Opera Queensland’s The Barber of Seville is riotously funny

For The Barber of Seville to work, the factotum-fixer Figaro has to own the stage from the moment he enters.

Katie Stenzel as Rosina is attended to by Emily Burke, playing Berta, among others in a riotously funny, utterly assured production. Picture: Steve Henry

For Rossini’s masterpiece The Barber of Seville to work, the epony­mous factotum-fixer Figaro has to own the stage from the moment he enters.

In Lindy Hume’s riotously funny, utterly assured production for Opera Queensland, she has the born-to-play-the-role Brett Carter go one better than that. In the first of several unforgettable, laugh-out-loud moments, opera’s most loveable solver of other people’s problems thumps frantically on a locked door out in the stalls as his immortal opening aria begins.

Then, as he rushes in through the audience, accusing conductor Roland Peelman of starting the music too early, he searches for his correct entry door among the literally dozens to choose from on Tracy Grant Lord’s ingenious and appealing set, while a stage manager looks daggers at both him and her watch.

Not even onstage yet and ­already you not only love him but know everything about this live­wire improviser, living on his charm and wits, the very embodiment of madcap joy, not to mention a bloke you’d always want to call to get you out of a scrap.

Sheer brilliance, but it doesn’t end there.

There are innovations everywhere, from the recitatives accompanied on flamenco guitar by Andrew Veivers, to Brian Lucas turning the usually incidental servant Ambrogio into a show-­stopping physical-theatre artist, while the chorus bumbles its way through the foyers, looking for the right door, before the audience has even entered the theatre.

Germany-based Australian bari­tone Carter will surely become famous for his role as Figaro, singing, acting and charming his way into comparison with the greats, but Opera Queensland regular lyric-tenor Virgilio Marino isn’t overshadowed as Almaviva.

When Marino shows up in disguise as a stand-in music teacher for his beloved Rosina (Monique Latemore on opening night, sharing the role throughout the season with Katie Stenzel), the audience nearly goes into pandemonium with laughter as his harpsichord becomes a substitute object for his Rosina-induced desires.

Chalk up another scene that will live long in the memory, ably supported by Andrew Collis as chrome-domed Dr Bartolo in Elvis wig. But none of this would be possible without conductor Peelman’s precise, perfectly contained shaping of the Queensland Symphony Orchestra in the pit, a masterclass in orchestral support for onstage voices.

As for Hume, this is the fourth time she’s directed the opera and her program note suggests it might be her last. Don’t do it, Lindy. Don’t stop bringing sheer, unadulterated joy into the world.

The Barber of Seville

By Gioachino Rossini. Opera Queensland, co-production with Seattle Opera and New Zealand Opera. Playhouse, QPAC, Brisbane. July 9

Tickets: $67.50-$155. Bookings: 136 246 or online. Duration: 2hrs 45 mins, including interval. Until July 23. Then various locations across Queensland until August 24.