![]() By the end, somewhat implausibly, the action devolved to an “actual” performance on the (virtually projected) War Memorial main stage. Ensembles were mostly presented as rehearsals, including a hilarious rendition of the Act I duet between Figaro and Almaviva, involving overscrupulous social distancing. Some arias were presented as warm-up exercises and some simply as one-offs, only slightly integrated into the storyline. Sensibly, director Matthew Ozawa shortened Barber to about 100 minutes - intermission snacks and chat not yet being feasible - in a rework involving backstage antics and a deft English translation by Marcie Stapp. Rossini’s The Barber of Seville at the Marin Center drive-in | Credit: Drew Altizer Photography/SF Opera The audience listened in their cars, windows closed for the most part. Social distancing protocols meant that the singers, unmasked, stayed at least six feet apart. The orchestra, conducted by Roderick Cox, was housed in a tent at the back. Most prominently, the opera took a hike from its usual venue, the War Memorial Opera House, north across the bridge to the parking lots of Marin Center, on a vast rock-event- style outdoor stage, open to the infection-dispelling breezes. ![]() With the pandemic finally loosening its grip on Bay Area cultural life, but still very much with us, this had to be opera with a difference. Live opera again, at last! After more than a year of Zoom substitutes, we were treated last weekend to something more like the real thing at SF Opera’s first venture back to the stage, a clever adaptation of Rossini’s brilliant Barber of Seville: High-quality professional singers performing together in real time with an actual orchestra and conductor a production team full of comedic inventiveness and technical workarounds and an audience actually watching and listening to it all, together at last. ![]() ![]() Lucas Meachem as Figaro in Rossini’s The Barber of Seville | Credit: Stefan Cohen/SF Opera
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |