The Elves Went To The Opera

By the Boiler Room Elves

Little known fact about elves: In addition to hammering away at toy trains, luring hobbits off forest paths, and baking cookies, our list of favorite hobbies includes --- opera. So when we snuck out to DC for the protest, we did our best to score some tickets to the Washington National Opera's performance of Rossini's The Barber of Seville, a bel canto comedic opera. It's one of our long-standing favorites, and this production did not disappoint. Great singing, fantastic staging, and a plethora of honest-to-goodness laugh-out-loud moments made this one of the best we've seen.

The Barber of Seville is a great intro opera for non-opera goers. . . think of it as a gateway opera. It's light-hearted, relatively fast-paced, and full of Bugs Bunny music. "Bugs Bunny music?" you ask? Sure. Cartoons in the olden days used to do a great job of prepping kids to become literate adults, familiar with cultural treasures long before the kids hit the age when classic literature, music and art become boring and irrelevant... but we digress.

Adults who have never been to an opera are often surprised to find themselves in the middle of one suddenly humming along and saying, "I know that piece!" From where? Kids' cartoons generally. Most everyone will recognize "Kill the Wabbit, kill the wabbit, kill the waaaaabbit" from Bugs Bunny, but not as many would be able to identify it as Richard Wagner's "Ride of the Valkyries" from Act 3 of Die Walkuere. Most of us have seen The Rabbit of Seville, which is taken directly from The Barber of Seville. And there are many, many more.

The Barber of Seville also should appeal to anyone who enjoys a nice Shakespearean comedy. Operas fall broadly into comedies and tragedies, much like Greek plays and Shakespeare. In the comedies, the young lovers need to overcome some obstacle to get married and the bad guy needs to be properly embarrassed and learn the error of his ways; in the tragedies we like to have a nice high body count on the stage, preferably singing a long aria before shuffling off this mortal coil. You'll also notice two types of singing - the arias which are sung for the beauty and tune, and the recitatives which tell the story and move the plot along. The arias are Shakespeare's soliloquies - they contain the most beautiful and memorable pieces, and they're arguably the reason why we go, but the basic plot is complete without them.

The Barber of Seville does not disappoint - a man sees a woman locked away on her balcony, she sees him, they immediately fall into undying love. He must disguise himself to free her from her "evil" guardian who plots to marry her himself. Oh no! Enter the barber Figaro (yes - Figaro, Figaro, Figaro, Fiii-ga-roooooooooo) who lives to help young lovers unite against all odds. Figaro helps our hero disguise himself so we can have a series of mistaken identities and funny situations. (Shakespeare again, or perhaps Three's Company, anyone?) Our hero, by the way, conveniently happens to be the local rich Duke, unbeknownst to our lady fair, who thinks she has fallen for a poor man. This way she can be justly rewarded for not being a gold-digger, but for being true to her heart. Ahhhh... And of course, at the end, after much mayhem, the "evil" guardian comes around and gives the young lovers his blessing, and Puck-- I mean Figaro! - gives us our lesson and we all sing ourselves off into the night.

Please note, we elves have not had a chance to study music theory or the history of opera. We're hardly experts, but we know what we like, and we like The Barber of Seville. If you ever have a chance to see it, it's a great one to start with. You can watch a clip from the DC production HERE.

And if you're interested in seeing some really great opera, but either don't have access to a decent company close by or just don't want to get all gussied up and pay that much, check out the NY Met's broadcasts. They have recently started to broadcast their operas in high-definition to participating movie theaters all over the country. Opera while munching on popcorn and wearing your favorite pair of green tights at relatively cheap prices? Now that's something to sing about. Of the upcoming season, the elves would recommend Carmen in January for lots and lots of Bugs Bunny music with a great plot and no boring music.