Figaro, a ubiquitous barber, who is in everybody's confidence, takes the
Count under his protection, and contrives to smuggle him into the house
in the disguise of a drunken soldier. Unfortunately this scheme is
frustrated by the arrival of the guard, who arrest the refractory hero
and carry him off to gaol. In the second act the Count succeeds in
getting into the house as a music-master, but in order to gain the
suspicious Bartolo's confidence he has to show him one of Rosina's
letters to himself, pretending that it was given him by a mistress of
Almaviva. Bartolo is delighted with the news of the Count's infidelity
and hastens to tell the scandal to Rosina, whose jealousy and
disappointment nearly bring Almaviva's deep-laid schemes to destruction.
Happily he finds an opportunity of persuading her of his constancy while
her guardian's back is turned, and induces her to elope before Bartolo
has discovered the fraud practised upon him. The music is a delightful
example of Rossini in his gayest and merriest mood. It sparkles with wit
and fancy, and is happily free from those concessions to the vanity or
idiosyncrasy of individual singers which do so much to render his music
tedious to modern ears. Of Rossini's lighter works, 'Il Barbiere' is
certainly the most popular, though, musically speaking, it is perhaps
not superior to 'La Gazza Ladra,' which, however, is saddled with an
idiotic libretto.
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