On the hottest day of the year so far, conditions were sweltering even in the shady Theatre in the Woods that Grange Park Opera has created in West Horsley, Surrey. So one had to applaud the players and singers, conducted by Gianluca Marcianò (in a T-shirt), for giving their best in this new production of Rossini’s comic masterpiece of 1816. Based on Beaumarchais’s 1775 play, the story of Count Almaviva’s romantic manoeuvrings as he courts Rosina is told in supremely elegant and witty music, which demands a crisp, light touch to project its sharp social commentary.
Francis O’Connor’s ingeniously decorated ironwork sets of doors and staircases, which moved deftly around the stage with a suggestion of orange trees beyond, placed us very definitely in Seville. As soon as we saw and heard James Newby’s barber Figaro booming his first aria from the shower, we knew he was in charge of the local scene. Nico Darmanin’s tightly focussed Count Almaviva (disguised as Lindoro) was no match for him, even if he played his own guitar on stage in his serenade scene. Rosina, the sharp-tongued ward of Don Bartolo (the crisply authoritarian Simon Bailey), was brought to pouting life by Ginger Costa-Jackson, with an enviable range of bright coloratura, though she revealed an over-steely edge as the music raced into the higher regions.