Beyond haircuts and beard trims, this canny barber is the city’s matchmaking maestro!
Almaviva is wealthy, stealthy and head over heels. Rosina is witty, pretty and just as smitten. She’s also inconveniently betrothed. They need a plan. Time to call on: Fi-ga-ro! Figaro! Figaro!
The stage is set for comic chaos. Our enterprising barber Figaro has wits and tricks as sharp as his razors. It takes all of his clever disguises, subterfuge and scheming to wrangle a romantic encounter for the would-be lovers.
The Barber of Seville fizzes and pops with lyrical acrobatics and irrepressibly funny characters. Rossini’s most famous ‘opera buffa’ is a musical masterpiece with a storyline that would be equally at home in a Hollywood rom-com. Opera Australia’s finest voices and a live orchestra deliver a score that is instantly familiar from renditions in movies, cartoons and commercials. Here, the frothy humour is intoxicating and the chorus revels in every uproarious escapade.
Delight in a riotous romp along the road to true love! This is opera at its light-hearted, effervescent best.
Rosina Esther Song / Cathy-Di Zhang
Count Almaviva Shanul Sharma / John Longmuir
Figaro Christian Haotian Qi/ Andrew Williams
Dr Bartolo Michael Lampard / Andrew Moran
Don Basilio/Fiorello & Coro Steven Gallop / Shane Lowrencev
Berta Sarah Sweeting / Dominica Matthews
Composer Gioachino Rossini
Director Priscilla Jackman
Conductor Siro Battaglin
Set Design Michael Scott-Mitchell
Costume Design Sabina Myers
Lighting Designer Morgan Moroney
Sung in Italian with English Surtitles (OC)
Wheelchair accessible
Companion Card accepted
Assistive Hearing system available (FM)
Riverside acknowledges the Dharug people who are the traditional custodians of the land of Parramatta. We pay our respects to the elders past and present of the Dharug nation and extends that respect to other Aboriginal people visiting this site.