Premiere: Teatro Argentina, Rome, 1816
Rossini’s perfectly honed treasure survived a famously disastrous opening night (caused by factions and local politics more than any reactions to the work itself) to become what may be the world’s most popular comic opera. Its buoyant good humor and elegant melodies have delighted the diverse tastes of every generation for nearly two centuries. Il Barbiere di Siviglia was the first opera heard in Italian in the United States, when Manuel García, who sang Count Almaviva in the premiere, brought his family of singers, including his daughter, diva Maria Malibran, and his son, Manuel Jr., to perform the opera in 1825 at New York City’s Park Theater Several of the opera’s most recognizable melodies have entered the world’s musical unconscious, most notably the introductory patter song of the swaggering Figaro, the titular barber of Seville. The opera offers superb opportunities for all the vocalists, exciting ensemble composition, and a natural flair for breezy comedy that has hardly been equaled since.

The Creators
Gioachino Rossini (1792–1868) was idolized in his day as the world’s foremost opera composer. He wrote more than 30 of them, both comic and tragic, before inexplicably stopping opera composition in 1829, at the age of 37, after his success with the grand Guillaume Tell, best known for its overture. Though some of Rossini’s tragic operas have recently begun a return to the world’s stages, several of his comic operas have long been considered core repertory. Il Barbiere di Siviglia alone has never wavered in critical and public esteem. Pierre Augustin Caron de Beaumarchais (1732–1799) was the author of the three subversive Figaro plays, of which Le Barbier de Seville (1775) was the first. Beaumarchais led a colorful life (he was, for instance, an active arms smuggler supporting both the American and French Revolutions). His character Figaro, the wily servant who consistently outsmarts his less-worthy masters, is semi-autobiographical, the name itself even pointing to the author: “fils” (“son of”) Caron.

The Setting
Seville is both a beautiful city and something of a mythical Neverland for dramatists and opera composers. (Lord Byron, writing about the city at the time of this opera’s composition, summed it up nicely: “What men call gallantry, and the gods adultery, is much more common where the climate is sultry.”) The intricate, winding streets of the city’s old quarters, the large gypsy and Moorish-descended population, the exotic traditions, and the mystique of the latticed “jalousie” windows have added to the city’s allure. The Don Juan legend has its origins in Seville, and some of the steamiest operas (Mozart’s Don Giovanni and Bizet’s Carmen, among others) make their home in this most beguiling of cities. Beaumarchais’s play was revolutionary: Set “in the present day,” which meant just before the French Revolution, and given that time frame, the work unveiled the hypocrisies of powerful people and the sneaky methods that workers devise to deal with them.

The Music
The paradox of Rossini’s music is that the comedy can soar only with disciplined mastery of vocal technique. The singers must be capable of long vocal lines of attention-holding beauty (as in the tenor’s aria “Ecco ridente” directly after the curtain rises on Act I), as well as the rapid runs of coloratura singing (Rosina’s well-known “Una voce poco fa,” also in Act I). The score features solos of astounding speed in comic, tongue-twisting patter forms, especially the title role’s well-known “Largo al factotum.” Beyond the brilliant solos, the singers must blend well with each other in the complex ensembles that occur throughout the opera.

Il Barbiere di Siviglia at the Met
Il Barbiere di Siviglia appeared in the first month of the Met’s inaugural 1883–84 season, featuring the Polish diva Marcella Sembrich, who sang Rosina 65 times. At her farewell gala in 1909, Sembrich accompanied herself on piano on a Chopin song during the “Music Lesson” scene. In 1954, New Yorker Roberta Peters, who sang the role of Rosina 54 times, was the first at the Met to ignore the tradition of interpolating other music into this scene, opting instead for Rossini’s original “Contro un cor.” This became standard at the Met until another notable (and very different) Rosina, Marilyn Horne, revived the old practice by singing “Tanti affetti” from Rossini’s La Donna del Lago. Il Barbiere di Siviglia has been produced in a remarkable 75 seasons at the Met, and has featured the talents of such diverse stars as Cesare Valletti, Salvatore Baccaloni, Robert Merrill, Fyodor Chaliapin, Ezio Pinza, Kathleen Battle, Amelita Galli-Curci, Jennifer Larmore, and Lily Pons.