Lyric Opera 2019-2020 Issue 2 The Barber of Seville

View Us on Your Tablet or Phone Call Us to Place Your Ad Since 1991 847.770.4620 | performancemedia.us The Art Institute of Chicago Magazine • Auditorium Theatre Program • Chicago Botanic Garden Member Magazine Chicago Philharmonic Program • Chicago Wedding & Party Resource • Citadel Theatre Program • Do North Guide Field Museum Member Magazine • Forest Preserves of Cook County Events & Activity Guide • Kohl Children’s Museum Visitor Guide Lake Forest Symphony Program • Lyric Opera Millennium Park Program • Lyric Opera of Chicago Program • One of a Kind Show Guide Randolph Street Market Festival Guide • Ravinia Family Fun Program • Ravinia Magazine • Ravinia Steans Music Institute Program Wherever you go, we’re right there with you! Lyric Opera of Chicago | 30 In the Act Two trio, Figaro (Nathan Gunn, left) frantically urges the lovestruck Rosina (Isabel Leonard) and Almaviva (Alek Shrader) to leave with him, to avoid being discovered by Bartolo. Lyric production, 2013/14 season. Robert Kusel starts quietly, as Basilio describes slander as “un venticello” (“a little breeze”). It’s delicate music, but then, as slanders spreads, Rossini deploys one long, astonishing crescendo (he was famous for them). And then finally, as slander reaches vast proportions like “un colpo di cannone” (“the shot of a cannon”), Basilio simply explodes on a pile-driving high note. One second later he launches a torrent of frantically excited phrases as he sings of slander resembling “an earthquake, a hurricane, a universal tumult that makes the air resound.” And that’s what The Barber of Seville has created worldwide, for more than two centuries—an absolute hurricane of laughter. Enjoy! Roger Pines, Lyric’s dramaturg, has contributed articles and reviews to Opera News, Opera, The Times (London), International Record Review, The Opera Quarterly , and major recording companies. He has appeared annually on the Metropolitan Opera broadcasts’ Opera Quiz since 2006.