¨2001
PioneerPlanet / St. Paul (Minnesota) Pioneer Press
Published: Wednesday, March 28, 2001
BY
MEG RYAN
Comedy. It's all about timing. "The first
da-da-da-dahh is you," says Chuck Hudson, pointing to soprano Amy Cope, who
plays Berta in Minnesota Opera's upcoming production of Rossini's "The
Barber of Seville." "Then the second one, you go center." Hudson
moves another singer to his assigned spot. "And the final da-da-da-dah,
that's your entrance, Lindoro."
The group works half an hour on a 30-second scene.
Everything is in slow motion. Nothing is funny. "OK, let's find the timing
of that," Hudson commands as he bounds off the stage.
"One of the hardest things about comedy is the
mechanical aspects," says Hudson. As artistic director of the Immediate
Theatre in Seattle, he specializes in commedia dell'arte, an elaborate
form of mimed acting, usually comedic, with origins in 16th-century Italy. It
explores human interaction and drama by deconstructing and exaggerating the
actions of a set of stock characters: the elderly nobleman, the charlatan, the
harlequin and the troubadour or prankster. While this is Hudson's first staging
of "Barber," he has staged Mozart's "Marriage of Figaro" for
the Seattle Opera and other major companies throughout the United States.
In his staging, Hudson looks for "patterns that
fulfill musical gestures with action. If time stops (in the music), then the
action or drama has to continue." It's this suspension of time that creates
opportunities for comedy as well as windows for revealing truth to the audience.
Wait right there. Then isn't the comedy, at least in
comic opera, really all about the music?
Not exactly. "It's all right there in the
score," says conductor Emmanuel Plasson.
It can be in both places. Rhythm, or the way music
takes up space in time, is the basic building block for operatic comedy. A theme
starts simply and grows progressively faster, even to the point of overlapping
and interrupting parts. It's what gives Rossini operas their bouncy
vivaciousness and makes the story progressively more convoluted and silly.
According to Hudson, all that is funny comes in
threes. "First you introduce the element," whether it be a gesture or
a word or some combination of elements. Then you repeat it, usually more than
once. Finally, you have the rupture: the unexpected break in intention, result,
whatever. You find this in the staging of a scene, but you find it in the music
as well. "Rossini does this particularly well; Mozart does it really well,"
says Hudson.
In the end, the voices decide the tone of the
production. Differences in breathing needs, the breadth and agility of each
voice and an untold number of other variables determine the tempos and
interpretation of each production.
Conductor Plasson realizes this. "You can kill
a singer if you're not aware of those aspects," he says. But it makes his
conducting much more interesting because "it opens up possibilities that
maybe I hadn't thought of before."
Vocal play adds humor as well as understanding to
comic opera. The skilled singer's willingness to set aside traditional vocal
practice in favor of exaggerated syllables and half-spoken, half-sung, sometimes
even yelled vocal gestures, where it serves a dramatic purpose, add humor to the
music.
It's the singing that really brings the characters
to life, as well. "Barber" tells the story of a young nobleman
in his efforts to woo the fair Rosina away from her tutor, Dr. Bartolo, the
intelligent, possessive tutor scheming to marry Rosina for her dowry. Of these
characters, the most obviously funny, and a sort of archetype of comic opera, is
Bartolo, the basso buffo character.
This voice type is funny by default. Like seeing an
elephant dance the Nutcracker, we do not expect to hear a gruff man with a voice
that shakes the floorboards sing light, agile music. Indeed, this is one of the
most difficult voice types to sing well because of its necessity to bring
lightness to heavy, round sounds as they fly by.
Enrico Fissore has played the role of Dr. Bartolo
hundreds of times over the past 35 years. But Fissore is not your typical basso
buffo, who is generally round and fat and, well, funny looking. Fissore, by
contrast, has severe features, as if he's carved from granite, with dark,
deep-set eyes in a near-constant squint. His thin lips belie his warm demeanor.
So this "Barber's" Bartolo has two layers of humor: the built-in comic
aspect of the character and physical contrast. He adds another thread of humor
in an already intricate web of comic elements.
The interaction of music and carefully placed
physical movements creates moments of humor and moves a story forward. In this
production, musical jokes are punctuated with lazzi, the commedia version
of physical motifs, similar to but more sophisticated than simple slapstick
comedy. In his staging, Hudson punctuates the music at every opportunity.
References to time are especially noticeable: Lines like Bartolo's "Uno
momento! Uno momento! Uno momento!" are matched to his later statement,
"Presto! Presto! Presto!" both musically and physically.
By the end of just one rehearsal, all the awkward
timing and staging issues start to work themselves out. The movements become
less bumpy. The repeated actions mirror repeated musical motifs, which now
become more immediate for the listener.
Before my eyes, what had been desconstructed bits of
awkward motions become a very funny scene. Even though I don't know the language
being sung, I get the jokes anyway, and I laugh where I'm supposed to.
"Don't worry, you'll find the rhythm the more you repeat it," says
Hudson to one of the singers as she works out her parts.
Meg Ryan is a Twin Cities free-lance writer.