The Hamburgishe Staatsoper’s production of Rossini’s Il Barbiere di Siviglia (a revival from the 1976 Deflo/Frigerio staging) has become today something like the generic version of Barbiere di Siviglia. You have seen bits of that kind of stage direction, of those sets, of those costumes, of the physical comedy touches in some Barbiere somewhere at some point. I am unable to tell how original the whole thing was in 1976, but I will not deny that it has some sort of outdated charm, especially if you want to take someone to the opera for the first time in their lives. The two children seated next to me, for example, were having the time of their life (of course, we are talking about German children).
Alexander Winterson’s conducting had the right degree of animation, forward movement, lightness and theatricality. At first, one feels that a bit more volume would make the experience more vivid, but later it became clear that this was probably a decision to accommodate some very light voices in the cast. Sometimes, things were a bit untidy in ensembles and less fast tempi could have done the trick.
Silvia Tro Santafé’s tangy mezzo soprano sounds too formidable for Rosina. It is a sizeable, colourful voice and flexible enough (although intonation in a couple of runs were a bit approximative) for Rossini’s difficult coloratura demands. Her method involves an intrinsical use of chest voice that, although generally well knit to upper parts of her range, seems more suitable to masculine roles. Lawrence Brownlee’s light and high tenor is more velvety than most tenorini’s and his ease with fioriture is very commendable. It is still a small voice that could use with a bit more tone colouring to make a difference, especially for someone whose short height makes his casting in leading roles a bit difficult. Wilhelm Schinghammer’s resonant bass is properly cast for Basilio, but his diction could be clear. In this aspect, the casting of Renato Girolami as Bartolo somehow exposes the whole cast. Of course, he has the advantage of singing his own language – in any case, his diction is remarkably crystalline. His voice is forceful if a bit raw and, as almost every buffo since immemorial times, his vocal production is very irregular, as if he saved his full harmonics only for the key moments. All in all, this is a singer immerse in the right tradition of Italian comedy. Unfortunately, Oleg Romashyn was clearly below the leves of his colleagues – and he took the opera’s title role. His pronunciation of Italian language is unacceptably sketchy – overdark vowels largely to blame – and he tended to be drowned by the (light) orchestra too often for comfort. He has some rich top notes and commendable flexibility – but this is simply not the right voice for this repertoire.
I HEAR VOICES 
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