All rise for dazzling Gwent singer Laura Parfitt, who made a triumphant debut with WNO in Rossini's The Barber of Seville.
It was the first role with a major British company for the award-winning Risca mezzo-soprano and it was auspicious to a fault.
As Rosina, the compromised but feisty ward-of-court, she delivered her decorated passages with clarity and vigour and rounded them off with some of the most uninhibited top notes heard from the character in the 22 years since Giles Havergal's wonderful production was first seen at the New Theatre.
She can also act, and so natural was her presence of mind that the impression was often of a comic part with a formidable dramatic persona lurking inside it. More to come, methinks.
Havergal's conceit of the opera as an entertainment mounted by a group of strolling players is comedy compounded and was a landmark production.
It requires energetic ensemble playing and half as much attention to detail again as that required by a conventional setting, so demanding is the conception of a troupe of hams performing comedy, which extends to the skirts of the stage within a stage.
The pace seemed more frantic than ever, an explanation for those mercifully brief moments when singers and orchestra (conductor Gareth Jones) parted company and the patter routines threatened to concertina. The legendary WNO chorus was gainfully employed.
Colin Lee (Almaviva), John Moore (Figaro), Eric Roberts (Bartolo), Tim Mirfin (Basilio) and Naomi Harvey (Berta) completed a cast of engaged principals in a revival that introduced a new and exciting female voice. |
