Review: New Cast, Great Fun at Met’s BARBIERE

When mezzo Aigul Akhmetshina stepped on stage in the Met’s new production of CARMEN, back on New Year’s Eve of 2023, it was hard to imagine her in any other role because of the way she completely inhabited it. Would we ever be able to watch her in anything else, despite credits from other houses that ran from Elisabetta in MARIA STUARDA to Charlotte in WERTHER and, yes, Rosina in IL BARBIERE DI SIVIGLIA? Now that she has made her house role debut as Rosina at the Met, this past Friday, any concerns seem moot. She was terrific.

All kinds of voices have taken on the role—including mezzos and sopranos—without losing any of the charm and spunk that Rossini and his librettist Cesare Sterbini, wrote into it. The Met’s current simple, yet somehow perfect, production (Bartlett Sher’s best at the house, for me, restaged here by Kathleen Smith Belcher), was designed by Michael Yeargan with Christopher Akerlind’s effective lighting and Catherine Zuber’s zesty costumes. 

It gave Akhmetshina all the room she needed to show off her powerful, yet flexible, sound in the show-stopping “Una voce poco fa” (and elsewhere) that’s very different from others I’ve heard in the role. 

She took hold of the stage from her first appearance and didn’t let go. It was fun to watch her get the best of her guardian Doctor Bartolo (bass-baritone Peter Kalman, hilarious in his Met debut) or fall under the charms of Lindoro/Count Almaviva (tenor Jack Swanson, another newcomer to the house).

Swanson started out a bit tentatively but quickly showed himself to be a good match for Akhmetshina. His role, of course, is a shtick-fest, whether as romantic lead, a make-believe drunk or a fake music teacher wearing a ridiculous hat, and he embraced every aspect of it. 

His soaring high notes and great coloratura were a delight to hear, and he had the presence to take charge of any situation with ease. Swanson is a fine addition to the Met’s short list of singers who can sing this kind of role—sort of bel canto-issimo. His duet with Akhmetshina in the “Lesson Scene” was a joy but he was generally a pleasure to hear.

Baritone Andrey Zhilikhovsky was a lively, buoyant Figaro, who seemed to charm the socks off everyone in town, as he proves in “Largo al factotum,” his calling-card aria that enumerates all he knows how to do. That said, it he sometimes appeared to push his attractive voice unnecessarily--as if he was afraid he wouldn’t be heard in the Family Circle (even though there was no reason to think so).

It’s always a pleasure to hear someone who can do one of Rossini’s mile-a-minute patter songs as well as bass-baritone Kalman did for his first time at the Met. He was quite aware that Rosina was a handful but he was up to the job of keeping her in line (or so he was sure). His warning to her in “Un dottor della mia sorte” was an hysterical delight.

As Don Basilio, the music teacher and one of Bartolo’s co-conspirators in his marriage plans, bass Alexander Vinogradov, may not have had the largest role, but he did well by it. He put over his aria about how he gets things done, “La calunnia” (better known as “slander”) succinctly and surely, though he was less forthcoming about how open he was to a good old-fashioned bribe.

The other top supporting players were the feisty baritone Joseph Lim as Fiorello, Jay Dunn in the almost non-speaking (but very acrobatic) role as the servant Ambrogio and mezzo Kathleen O’Mara as the housemaid Berta. The latter did a good job with her throwaway aria about the craziness of the household; once it was an optional piece though now it’s pretty standard even if it slows things down a bit.

Leading the Met Orchestra, Giacomo Sagripanti, also making his debut, kept Rossini’s sweeping score in perpetual motion, and the chorus gave pleasure under Tilman Michael.

IL BARBIERE DI SIVIGLIA, featuring this cast, will be performed through June 5.  It will also be the last of the season’s LIVE IN HD broadcasts from the Met to theatres around the world, on May 31. For more information, please see the Met’s website.

Caption: (from left) Andrey Zhilikhovsky, Aigul Akhmetshina and Jack Swanson.

Credit: Jonathan Tichler/Met Opera