[Met Performance] CID:307410



Il Barbiere di Siviglia
Metropolitan Opera House, Wed, February 12, 1992




Il Barbiere di Siviglia (446)
Gioachino Rossini | Cesare Sterbini
Figaro
Thomas Hampson

Rosina
Frederica von Stade

Count Almaviva
Stanford Olsen

Dr. Bartolo
Louis Quilico

Don Basilio
Samuel Ramey

Berta
Sondra Kelly

Fiorello
Thomas Woodman

Sergeant
Charles Anthony

Ambrogio
Frank Coffey


Conductor
Ralf Weikert


Production
John Cox

Set Designer
Robin Wagner

Costume Designer
Patricia Zipprodt

Lighting Designer
Gil Wechsler

Stage Director
Michael Edwards





Il Barbiere di Siviglia received eleven performances this season.

FUNDING:
Revival a gift of the Edith C. Blum Foundation

Review 1:

Martin Mayer in Opera (UK)

The Met celebrated the Rossini bicentenary with (no surprises here) ?Barbiere.? But we did get a distinguished cast, headed by Thomas Hampson in the title role. I don't think I've ever heard a better Figaro, vocally splendid, so handsome that his embraces with Rosina (unwisely added to John Cox's original production) gave a very wrong idea. Samuel Ramey reveled both vocally and comically as Basilio, and of course sang the big aria superbly, going all the way down without loss of volume. Frederica von Stade was Rosina: a great artist and an admirable Rossinian, but her gifts are for gravity and ardour, not comedy. Louis Quilico was a fussy Bartolo (who took heart medicine twice in one aria, which is medically contra-indicated). Stanford Olsen, still in the recovery room after the abusive miscasting he underwent last year, tried some "fioriture" that were seriously beyond him in ?Echo ridente,? and never entirely warmed up to Almaviva, but much of the sweetness that called attention to his voice is still there, and he has a neat comic talent. The Cox production is his Glyndebourne staging on a revolving stage, but the amendments that have been made have coarsened it unnecessarily. Fortunately, Hampson and Ralf Weikert's bright and lively conducting saved the evening.



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