Barber of Boston

Sarah Caldwell is that kooky, rotund lady in Boston who thinks she knows how to put on opera. Sarah is forever racing round town, scrounging money from her merchant friends to pay off some irate truckers or meet an impending payroll. A woman possessed, and sometimes distracted, by her mission, she once drove home in the wee hours after an exhausting rehearsal, discovered for the umpteenth time that she had lost her keys, checked into a nearby motel for a quick snooze, then walked out and forgot to pay. Her mother recently offered her $1,000 in cash if she would only get her hair done for an opening night; Sarah had no time. She would be the despair of all her friends and colleagues, if they did not love her so.

They love Caldwell because she does indeed know how to put on opera. As a producer and director, she has long since proved her wit, good taste and knack for motivating stage people. She has also emerged in the past few seasons as an uncommonly gifted conductor who waddles to the podium through the audience (there is no other approach in Boston's Orpheum Theater, an old vaudeville and movie house), slumps down into a canvas director's chair, then cajoles the dickens out of her pickup orchestra. All these talents were in evidence last week as Caldwell's Opera Company of Boston concluded its 16th season with Rossini's The Barber of Seville.

War Horse. The Barber of Seville! What is Sarah Caldwell doing with a war horse like that, when she could be scoring musicological points by dredging up, say, Cornelius' The Barber of Baghdad! She is doing what any savvy impresario would do--playing to her strength. When a loyal Caldwellite like Beverly Sills is willing to sing her first Rosina, and that master of operatic disguise Donald Gramm is equally eager to sing Bartolo, the savvy thing to do is put on The Barber of Seville.

Beyond such essentially show business concerns, Caldwell was operating on the premise that beneath the breast of the war horse beats the heart of a thoroughbred. The Barber ranks as a 19th century buffa masterpiece because its music is so innately ingratiating and so illustrative of both character and comic situation. Figaro's patter aria Largo al factotum ("Feeegaro! Feeegaro!") quickly defines him as one of the most likable hustlers in all opera. Rosina's Una voce poco fa is a song of such poise and bravura style as to remove all doubt that she will get her man, Count Almaviva.

It is Caldwell's special gift to trust the music and take its humor seriously. Her gags never intrude on purely musical moments, but when they come they are fresh and funny. Figaro enters not from the wings but from-the audience, beginning the Largo al factotum at about row S. In the lesson scene Rosina hits a high C and the glass in Bartolo's hand shatters. During the Act II storm, Bartolo's hat and umbrella are swept skyward by the wind (on a wire, of course).

Cocktail Chatter. Soprano Sills has spent so much time lately portraying tragic Queens and nutty ladies that one tends to forget that she is a comedienne too. Her double takes, sarcastic gestures, needling glances and knowing swoons would be a scenario all by themselves, were it not for the fact that all the while she is tossing off virtuoso vocal fioriture as though they were cocktail chatter. The Figaro of Baritone Alan Titus is a suave quickstepper, lacking only the vocal weight and heightened authority that should come when he adds to his 28 years. The Bartolo of Bass-Baritone Gramm, 47, lacks nothing at all. It is a compendium of wit, slapstick, humanity and buffo style.

In short, another triumph for Sarah Caldwell. Without question she is the most adventurous producer of opera in America today. Schoenberg's Moses und Aron and Luigi Nono's Intolleranza are but two of the works she has given U.S. premieres. This season she conquered the musical and dramatic predicaments that abound in Prokofiev's four-hour epic War and Peace. Her Barber of Seville suggests that she may not be just the most courageous all-round talent in American opera but the best. When is Boston going to get her out of the Orpheum and give her the permanent home She deserves?

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