Largo al Factotum della Citta

We went to the Barber of Seville dress rehearsal last night at the Capitol Theater. I thought it was quite well done and the voices were very nice. There's a lot of vocal gymastics in this piece. I don't envy anyone trying to sing it. Especially, the Tenor, who was actually more like a contre-tenor, had a nice voice. Not really big or powerful. But, very good with the light head tones, and lots of wonderful resonance. I'm also really glad that they are able to find players with good voices who are atractive. It's hard to gin up love interest in a Cavaradossi who is 5'2", weighs 200 pounds and looks like he is on blood pressure medicine.

I do have one gripe which I have noticed before. Of course, you have an inside edge if you speak or are acquainted with the language of the libretto. They don't give you enough of the libretto in the supratitles and I don't think they do a very good job of translating. As a result the libretto takes a lowly 2nd or 3rd seat to the voices and the music. One example: when Lindoro calls on Don Bartolo as the drunken soldier he calls him Don Balordo and then Don Barbaro. Both of these would be teasing insults if translated. They were presented with no interpretation at all. So the humor of those passages was lost. To the non-Italian speaker it just seems that he can't get the name right. Granted, it would be a little difficult to elegantly translate the humor. But, they could put the meaning of the erroneous names in parens.

Most of the time the translation is very loose when I would have prefered a more literal translation. But, there was one example where those feelings were reversed. Lindoro (as the drunken soldier) "challenges" Don Bartolo to a duel/swordfight. He draws a line (in the sand) on the ground. The word used in Italian was fosso. So this time they translated it literally as ditch. But it seems for the image to work, two soldiers (or armies) facing eachother, they could have said line instead. Besides, drawing a "line" on the stage floor and then calling it a ditch doesn't fit the analogy.

There were also hugh periods of time where there were no supratitles at all. I don't think it was merely dress rehearsal mistakes. I think they realize that the audience can't possibly spend all that time and attention looking at them instead of the stage. Also, there is a lot of repetition in the Opera. But, there were also lots of bits that the audience completely misses out on because of incomplete and sloppy titles.