“It is on the ripples of Rossini’s music that individual joys and tribulations of humanity rock most comfortably”, pronounced Heinrich Heine on the music of the great Gioacchino Rossini (1792–1868), while Richard Wagner contemptuously compared the Italian’s art with the “most ear-flattering vocal acrobatics” – though for all that it had not escaped Wagner that Rossinian melody has a narcotically intoxicating effect.

Director Claus Guth investigates this phenomenon so to speak in laboratory conditions. He transfers Rossini’s “Il barbiere di Siviglia” into the setting of an experimental station for insect research. Count Almaviva and the object of his desires, pretty Rosina, and the effervescent barber Figaro, all three intent on bamboozling cranky old Bartolo, are for him amorous arthropods literally thrashing around in a web.

“One must concede that Rossini’s music, whizzing abruptly to and fro and buzzing and circling busily, is basically very suited to the nature of an insect. The singers put this across very emphatically in the gusto of their bodily antics. It is all quite extraordinarily enjoyable and amusing”
Markus Schwering, Kölner Stadt-Anzeiger


 
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Gioacchino Rossini

IL BARBIERE DI SIVIGLIA
Melodramma buffo in two acts
Libretto by Cesare Sterbini

 
In Italian with German surtitles
 

Musikalische Leitung Giuliano Betta
Inszenierung Claus Guth
Bühnenbild und Kostüme Christian Schmidt
Licht Hermann Münzer
Video Andi A. Müller
Chorleitung Christoph Kurig
Dramaturgie Bettina Auer
 
Graf Almaviva Jose Manuel Zapata
Figaro Bogdan Baciu
Bartolo Bruno Balmelli
Rosina Maria Kataeva
Don Basilio Roman Astakhov
Fiorillo Attila Fodre
Berta Lisa Griffith
Ein Offizier Attila Fodre
Chor Chor der Deutschen Oper am Rhein
Orchester Duisburger Philharmoniker