SW: What road led to your unique concepts for this 2001 production of The Barber of Seville?
CH: I studied for six years – and toured – with [mime artist] Marcel Marceau. My approach to theater is very physical. I have long been interested in exploring classical texts, and finding visual, physical aspects to them. As an undergrad I studied theater and got involved with a mime company. I learned fencing techniques, too. As a child, I was a gymnast, and did theatrical acrobatics.
SW: What did you learn from Marceau?
CH: He is incredibly knowledgeable about the public on an international level. The thing that fascinated me most was the way he found a non-verbal language that all humanity shares. He could do the same show in Peking, Paris, or New York and everyone would laugh and cry at the same things. I liken what he did with his body to what singers do with their voices. As we listen to the music they produce, we all break into tears at the same time. Opera is a very stylized world, but it still touches everyone the same way.
SW: You see Italian commedia dell’arte as a foundation of the comedic story of Barber and its characters. Could you explain?
CH: Commedia dell’arte is not slapstick, it’s not burlesque. It’s not The Three Stooges or Lucille Ball – broad comedy. It’s more like Charlie Chaplin or Marceau. It’s precise, studied, and takes great deal of training, skill and craft. This is why it's perfect for Rossini’s opera, which is all about virtuosity.
Commedia dell’arte was popular for almost 400 years. It had moved from Italy through Europe – changing when it got into Germany, England and France. The original play on which The Barber of Seville was based was written by the French playwright Beaumarchais. The style reflected what French people did with the stock characters of Italian commedia dell’arte: the old man, the pompous soldier, the sweet young miss, the wacky athletic servant, the heady doctor who talks in Latin a lot. Servants are in general smarter than their masters. Counts and Countesses may be educated but they are not wise in the ways of the world. In Paris at end of 1700s – when this play was written – it looked like a precursor to revolution: a servant doing something so much better than the master. Well after the French revolution and Napoleon, Rossini took these characters and did his own version of them. He was perfectly aware that he was using commedia characters.
There were also stock commedia scenes that occurred over and over again. For example, there was frequently a scene in which a young woman was serenaded by her lover. There were lazzis – in the stage business, it's called a "bit" – comic circumstances surrounding this. She would be locked up in a tower, or there would be mistaken identities or disguises. This is how The Barber of Seville opens. This beautiful young woman, Rosina, is being held virtually captive by her guardian, who is way too old for her. But he wants her money so he is jealously guarding her. The Count comes in wearing a disguise, and gets servants to help him serenade girl at window.
SW: You’ve talked about evoking French Boulevard Theater in this production. What is French Boulevard Theater?
CH: French Boulevard Theatre comes in around 1816 – about the time Rossini wrote this opera. Theater was no longer just for elite. Commedia characters became a voice for the people. In 1830, at the height of French Boulevard Theater, theaters started popping up. There was competition about who could bring in the most people. Something called the harlequinade came about. This was to get around fact that the French King supported certain theaters, and only those theaters could use text onstage. So if I can’t talk, I can come out and do whatever else I want – like pantomime. Non-text-based theater was created, something very physical. The movie Les enfants du paradis shows what this theater was really like. Realism hadn't happened yet. They were performing for the audience; it was very presentational.
SW: How is this reflected in the current production?
CH: In our set, we use painted drops and minimal furniture. This allows the singers to create a world with their bodies and voices. It focuses the audience on the characters and the music. Part of the magic of theater is allowing you to become involved with what you're seeing. Period costumes will still be there. Ideally my goal is for the audience not to think it is watching something from the 1830s but that it is in a theatre during the 1830s.
SW: Are you asking for more movement from the singers?
CH: I am asking the singers to be more physical. However, when you have very, very rich text, you don't want to have them moving around a lot. It would be like listening to Shakespeare while someone was tap dancing – simply distracting. You have to find the proper dosage of moments of stillness and movement. This does involve mime. We think of miming in the Marceau style – no speech. But the type of mime that the singers will be doing will not "create" props that aren't there; instead, they use their bodies to express what the words do not express. Ideally, the action will be clear enough for people to understand what is happening in the scenes, even without the super titles.