Julien Benhamou / OnP

Opera

Il Barbiere di Siviglia

Gioacchino Rossini

Opéra Bastille

from 02 February to 04 March 2016

3h05 with 1 interval

Il Barbiere di Siviglia

Opéra Bastille - from 02 February to 04 March 2016

Synopsis

"To sharpen the mind of the most doleful of women and suddenly make her shrewd, all it takes is to lock her away and the deed is done."

- Il Barbiere di Siviglia, Act I, scene 11


“The Barber is one of the century's masterpieces”. These words were written by the very Berlioz who in his youth had denounced not only Rossini, but also the “fanaticism he aroused in the fashionable circles of Paris”. Accordingly, the compliment, “repeated until exhaustion” – the composer's own words – is all the greater. The work was so “brilliant” and “so finely orchestrated” that the “dilettanti of Rome”, enraged by the “slightest unforeseen innovation in melody, harmony, rhythm or instrumentation were ready to kill the young maestro”. Il Barbiere di Siviglia has been performed continually since its turbulent premiere on February 16th 1816.

The composer's opera buffa transcends the spirit of Beaumarchais’ comedy and combines the absurd with a touch of satirical realism in a score where rhythm and virtuosity place the comic effects in an ongoing dramatic narration. As a result, the characters – Rosina in particular – gain a new degree of realism and break with the usual archetypes.

Damiano Michieletto’s giddying production embraces this perpetual motion and carries in its wake the happy couple formed by Lawrence Brownlee and Pretty Yende.

Duration : 3h05 with 1 interval

Language : Italian

Artists

Opera buffa in two acts (1816)

After Pierre-Augustin Caron de Beaumarchais

Creative team

Paris Opera Orchestra and Chorus
Original production from the Grand Théâtre de Genève

French and English surtitles

Media

  • Podcast Il Barbiere di Siviglia

    Podcast Il Barbiere di Siviglia

    Listen the podcast

  • The Barber of Seville hand-to-hand

    The Barber of Seville hand-to-hand

    Watch the video

  • The great debuts

    The great debuts

    Read the article

Podcast Il Barbiere di Siviglia

Listen the podcast

Dance! Sing! 7 minutes at the Paris Opera - by France Musique

07 min

Podcast Il Barbiere di Siviglia

By Judith Chaine, France Musique

  • In partnership with France Musique

    Read more

"Dance! Sing! 7 minutes at the Paris Opera" offers original incursions into the season thanks to broadcasts produced by France Musique and the Paris Opera. For each opera or ballet production, Judith Chaine (opera) and Stéphane Grant (dance), present the works and artists you are going to discover when you attend performances in our theatres.        


Il Barbiere di Siviglia by Gioacchino Rossini
The composer's opera buffa transcends the spirit of Beaumarchais’ comedy and combines the absurd with a touch of satirical realism in a score where rhythm and virtuosity place the comic effects in an ongoing dramatic narration. ...

The Barber of Seville hand-to-hand

Watch the video

Interview with Lawrence Brownlee and Pretty Yende

4:36 min

The Barber of Seville hand-to-hand

By Octave

Lawrence Brownlee and Pretty Yende share the stage of the Opera Bastille in an electric production of Rossini’s Barbiere di Siviglia. The bel canto tenor forms a dynamic duo with the South African soprano for her Paris Opera debut. On the eve of the dress rehearsal, they had accepted to talk to us about their vision of the characters and working with stage director Damiano Michelietto. 


Il Barbiere di Siviglia by Gioacchino Rossini
The composer's opera buffa transcends the spirit of Beaumarchais’ comedy and combines the absurd with a touch of satirical realism in a score where rhythm and virtuosity place the comic effects in an ongoing dramatic narration. ...

© DT / OnP

The great debuts

Read the article

A fresh look at season 15/16

06 min

The great debuts

By Octave

During the summer break, we offer our readers a retrospective glaze on Stéphane Lissner’s first season at the Paris Opera. Singers, stage directors, stage designers… The season 15/16 hosted the debuts at the Paris Opera of numerous acclaimed artists. Looking back on a season-manifesto.    


And Folly took over the Palais Garnier…

This production of Platée directed by Laurent Pelly must be a timeless classic: season after season, it conveys an ever renewed pleasure. Furthermore, it still succeeds to surprise us and make us burst into laughter. One must admit that this time, the show could rely on the presence of Julie Fuchs, soprano of a rising generation, who was making her debut at the Paris Opera and enchanted the audience with her interpretation of La Folie.

And Romeo Castellucci confronted himself with Moses und Aron…

The inaugural event of this season unquestionably was Arnold Schönberg’s Moses und Aron given for the first time at the Opera Bastille. Stage director, creator of shows for theatre and opera that are as many visual shocks, the Italian Romeo Castellucci confronted himself to this biblical tale about a people’s wandering and the limits of speech. The term “confrontation” isn’t an overstatement when considered the importance of image in Castellucci’s aesthetic, importance that is precisely questioned by Schönberg in his opera. From this dialectical opposition between a major contemporary artist and one of the 20th century’s most fascinating works emerged a memorable artistic gesture, an aesthetic manifesto : on the vast stage of the Opera Bastille, a desert stretched itself out – firstly white then painted black – until ironing out the chorus, while Schönberg’s notes resounded relentlessly.

© Elena Bauer / OnP

And Barbara Hannigan set fire to La Voix humaine…

Another high point of the season was the dual evening bringing together Béla Bartók’s Le Château de Barbe-Bleue and Francis Poulenc’s La Voix humaine in a production by Krzysztof Warlikowski. This wasn’t the Polish stage director’s first experiment at the Paris Opera. Among his various productions, one remembers Iphigénie en Tauride (which will be revived next seasonL’Affaire Makropoulos or Le Roi Roger… For his anticipated comeback, he attempted creating close dramaturgical links between Bartók’s opera and Poulenc’ lyrical tragedy. The result of this double bill is a strange and fascinating theatrical and musical object, an intense experience for the audience. Under the baton of Esa-Pekka Salonen, the Canadian soprano Barbara Hannigan made her Paris Opera debut and offered an incandescent performance in the role of La Voix humaine’s passionate and suicidal lover: she literarily self-consumes on stage with a fire that doesn’t burn out until Poulenc’s last chords.

And Faust left the Earth for Mars…

For his Paris Opera debut, Latvian stage director Alvis Hermanis took over the myth of Faust and turned it into a very contemporary re-envisioning: basing himself upon the “Mars One” project which intends to colonize the planet Mars, seeing in cosmologist Stephen Hawking the scholar’s rightful heir, he imaged a production where the pact between the scholar and the Devil becomes a one-way ticket to the Red Planet. Under the musical direction of Philippe Jordan, Jonas Kaufmann, Bryan Hymel, Bryn Terfel and Sophie Koch were an outstanding vocal cast. 

And Rosina escaped Bartolo’s claws…

Rarely had a show gathered such a perfect cast: on the occasion of Il Barbiere di Siviglia’s revival in Damiano Michieletto’s electrifying staging, Lawrence Brownlee and Pretty Yende lent their voices to Count Almaviva and to Rosina. The South-African soprano, who was making her Paris Opera debut, composed on stage a powerful Rosina, whom her old fogey of a guardian had a hard time keeping captive… She’ll be back on the Opera Bastille’s stage in the title-role of Lucia di Lammermoor next season while Damiano Michieletto returns for a new production of Samson et Dalila to be discovered from the 4th of October.
© Julien Benhamou / OnP

And Rigoletto stopped laughing…

Unanimously acclaimed from New York to Salzburg, stage director Claus Guth hadn’t yet had the opportunity to direct a production for the Paris Opera. It now has been done with Rigoletto, for which he offered, as always, a chilling a chirurgical vision turning Gilda, the fool’s daughter, into the object of every fantasy: the opportunity for Olga Peretyatko to make a remarkable debut alongside Quinn Kelsey. A production that will be revived as soon as next season. 

And Lear was created in its original version at the Palais Garnier…

Last new operatic production of the season, the representation of Aribert Reimann’s Lear based on Shakespeare for the first time in its original language at the Palais Garnier, was one of the high points of this season. On the occasion, stage director Calixto Bieito offered a breathtaking show, living up to the Shakespearian drama. So as to make us eager to discover his Carmen programmed next season… Remembering Bo Skovhus’ stunning interpretation of this king at death’s door still sends shivers down one’s spine…

  • Il Barbiere di Siviglia - Gioachino Rossini

Access and services

Opéra Bastille

Place de la Bastille

75012 Paris

Public transport

Underground Bastille (lignes 1, 5 et 8), Gare de Lyon (RER)

Bus 29, 69, 76, 86, 87, 91, N01, N02, N11, N16

Calculate my route
Car park

Q-Park Opéra Bastille 34, rue de Lyon 75012 Paris

Book your parking spot

In both our venues, discounted tickets are sold at the box offices from 30 minutes before the show:

  • €35 tickets for under-28s, unemployed people (with documentary proof less than 3 months old) and senior citizens over 65 with non-taxable income (proof of tax exemption for the current year required)
  • €70 tickets for senior citizens over 65

Get samples of the operas and ballets at the Paris Opera gift shops: programmes, books, recordings, and also stationery, jewellery, shirts, homeware and honey from Paris Opera.

Opéra Bastille
  • Open 1h before performances and until performances end
  • Get in from within the theatre’s public areas
  • For more information: +33 1 40 01 17 82

Opéra Bastille

Place de la Bastille

75012 Paris

Public transport

Underground Bastille (lignes 1, 5 et 8), Gare de Lyon (RER)

Bus 29, 69, 76, 86, 87, 91, N01, N02, N11, N16

Calculate my route
Car park

Q-Park Opéra Bastille 34, rue de Lyon 75012 Paris

Book your parking spot

In both our venues, discounted tickets are sold at the box offices from 30 minutes before the show:

  • €35 tickets for under-28s, unemployed people (with documentary proof less than 3 months old) and senior citizens over 65 with non-taxable income (proof of tax exemption for the current year required)
  • €70 tickets for senior citizens over 65

Get samples of the operas and ballets at the Paris Opera gift shops: programmes, books, recordings, and also stationery, jewellery, shirts, homeware and honey from Paris Opera.

Opéra Bastille
  • Open 1h before performances and until performances end
  • Get in from within the theatre’s public areas
  • For more information: +33 1 40 01 17 82

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