Embrace the comedy of Opera at USC’s ‘The Barber of Seville’

Ok, admit it. Whenever you hear music from Rossini’s opera “The Barber of Seville” you think of Bugs Bunny. Ah, but which cartoon? Rossini’s soaring aria actually made it into three Looney Tunes cartoons: “The Rabbit of Seville”, where Bugs sings “Figaro” as he shaves nemesis Elmer Fudd; “The Long Haired Hare,” which features Bugs as the opera conductor Leopold and “One Froggy Evening,” the story of Michigan J. Frog, who sings show tunes and opera (including selections from The Barber of Seville) only when he’s alone with his owner.

But don’t feel bad. “I’d like to believe musical bon vivant Gioachino Antonio Rossini would have embraced the spirit of that cartoon and all the fun others have had over the past 200 years. And fun is what we get with Barber,” says director of Opera at USC Ellen Douglas Schlaefer.

If you’ve never actually seen a performance of “The Barber of Seville,” you’ll have your chance Friday, February 26-Sunday, February 28, when Opera at USC presents the classic comic opera at the Drayton Hall Theatre.

Based around the antics of the delightfully cunning barber called Figaro, Rossini’s comic masterpiece is filled with liveliness and laughter at every twist and turn. Along the way, a slew of high-spirited characters go to great lengths in search of friendship and love, encountering hilarious situations along the way.

Opera at USC’s captivating production, which is set during the Roaring ’20’s, will be sung in Italian with English supertitles. Sunday performance is a matinee at 3 p.m. Maestro Neil Casey conducts the Opera at USC Orchestra.

For more information, visit sc.edu/music/opera.

Katie McElveen, Special to The State

This story was originally published February 26, 2016 at 10:55 AM.