
Opera Australia 2025 Review: The Barber of Seville
By Gordon Williams(Photo credit: Keith Saunders)
One of the benefits of reviewing operas is the opportunity to take guests whose experience of opera may be comparatively recent, and whose reactions are refreshingly unbound by preconceptions. At the end of scene one of Opera Australia’s “The Barber of Seville” at Sydney Opera House on Saturday January the 18th my guest on the night whispered, “It’s so good.” And so it was.
Of course, the “Barber of Seville” is one of the best-loved operas. It amuses with its account of how the romantic lead, Count Almaviva, here played by Scotland-born Australian lyric tenor John Longmuir, whisks away Rosina (Italian mezzo-soprano Serena Malfi here) from her elderly guardian, Dr Bartolo (Australian bass-baritone Andrew Moran), assisted by Figaro, one of the opera world’s great characters, an archetypal improviser who is never at a loss, here played with great relish by Australian baritone Samuel Dale Johnson. The fact that the various machinations and disguises deployed to get into Bartolo’s house are stock incidents invokes that familiarity which inspires delight. And of course, the score abounds in effervescent melody and clear, mirthful orchestration. Sydney-born conductor Daniel Smith, Direttore Principale Ospite of Teatro Carlo Felice, Genoa, conjured a nimble reading from the Opera Australia Orchestra.
‘Barber’ is based on Beaumarchais’s play of the same name set in Spain in the 1700s. The late Elijah Moshinsky’s production here revived by British-Australian director, Heather Fairburn, assisted by British director Andy Morton updated the scene to the 1920s. The intention of Shanghai-born Australian Moshinsky was, quoting from the program booklet, to draw on “popular archetypes from silent films of the era.” Yet, to my eyes, American designer Michael Yeargan’s sets were reminiscent of the early 20th century terrace houses of Australian inner cities, say Sydney’s Surry Hills or Melbourne’s Carlton. The “corrugated iron” roofs and palm trees gave it away. Figaro and Almaviva’s intrigues and sticky situations in an environment that we could identify with made for something touchingly familiar.
And really, this production was bound to appeal to people with an early 21st century sense of drama, given Moshinsky’s tricks for replicating the depth of field and perspective and mise-en-scène of film.
Quite a bit of the humor lay in watching the often-simultaneous goings-on in Yeargan’s two-story, six-room (if you count the staircase and landing) set – entrances and exits, doors opening, closing… Shallow-dimensioned like a cartoon, the set nevertheless evoked a turn-of-the-20th-century Australian interior. There was something farcical in watching a parade of patients coming and going to Bartolo’s surgery while for example Figaro might urge Rosina to write Lindoro a few secret lines only discover that she has already written them (“Dunque io son”).
Eventually, this review will get to the singing, but the disciplined negotiation of the set by the actor-singers was a huge contributing factor to the enjoyment of this production, even down to the superb timing of Johnson (Figaro) coming around the side of Bartolo’s surgical chair and planting his foot by the door without breaking stride just as someone else was trying to come in.
The comic action could be wonderfully poetic. The Act two storm was not only painted in tones coming out of the pit (and, in fact, Rossini‘s orchestration has never struck me as one of the most powerful evocations of a storm in musical literature) but a passing parade of characters from left to right and their physical gestures mapped the progress of this deluge which I suppose symbolically cleanses the plot-complications in time for the finale. A character walked across the stage putting out their hand to feel the first drops, then covered their head with a newspaper. Later, someone stepped over a puddle. Later still, a cyclist with billowing-out-behind scarf, battled against obviously strong headwinds. It was a beautiful stage montage.
But let’s talk about the musical performance.

John Longmuir as Count Almaviva, David Parkin as Don Basilio, Serena Malfi as Rosina and Andrew Moran as Dr Bartolo in The Barber of Seville. (Photo Credit Keith Saunders)
It was almost sensually rewarding to bask in the limpid ease of John Longmuir’s coloratura solos, whether in the early duet with Figaro where they brainstorm the first of Almaviva’s disguises, “All’idea de quel metallo,” all the way through to the grand finale where Almaviva sings, “Costò sospiri e pene.” The show may have looked like a comic story taking place in early 20th century Australia, but it was possible to appreciate it as a fine demonstration of 19th century bel canto.
Serena Malfi’s rich mezzo, provided a welcome addition of color. Her very first notes in Act one scene two’s “Una voce poco fa” in which she musingly thinks about the poor student Lindoro (the count in disguise) who serenades under her window at night, added a dimension to her character that contrasted with the show’s other archetypal figures. Her coloratura was not mere musical expression, but a barometer of emotional detail, at times able to express frustration at the watchful eye of her guardian, at others cattiness toward his behavior. And Malfi’s line at the end when she and Almaviva are finally together, translated as “I can hardly believe it,” was arguably the most affecting romantic moment in the midst of this comedy.
Samuel Dale Johnson as Figaro brought the role all the braggadocio one expects from this great character. Australian bass David Parkin was a suitably lugubrious-looking Basilio. His stentorian “buona sera’s” when Figaro, the Count and Rosina try to get him to leave so that Don Alonso (again the count, in one of his disguises) can pursue his designs on Rosina, was superbly comic. Andrew Moran was effectively doddering as old Bartolo.
Berta may not perhaps be such a gratifying a role to play from a dramatic point of view, but Jane Ede rounded out the amplitude of the vocal demands of the score. And Australian baritone Simon Meadows so differentiated the three roles of Fiorello, Ambrogio and the Notary that it was only a second glance at the program booklet that persuaded this listener that these were actually played by the same singer.
Conductor Daniel Smith is something of a specialist in Rossini (he conducted “Il viaggio à Reims” for OA in 2019) and we had the opportunity to focus on his musical interpretation of the work in an overture that was strikingly opinionated. Scurrying statements and coquettish answering phrases to begin with, ominous ‘drumming’ under the wonderfully-floating oboe melody that grows out of that opening – these spoke to an interpretive variety that enhanced so much of the humor of the work. Early on one of the tutties sounded a bit smudged at speed (perhaps a function of critical instruments being seated under the lip of the stage) but there was thrillingly clean articulation in the wonderful coda. The overall impression from this opener – the word jotted down in the dark – was “joyous.” An audience-member could certainly come away from this performance with a smile on their face.
Fortepianist Siro Battaglin once again provided a witty continuo as he has done in other comic operas of the era, including a later reference to the overture when an escape ladder is placed under Rosina’s window, nifty reinforcement of the work’s musical structure.
A final note: the surtitles were in Simplified Chinese as well as English, perhaps as an acknowledgement of the demographic of the audience the national company now reaches.