Lyric Opera’s The Barber of Seville stages a pitch-perfect rendition of the genre’s touchstone
Figaro, Rosina, and Count Almaviva. // Photo by Don Ipock
In November, Lyric Opera’s The Barber of Seville took over the Kauffman Center for the Performing Arts. Billed as the opera that defines our modern understanding of the genre, the show’s marketing leaned in hard on inviting Kansas Citians to enrich themselves in the ur-text by which the form is standardized. When the advertising bills the production as being the definition of “Hey, that’s that one song from that one thing!” and compares the night to a collection of “Opera’s Greatest Hits”—there’s a lot of pressure to follow through on some of the only pop-culture staples steeped in the general consciousness.
Thankfully, Lyric Opera’s cast knocked it out of the park with an overwhelming collection of impressive talent—framed by a production where all the other elements exceeded the company’s own high bar.
Rossini’s rom-com romp follows hopeless romantic Count Almaviva (Matthew Swensen) through a plot that unfolds like an operatic obstacle course. With the help of Figaro (Johnathan McCullough), a former servant turned barber, Almaviva attempts to run off with his true love, Rosina (Chrystal E. Williams), before her soon-to-be forced marriage to the scheming Dr. Bartolo (Ashraf Sewailam). Disguised as a poor student named Lindoro, Almaviva serenades Rosina outside her window. However, Rosina only knows him as Lindoro and does not realize he is the Count. To help Almaviva, Figaro devises a series of schemes to facilitate the Count’s pursuit.
Staging a nearly three hour farce takes pacing, control, and a connectivity that demands more from its players than more modern works. When you kick off with a song that loudly celebrates how quiet a morning is dawning, you get a pretty forceful introduction to the opera’s sense of humor—both what makes it eternally endearing but how lengthy a thread can be pulled here. The last number before intermission, for example, freezes the cast in time and allows each member, in turn, to reiterate how frozen the moment they’ve become. [If you’re, say, waiting to finally hit the restroom, this segment is less hilarious than you’d like.]
The opera’s best-known aria, ‘Make way for the servant who does everything’ (‘Largo al factotum’)—the ‘bravo Figaro, bravo, bravissimo!’—is all self-celebration of Figaro for being the most in-demand barber in town, and therefore more powerful than even royalty. For a musical number best known publicly as a foundational Looney Toons short, Johnathan McCullough’s work here manages to unseat expectations that any audience brought to the evening. His incredible voice and physicality in tandem reorient this in a different degree of cartoon energy—selling each line as both confident in its nature and equally ludicrous in the premise.
Photo by Don Ipock
With a huge set of spiraling towers and cloudy architecture, the entire show felt draped in the fantasy framing of a Candyland world. Building off that with one of Lyric’s best orchestra showings, The Barber of Seville was a rare opportunity to revel in the full potential of our local soaring opera team. In a year where Lyric is up for a Grammy for their recording of The Shining, it is perhaps too easily overlooked that we’re home to peak operatic talent, and a reason to await the announcement of 2025’s season eagerly.
