An operatic factotum: 'The Barber of Seville' gets it done once again at the Tarkington

Even though it originated as the instrumental introduction to a forgotten opera seria, the

A barber of quality: Gabe Preisser as Figaro

Overture to "The Barber of Seville" is likely Gioacchino Rossini's best-known instrumental composition (along with the Lone Ranger-boosted Overture to "William Tell"). 

It's perfect for its permanent position in the repertoire. It seems to lift up both the comedy and the intrigue that shapes the opera. Its stops and starts, its turns from mystery and tension to pure effervescence and back again, signal what's to come.

Indianapolis Opera's latest production, which concluded a weekend run Sunday afternoon at the Tarkington Theater, privileges the comedy, which is quite appropriate. But the intrigue, which is so characteristic of the playwright Beaumarchais who concocted both Figaro stories immortalized here and by Wolfgang Mozart (in "The Marriage of Figaro"), seems to tag along for the ride in this conception. The production marks this opera's second presentation at this venue; the first was the company's Tarkington debut in 2016.

Musically quite attractive, the show's comical boisterousness  forces the audience to sort of infer the strength and detail of the title character's manipulative behavior. In this story, that's linked for a fee to the amorous ambition of Count Almaviva, in opposition to Bartolo, the wily guardian of Rosina, the object of the aristocrat's desire. 

Surtitles are of course the key to understanding what's happening, and for decades they have been de rigueur when operas in their original language are presented for American audiences. "Largo al factotum," the vehicle by which Figaro introduces himself, makes clear that the barber's familiarity with Seville goes well beyond shaves, haircuts, and wigs. Tonsorial skills are merely the default setting of all that Figaro knows about people.

Gabe Preisser's impact on the role is immediate, as he romps down the aisle and greets audience members briefly in English. Clearly director Jessica Burton had no qualms about breaking the "fourth wall," as the audience is directly addressed by characters who also sometimes signal for applause. Such signaling is fortunately not unrestrained, but it sends a risky "we're all in this together" message that diminishes this certainty: the characters believe they are caught up in real-life situations, however exaggerated those may seem.

Preisser's Figaro represents the top tier of the production's vocal splendor. In Sunday's

His sundae best: Bartolo gets a cherry on top

matinee, he was joined at that level by Stephanie Doche as Rosina and Robert Mellon as Bartolo. They were expressive in gesture and facial expression in their tense dialogue in the first act, capped by Bartolo's proud aria declaration, "A un dottor della mia sorte." Bartolo is sometimes played broadly as a sputtering, fuming geezer, but here he was both funny and menacing, characterized along an operatic spectrum that at the evil end has Baron
Scarpia in "Tosca."

It was thrilling to revel in the genuine mezzo-soprano quality of Doche's first phrases in "Una voce poco fa," the opera's standout aria for the heroine. The aria proceeded in ardor before giving way to Rosina's assertion that she is docile up to a point, but can be roused when she is crossed. That self-description needs to be as vivid as Doche made it, because it helps substantiate second-act Rosina's fury when she falsely believes the Count, who has posed as her beloved Lindoro, a student, has betrayed her.

Figaro captivates Rosina in service to the Count.

Almaviva has been set up by his rival Bartolo to be slandered in a manner prescribed by the doctor's singing teacher, Don Basilio. Establishing a scandalous reputation for the Count through malicious gossip in "La Calunnia" was effectively detailed by Zachary Elmassian in one of the composer's great inspirations, incorporating a characteristic crescendo. 

For "La Calunnia," Burton designed what started out as one of the best of several slide projections: a silhouette resembling Basilio grows to cover the whole backdrop of the town in black. Unfortunately, distributing foreboding glaring green eyes on the blackness misrepresents how calumny spreads in Basilio's description. Ears and chattering mouths might have been a better visual complement to what Basilio sings. "Largo al factotum" had more apt, imaginative slide projections to accompany Figaro's description of his enterprise.

A scene more germane to the action suggests another place where Burton's direction went too far. Almaviva's temporary comeuppance in his soldier's disguise in the first act generates a masterly Rossini ensemble, "Fredda ed immobile." Everyone is struck dumb by the Count's escape from arrest as he reveals his privileged status. Six characters are frozen by the revelation, and Figaro alone has freedom of movement during the sextet. 

He proceeds to manipulate the arms of the others, posing them in a ridiculous tableau. On Sunday, it got a delighted response from the audience. There might have been some pop-culture significance I missed in those poses. Read from the left, four of them seemed to spell out "Y-O-L-O" for the social-media message "you only live once." Even if my guess is correct, I couldn't see a good reason for the extra playfulness.

It's customary for the band Almaviva recruits to serenade the woman he's smitten with to be undisciplined and too noisy for the occasion. But something genuine of both the cause and effect of "Ecco ridente," the lovely first number for the tenor, has to strike gold. Not badly sung by Gavin Hughes at the matinee, the song had difficulty processing Almaviva's passion (and especially Rosina's immediately charmed response) as genuine. From this point on, the chemistry that needs to be established between the lovers never took hold. The clownish staging didn't help, even though that was an ironic result of the chorus' skill at madcap antics.

Hughes negotiated the notes pretty well right through the abruptly managed conclusion, with its happy ending and Bartolo's abandonment (greased by money, of course) of his claim on Rosina as his bride. But his light if powerfully produced tenor seemed to lose strength after his well-done caricature of the singing teacher who's taken as substitute for the purportedly indisposed Basilio. 

That impersonation, launched by the repeated nasal intoning of "pace e gioia" (a wish for "peace and joy" that irritates Bartolo), stamped Hughes' singing from then on, even after he had resumed his normal vocal portrayal of Almaviva. 

It was fortunate that the collective rapport and energy of the full cast held firm right through the last note. Members of the Indianapolis Opera chorus, trained by Cara Chowning,  contributed to that richness. The production benefited from the musical direction, well-coordinated between pit and stage, of Casey Robards.

[Photos by Denis Ryan Kelly Jr.]