Il Barbiere di Siviglia by Gioachino Rossini San Francisco Opera, June 13, 1992 War Memorial Opera House This was my second "Barber" and it was again delightful. There is not much to this opera, really, but there are good tunes and beautiful melodies and the singing and production values were both high at this San Francisco performance. Jeffery Black's Australian Figaro was probably what most of the devotees were here to encounter and I don't think he disappointed. he is a handsome, strapping fellow and he sang with power and confidence. He acted the part well, a little more detached from the romance than I would have figured but nonetheless a convincing Fixer. Frederica von Stade sang very well; no longer an ingenue, she still was pretty and animated on stage. She must have done this a million times. Watching her, I wonder what it is that moves these performers to strut and pose night after night? The non-singing actor who played the houseman (Luis Oropeza) was fun to watch -- so clearly a better actor than 90 percent of the singers. Maybe 99 percent. (We saw him afterward at Max's Opera Cafe, where we went for desert with an ANchorage couple who had likewise flown to SF for these three operas: Bill and ?? Lawrence). One is struck again (after Italiana the night before) with Rosinni's use of fast statcatto phrasing: taa-ta-ta-tut-a-ta, taa-ta-ta-tut-a-ta. Figaro's introduction is a prime example, handled well in this operformance (but not equal to the way Thomas Hampson did it on PBS.) We meet Figaro in his bed, legs splayed akimbo. He rises in underwear (no shirt), dumps a chamberpot out the window and dresses as he sings his introduction, posing and preening for the audience. Like the butt-wagging/whipping scene last night in Italiana, it all seemed very San Francisco. I liked Jorge Lopez-Yanez (most in our group didn't, especially.) I think I just like tenor voices and parts. Alfonso Antoniozzi was a fine Dr. Bartolo, singing well and acting much better than most. Patricia Racette sang Berta. Conductor: Ion Marin, a young Romanian who was music director of the Transylvania Philharmonic at age 21; a handsome, energetic onductor, he seemd in full command at all times. Production: John Copley; sets John Conklin; Costumes Michael Stennett. (Robert was, of course, there again. We bought Standee Assocaition t-shirts from him, learning that he designs and prints them himself. (He also did shirts for the Oscar-winning documentary In the Shadow of the Stars, and says he was commissioned by the orchestra to do a shirt vilivfying an unpopular conductor after a bad run of Don Giovanni last season. (That was, by the way, the last performance he missed -- and for artistic reasons. He showed up for even the performances he missed, in case somebody canceled and he had a chance to see new talent. He did attend one performance, when Samuel Ramey subbed for the Don despite having sung Mephistopheles the night before.)