wildly gimmicky, painfully grotesque staging--in Chicago in 1989, in Los Angeles last November and here, at the War Memorial Opera House, on Tuesday. He will have it again in San Diego next January.

The overexposure is hard to take but easy to explain. This season, everyone wants to celebrate Rossini’s 200th birthday, and it is cheaper to borrow a production than to create one. Nevertheless, it seems ironic that so many companies would choose to honor the composer with a production that patently dishonors his intentions.

Rossini understood the pitfalls of comic opera. Distrusting cliches, he took great pains to make the characters and their predicaments credible. Like all great opera composers, he made the music spring from the drama.

Copley, who obviously distrusts Rossini, ignored all that. His primary goal--brilliantly achieved, alas--was to impose a network of shamelessly trashy, patently irrelevant sight gags on the narrative.

This, you may recall, is the “Barbiere” in which a nearly naked Figaro fondles his crotch, tosses the contents of a chamber pot out his bedroom window, gets dressed, slides down a picturesque firehouse-pole, shaves himself and shoos away some terminally cutesy urchins--all while trying to sustain the lyrical patter of “Largo al Factotum.” So much for entrance arias.

This is the heavy-handed “Barbiere” in which incessantly illustrated puns masquerade as wit (everyone mugs and points to an anachronistic piano when the libretto says “ piano, pianissimo, eccoci qua”). This is the evasive production in which old Berta hides under a tent so she can strip to a crimson nightie during her plaintive arietta. This is the cutesy version in which the plot is abandoned altogether during the second-scene finale so an obnoxious servant can pretend to conduct an all-purpose Rossini concert.

John Conklin, Copley’s designing ally, has created pretty, contextually irrelevant decors that invoke the whimsical surrealism of Rene Magritte and incorporate Rossini’s face into the scenery at every delirious, aren’t-we-clever turn. Michael Stennett’s mostly black-and-red costumes second the smartsy-artsy motions.

The San Francisco edition of this bizarre indulgence employs only one holdover from the Los Angeles cast: Frederica von Stade as Rosina (here a baroque flapper). Even though she was not in the best of voice on this occasion, she exerted her usual muted cheer and stylish authority. She also suggested, inadvertently, that glittery ingenues are really not her forte. She is far better at impersonating impetuous boys and charming waifs.

Jeffrey Black, the Australian baritone remembered for a fine Guglielmo in “Cosi fan Tutte” at the Music Center, made his San Francisco Opera debut as a blustery, narcissistic Figaro. Unfortunately, his bravado fell short of the mark, both figuratively and literally, when it came to the climactic high notes.

Jorge Lopez-Yanez--a sweet tenorino who actually looks good and can act--is obviously a major talent. As a distinctly unaristocratic Count Almaviva, however, he was allowed (encouraged?) to pay too much attention to caricature, too little to coloratura. Under the hectic circumstances, he probably was wise to forgo the seldom-heard convolutions of the rondo finale.

The basso-buffo charades were shared by young Alfonso Antoniozzi (replacing Enzo Dara) as a light-voiced, gratefully understated Bartolo and Peter Rose as a small-toned, needlessly seedy Basilio. Patricia Racette brought a fresh, lusty soprano to the misguided revelations of Berta. Hector Vasquez was the deft Fiorello, Luis Oropeza the daffy servant with the Karajan complex.

Ion Marin, a young Romanian making his first local appearance in the pit, raced his scrappy orchestra and generally mediocre ensemble to most of the cadences. He didn’t always win.