Seattle Opera‘s “The Barber of Seville,” which opens Saturday and runs through Jan. 29, will feature a bonus aria sung by tenor Lawrence Brownlee during the Friday and Wednesday performances.
“Cessa di piu resistere” is a treat, delivered at the end of the 2 1/2-hour Italian comic masterpiece.
Gioachino Rossini wrote the roller-coaster aria for the opera’s debut in 1816, but removed it the next year. It has been just in the past decade that companies have resurrected the challenging piece of music, said Jonathan Dean, Seattle Opera’s director of public media.
Saturday’s performance will be the first time the aria has been performed for a Seattle audience.
Brownlee, the fabulous tenor who first performed in Seattle Opera’s Young Artist program, is a veteran of the role of Count Almaviva and has sung the tricky aria before.
“He’s the reason why we’re doing it,” Dean said. Brownlee appears only in the so-called “gold” cast, which performs during the Friday and Wednesday operas. The aria will not be sung with the silver cast.
Soprano Sarah Coburn is credited with persuading music director Speight Jenkins to bring “Barber” back to Seattle, where it was last produced in 2000. Although Coburn is a soprano, she’s taking the lead role of Rosina, typically sung by a mezzo-soprano.
Kate Lindsey, the mezzo who played the lead role in “Amelia,” last year’s Seattle world premier, sings Rosina in the “silver” cast on Sundays and Fridays. Opera buffs may want to see both the gold and silver performance as the singer’s different vocal ranges are expected to lend a very different feel.
“Barber” is a joyous delight of an opera. It’s funny, light hearted and full of familiar songs, including Figaro’s aria, “Largo al factotum,” which we all know as “Figaro, Figaro, Figaro!”
Don’t confuse “Barber” with the sequel, Mozart’s “The Marriage of Figaro.” Both are derived from the same story, although Mozart wrote his opera three decades before Rossini.
Jackson Holtz: 425-399-3447, jholtz@heraldnet.com.
“The Barber of Seville”
Jan. 15 to 29 at McCaw Hall, 321 Mercer St., Seattle. Tickets are $25 to $218. For more information or to buy tickets, go to www.seattleopera.org or call 800-426-1619.
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