On a beautiful Saturday afternoon in Stockholm, on May 10, 2025, the Royal Swedish Opera gave one of the most inventive, neo-traditional, and stylishly contemporary productions of “Il barbiere di Siviglia” that I think I have seen in a very long while. With an adroit mixture of historical awareness, architectural minimalism, stupefying effects, and playful performativity, director (and lighting designer) Linus Fellbom delivered an afternoon of phenomenal artistry. 

Fellbom’s version is not only inspired by the humanity behind the comicality of Rossini’s plot, but by Pierre-Augustin de Beaumarchais’ eponymous play, written in 1775 (predating Rossini’s operatic adaptation by 41 years) — especially its origins in the Italian tradition of masked stock characters (or archetypes) called Commedia dell’arte. However, Fellbom’s version was unique in several ways. Not only did he utilize Commedia costume to recast each role as an archetype for universal feelings, but he did something even bigger. He returned Rosina (played by Johanna Rudström) her agency, gave Berta (Therese Badman Stenius) a real voice, conveyed Figaro (David Roy) and Count Almaviva (César Cortés) as good-hearted gentlemen in their own way, and provided every other character a moment to showcase themselves as important aspects of the human experience.

While each and every singer was vocally faultless — although rather unadventurous when it came to aria endings, cadenzas, and even just simple ornamentation choices in Almaviva and Rosina’s case — the way Fellbom presented “Il barbiere” was original enough to make up for the vocal conservatism. However, it should be noted, the most historically accurate thing one can do is sing Rossini the way it was supposed to be sung: with practiced, but spontaneous, embellishments.

What made this performance truly special, and what seems to be a Royal Swedish Opera speciality, was the Wagnerian way in which scenography, lighting, and staging coalesced to produce a multi-dimensional experience. The set was a barebones, burgundy-colored house, with two walled (whitewashed) faces and two open faces, featuring a shifting ladder up to a small platform (i.e., Rosina’s room), with sparse decoration and a trapdoor in the middle. Rosina’s window was outfitted with a small balcony, the rectangular balustrades of which created minimalist, yet highly artistic, geometrical forms with the square house and triangular roof.

Despite the simplicity, it became an impressive canvas for a vast array of lighting effects, complimented by diaphanous fog layers: in some moments this hung in the air, while others it formed billowing undulations in the background. The way nebulous wafts and waves of haze and fog transformed a blacked-out stage into a dreamlike, almost surrealist, environment was truly operatic. Back-lighting, faux lightening, spotlights, beam-lights, among other techniques, eschewed the practical emptiness of the stage long enough that one could become absorbed in Fellbom’s hypnagogic world. 

Throughout the two acts, the house changed position as each scene called for it. Sometimes furniture was placed outside, sometimes it was spinning to show its whitewashed faces. The opera began in a highly impressive manner, invoking François Roussillon’s 2001 Paris Opera production, revealing the house from under a green tarpaulin as it was dramatically pulled away in a swooping gesture. But the most impressive part was that, as the orchestra played the overture, the curtain rose and a thick surge of quasi-opaque fog wafted out into the audience, over the orchestra, instantly transporting us. Fellbom and his team produced something magical: an effect also employed in Anna Kelo’s 2019 “Das Rheingold” for the Finnish National Opera.

This seemed to be a production of many overlapping references. Lena Lindgren’s costumes, although inspired by traditional patterns of Italian Commedia fashion, simultaneously invoked Kazimir Malevich’s geometrical Suprematist costumes for the 1913 Futurist opera “Victory Over The Sun.” Moreover, the conclusion of the opera saw Figaro draw the green tarpaulin across the stage, a possible allusion to Patrice Chéreau’s 1976 Bayreuth production of “Das Rheingold,” while the minimalist house could be a reworked layout of the open house schema made popular in Kaija Saariaho’s opera, “Innocence.” One particular lighting choice — a combination of green and orange during Act Two, when the Count and Rosina quietly embrace and Figaro looks on in worry — almost directly referenced the Commedia character Arlecchino (Harlequin), the trickster swindler who busily engages himself with everyone’s business.

In many respects, the singing was the least interesting thing about the entire production. While the entire cast were vocally perfect and incredibly beautiful, I remained hungry for something more: something truly dramatic. Perhaps it was more spontaneity, more emotional candidness, or unrehearsed dramaturgical humor. The evening, at least vocally and gesturally, felt artificial; contrived to such a degree that the liveliness Fellbom wanted to convey seemed unable to cross a certain threshold. This became most apparent during Act One’s finale. Once surrounded by Futurist-looking police, the configurations began stagnating while vocally the cast flung their tuneful and highly melodious voices in various contortions. Fighting against the restrictive and overly architectural shapes created by Katarina Aronsson, Act One’s finale exemplified the biggest issue at play within that afternoon’s opera — and possibly the contemporary staging of Rossini operas in general. The singing actors are not allowed to be singing actors but instead become shapes without agency. There was a phenomenal lack of action in their movements and this was transposed onto their singing. It was as if the singers could not really be themselves.

Rudström’s ‘Una voce poco fa,’ while beautiful, was also unoffensive and cautious, caressing each dexterous passage in an expert manner but never establishing itself as legendary. Similarly, Roy and Cortés’s many operatic arias, from the former’s clean ‘Largo al factotum della città’ to the latter’s technically exact, ‘Se il mio nome,’ were spotless perfection and emotionally expressive to a degree. But they lacked a raw and sensuous temerity invoked in earlier generations of operatic interpreters. The opera, at least as sung that night, was a masterclass in coloratura and bel canto lyricism, yet not one of breathing fioritura. Rossini was noticeably absent from the presentation of his opera. The ingenuity of devising historically-minded embellishments and coloratura filigree, as required in Rossini operas, was only ever subtly hinted at. Every singer, from Roy and Cortés to Lennart Forsén (Police Officer), were functionally impeccable but there needed to be a living, spontaneous creativity as well.

With an imaginative display of scenography and lighting by Fellbom and his team, the Royal Swedish Opera has once again produced an opera that seems to be at the cusp of greatness but fails to confidently cross the threshold. Knowing the history of the house, I wait with bated breath for a performance where bohemian visual talent coalesces with unforgettable vocal talent. When will that day come? We will have to wait and see.