Il Barbiere di Siviglia

I like opera (love opera, if we're talkin' Mozart) and I especially like operas where there is a lot of cross-dressing and espionage and mistaken identity and gratuitous silliness. So even though I had never seen The Barber of Seville (or Il Barbiere di Siviglia, if you prefer) before last night, I knew that I would probably enjoy it. And I did!
(ok, technically that is the Rabbit of Seville, which you can watch here. I've had Bugs Bunny's version stuck in my head all. day. Thanks to filmsnobbery.com for the image!)

On my third day of orientation, I decided it would be a good idea to buy season opera and ballet tickets, because 1. if I waited I would make up excuses (cost, busy-ness) not to do it, 2. as aforementioned, I like opera, and 3. it's cool that there are actually operas here. The Jacobs School of Music is a conservatory (a thumping good one, it turns out) which is a part of IU, and they put on six operas a year, as well as three ballets. Tickets for all of these costs less than one ticket for a not very good seat at the Met. It turns out that one of my sister students likes opera too, so we went to dinner and then headed over. Dinner, by the way, at El Norteno on Walnut--decently priced, fast service, tasty enchiladas, complimentary chips, cold beer. Also, there is a large stained glass window that takes up almost the whole back wall of the restaurant. Lovely.
(thanks to the Jacobs School for the image. You can see, sort of, the rather nice Calder sculpture at the left.)

The theater itself is very modern looking with a purple and orange (!!) color scheme with white, bubble-like boxes. For whatever reason, it works surprisingly well. And the opera! I honestly thought the singing was comparable to ones I've seen at the Met, and probably a little bit better than Chautauqua. The orchestra had a few problems--there were certain points when they were just slightly behind (or ahead) of the singers. There is one point where about 8 people are singing at once, at slightly different tempos, and the orchestra had a little problem with that. But overall, it was great. I don't think the music is that glorious, but the famous Figaro aria (you know: Figaro Figaro Fiiiiiggggaaaarrrooo la la la la la, that one) is pretty darn cool. And he sang it while hopping on and off a bed, which is also cool. (for another version, check this out.) I was initially underwhelmed by Almaviva, mainly because his wig looked too much like a mullet, but he turned out to be very good. I think Dr Bartolo totally stole the show though--he was a perfect mix of pompous and vulnerable.

What was also great was that no one booed. This seems like an odd thing to say, but people at the Met do. Boo, I mean. I told my friend this, and she responded, "Sweet Jesus, what do they think it is, a Roman Colosseum?" I can't explain it. It does crack me up that something so "high brow" has such a "low brow" side to it, although it's also infuriating at the same time. I have never been to an opera at the Met where the people around me were not complaining about something. Granted, the man behind us last night was pretty grumpy because they turned the end of Act 1 into something sort of surrealist, but by and large people were happy, and STAYED UNTIL THE END OF THE CURTAIN CALLS. It was very refreshing.

Oh, one more thing--the sets were phenomenal. It was a rotating stage that switched from outside Bartolo's house, to Figaro's house, to the inside of Bartolo's house, which had all these rotating panels and the like. It worked very well.

The Jacobs School of Music, I just learned while looking up images, streams some of the operas LIVE, and also has videos of past performances and podcasts, all on their homepage. It is set up really well, so do check that out. And because Bugs Bunny isn't silly enough, here are the King's Singers doing the overture, a'capella style.