Figaro, Figaro, Figaro

Young Chang

You won’t leave this opera sniffling and sad.

There are jokes and laughter, a likable villain and a happy ending.

Mitchell Krieger, director of operations and artistic advisor for

Opera Pacific, said it wasn’t a hard choice to include “The Barber of

Seville” in the company’s season because it’s “just one of those

perennial favorite operas.”

“It tells a charming story, and it tells it in a way that you can’t

help but liking all the people in the show,” he said.

The opera company wanted a performance space as intimate as the story

being told, Krieger said, which is why the piece is being presented at

the Irvine Barclay Theatre instead of at the Orange County Performing

Arts Center today through May 19.

“It’s a piece about just a few people,” he said of the Gioachino

Rossini opera. “We wanted to put it into a situation where you can just

see these people interact in a way that can be hard to see in a big

theater.”

The story is about a count named Almaviva who is trying to win over a

rich ward named Rosina. His competition is a Dr. Bartolo, Rosina’s

benefactor and a man who will resort to lowly depths to keep the two

apart. Almaviva is helped by Figaro, the barber. Almaviva tries on all

kinds of disguises and identities in his pursuit of Rosina to deceive

Bartolo, and all ends well in the end.

Metropolitan Opera performers John Osborn and Lynette Tapia sing the

role of Count Almaviva and Rosina, respectively. John Packard sings

Figaro, and Andrew Fernando sings Dr. Bartolo.

An interesting aside: Osborn and Tapia, whose characters end up

happily ever after in “Barber,” are married in real life.

Fernando, a resident artist with Opera Pacific, said he hopes to make

Dr. Bartolo his trademark role.

“Dr. Bartolo, as a character in itself, is awesome,” he said. “He’s

very dynamic. He is sort of the villain in the story, but he’s not evil

and he’s a good-hearted man.”

Which can be harder to pull off, Fernando added. Purely evil or purely

good characters are often the easiest to play, but the artist welcomes

the challenge.

“And the aria itself is a very, very challenging aria,” he said. “It’s

a patter aria. It’s 10 million words. But it’s just an awesome, awesome

thing. I’m very excited.”

Rehearsing for “Barber” was filled with laughs, Fernando and Krieger

agreed.

“I would say that the humor is based very much in the

characterizations,” Krieger said. “It’s not slapstick for slapstick’s

sake. . . . It’s all about the people and their lives. We love that

kind.”

FYI

* What: “The Barber of Seville”

* When: Today through May 19. Show times are 7:30 p.m. today,

Wednesday, May 17-18; and 2 p.m. Sunday and May 19

* Where: Irvine Barclay Theatre, 4242 Campus Drive, Irvine

* Cost: $45-$65

* Call: (949) 854-4607