Danielle de Niese: The Birth of an Opera

The Barber Of Seville is one of the greatest comedy operas of all time.

Rossini's masterpiece has become one of the best-loved operas in

the repertoire, and is performed in opera houses all over the world.

Here at Glyndebourne we've staged a new production of Barber for

the 200th anniversary of its 1816 premiere in Rome.

My name is Danielle de Niese, and I'm a soprano.

I'm performing the role of the opera's heroine, Rosina.

So how do you turn a musical score into

a fully-fledged operatic performance?

I'm going to take you behind the scenes to give you

a warts and all look at the process of building an opera from scratch.

SHE RASPS

You'll see ups and downs and highs and lows as I prepare

my very first Rossini opera and my very first Rosina.

SHE SINGS

-You did it again.

-Bloody hell!

If you do that, you're sounding like you want to slow down.

We'll explore Rossini's musical genius with the conductor.

THEY SING

-Sorry, it's...it's magic.

-Yeah, it's magic.

This is the genius of Rossini!

For me, mastering Rossini's music is only the beginning.

I'll show you how I create the role dramatically

to really bring Rosina to life.

Finding the right look is essential -

the hair and make-up.

You know, you get, "I'm fine!" and the, like, grr!

My costume...

Shall we put it on? I think we should.

You might have to look away now.

And we'll look at how to bring out Barber's comedy

with our director.

High, high stakes of the comedy are that they are pushing their luck

as far as they can push it.

Along the way, we'll discover how an opera is

put together as a whole.

It's meshing the artistic intent

with some brutally practical things.

So let's have a look and see how it all happens.

Whoa-ho! We did it!

APPLAUSE

Each summer, Glyndebourne stages an opera season here in the

Sussex countryside.

If I do my job properly when I appear here,

my performance will be effortless.

But the preparation isn't.

Barber is nearly three hours long, and I need to be physically fit.

I actually can't afford not to work out for this role

because part of singing all of this

requires a level of abdominal support,

erm, that I need to keep in shape for.

I have a ten-month-old baby,

and I injured my abdominal cavity when I was pregnant.

I, er, I really must dedicate time to staying on this treadmill...

..and, er, studying - studying all my cadenzas.

Ideally, I would do a fast run,

but last year I injured my ankles while rehearsing.

I find that I...

I will do whatever it takes to...

..be the show.

In this film, I'll show you the challenges and satisfactions

of creating a character on stage.

My debut here at Glyndebourne was in 2005 as Cleopatra in

Handel's opera, Giulio Cesare.

And I first met Gus Christie, who was,

though I didn't know it then, my future husband.

Now we have a baby boy called Bacchus.

Shall we empty out all this sand?

-Where are your feet going?

-Let's bury your feet.

Let's bury your feet, there you go.

Gus is Glyndebourne's executive chairman,

and Glyndebourne has always been a family concern.

I'm going to cover your foot up...!

My grandfather, John Christie, married my grandmother,

Audrey Mildmay, in the 1930s, and built the opera house, er,

in the back garden for her.

She was an opera singer,

she opened the first season in The Marriage Of Figaro,

singing Susanna, a role which Dani has sung many times - not here.

-Not here.

-Erm, but, er...

And that's how it all started back in the early '30s,

and then my dad, George Christie, knocked down his father's theatre

in the early '90s and rebuilt the current theatre, which seats 1,250.

And it's now very much an international opera house.

Well, it always was, but it's even more so.

So, really, we're continuing a Christie family tradition.

It's quite spooky, I mean, and the fact that we actually got

married on the day that my grandmother was born...

-We didn't know.

-..on the 19th December.

They got married on the day that our son Bacchus was born.

-So there's a lot of...

-A strange...

-..strange coincidences.

-The destiny of the dates is...

It is quite spooky.

When Glyndebourne Festival offered me the part of Rosina,

I jumped at the chance.

I had been singing her main aria since I was 12 years old,

and always dreamed of performing the whole role.

My career has taken me to the other great opera houses abroad,

but it's always special singing at home.

There is quite a rigorous casting process here,

and we sit together, all more or less are voice and opera experts,

knowing the repertoire, looking at what's the right voice

and what's the right type for a certain role.

Each time I take on a new role,

it's like I'm jumping off a diving board into the deep end,

so preparing for Rosina, I feel a little bit like this lovely

sculpture here in the grounds of Glyndebourne, and it's a particular

challenge to take on such a beloved role in such an immortal opera.

Rossini's piece is based on the first of three plays by

the 18th century French playwright Pierre Beaumarchais.

They feature the adventures of a Mr Fix It, a barber called Figaro.

Mozart adapted the second play into his opera,

The Marriage Of Figaro, featuring Count and Countess Almaviva.

Ours is a kind of prequel, showing how that couple first met.

You can't not be in a good mood when you hear The Barber Of Seville.

Sort of like when, er,

you're working and it's wafting through the halls.

Everybody's in a good mood at Glyndebourne.

This is where the magic happens.

The auditorium here is a very intimate space,

perfect for Rossini.

There's the beauty of this music,

so it's always full of energy, electricity.

So, er, I am Italian,

I have to eat spaghetti al dente, you know? When the...

Inside the spaghetto is still a little bit hard,

and you feel this.

So, Rossini is exactly like this.

My character Rosina is a wealthy young woman

in 18th-century Spain.

Now, she is the ward of Dr Bartolo,

an elderly man who plans to marry her.

Now, this is NOT an idea that Rosina likes!

Rossini's story begins in the early hours

of the morning, on a street in Seville.

Count Almaviva, a Spanish nobleman,

comes to serenade Rosina.

He had seen Rosina from afar

and fallen in love.

This is the first of numerous attempts to woo her.

Rossini is really establishing

that this is very much a comedy,

but it's a comedy that involves

very real, deep emotions -

love and the quest for love.

Rossini's punchline in the opening is that,

after all of this romantic effort,

Rosina does not even appear on the balcony

during the serenade.

LAUGHTER

APPLAUSE

Almaviva overhears Figaro, the barber of Seville,

boasting of his troubleshooting talents.

The Count hires Figaro

and they plot ways to bypass Dr Bartolo.

Rosina does emerge...eventually.

She has a love note and the stage is set

for the comedy to come.

And speaking of stage and set,

they are a vital part of an operatic production.

Something that is made of wood and canvas and the odd bit of steel

can easily cost the same as

a comfortable semidetached house somewhere.

There is 100 people in the workshop, working on it.

Then, there is all the staff

who work on the production here, as well.

Singers aren't around when our show sets are installed,

so I came along to see the interior of Bartolo's house

being put together.

Tom, so, what is going on

here this morning on the stage?

Well, this is terrifying day number one, cos this is the first time

since rehearsals started that the show

is coming to the stage.

So, we're madly fitting up now. The floor is going down.

The walls will go in and we will be ready for you

to rehearse this afternoon.

SHE IMITATES CREAKING IN BACKGROUND

Yeah, that's the sound of timber creaking.

Ours is just one of six production sets

and it's a different opera every night.

It's a Meccano kit, because it has got to come apart,

-you know...

-Right.

-..twice in 24 hours. It's meshing

the artistic intent with some brutally-practical things.

Our set was designed by Joanna Parker,

working closely with director Annabel Arden.

We decided we wouldn't worry too much

about naturalism. That it's... There is an element of fantasy in it

and, so, I suppose the overall tone

of it is theatrical and it is highly colourful.

Every set needs to serve the drama and drive the story.

Ours is circular, which I love,

because it suggests Rosina has nowhere to hide.

In a sense, she is a prisoner.

So, you have a wall that's permeated by light, in these openings.

There isn't an outside.

But now, the mysterious serenader

offers a chance of freedom and love.

The Count has told Rosina that he is a poor student, called Lindoro.

He wants her to love HIM, not his money.

Ah! Rosina is smitten

and this leads to her first aria,

one of the greatest in the repertoire,

Una Voce Poco Fa.

Here, Rosina shares her inner thoughts and emotions

directly with the audience.

Arias are like Shakespearean soliloquies, set to music.

And, traditionally, where we singers display our vocal range

and technique.

Rosina can be a challenge for a soprano, like me.

Rossini wrote this part for a mezzo-soprano -

a lower voice.

And, so, my focus with preparing

this aria is to ensure that I can

sing with a beautiful healthy sound

some of these middle and low notes,

but not to put too much weight

or chest voice into the sound,

because it will affect my ability

to negotiate the very top parts of my register of my voice.

We build, with Danni,

each single breath.

In this way...

..Danni knows when I will give my upbeat.

That, in the language of the conductors,

the upbeat is the breath of the singers.

And I know exactly when Danni is going to breathe.

Rossini's music is famous for its "coloratura" -

elaborate melodies, with endless runs,

trills and vocal leaps.

Rossini's genius

was that he composed coloratura not just to dazzle the audience

with vocal displays.

He used it dramatically, as well,

here, helping express Rosina's determination to escape.

But it's not easy to sing, though.

You have difficult coloratura

and then you have absolutely-infernal coloratura.

There is an example even in the first three pages,

where she says...

# Dolce amore

# Ro-ho-ho-ho-ho-ho-sa. #

This is nine notes. It's always sung like this.

There is a grace note in here, as well,

so that means Rossini actually wanted to hear ten notes.

# Da-da, da-da Da-da-da-da, da-dum. #

Enrique, our maestro, has said to me...

"Don't do it!"

However, I DID say to him...

"Yeah, but wouldn't it be cool if we COULD do it?"!

And we did.

We trust each other.

Danni knows that I am watching her...

..I am watching her preparing the breath.

I will never be too early,

I will never be too late,

but I know...

..that even if Danni is watching the public,

there is this corner of the eye

watching...the upper bit

of my white baton.

And...

..this is something unique and wonderful.

Traditionally, arias in Italian operas end with cadenzas -

improvised displays of vocal fireworks,

where we can show off.

I had this idea to

make a cadenza that, sort of, pays homage to the cadenzas of old.

In my final loving chero, I will win him.

I want to, sort of, take off.

I want to sprout wings and fly.

And, suddenly, come out of it, at a certain point,

SHE SINGS

I was hearing

all sorts of new colours

and a seamless connection to the higher voice,

which I knew very well,

in a way that, I think,

really opens up

a lot of possibilities for her.

During the run,

I came to Rome, to talk with another diva about her experience

of portraying Rosina.

It's a challenge achieving a believable balance

between Rosina's sweetness and determination.

She wants to be strong, but is still so young and naive.

I wondered how Alberta Valentini, the Italian soprano

who performed Rosina at Glyndebourne in 1961,

had handled her.

TRANSLATION:

Mm.

SINGING:

SINGING:

SINGING:

Some think that this calculating viper

is not a believable young woman.

Rossini's first biographer, Stendhal, didn't.

But I wonder if Rosina is just talking big,

like teenage girls do,

about things she hasn't really experienced yet.

Here we are, talking about having very similar...

similar processed feelings about this Rosina,

who, you know, says that she can be a viper,

but isn't necessarily such a viper.

But she would defend herself, if she had to,

and this is what is so marvellous about her.

Let's not forget, she's Spanish!

It was here, in Rome, that Gioachino Rossini

composed Barbiere, between late 1815 and early 1816.

The maestro was just 23 and, already,

a superstar across Europe.

Some critics sniffed that he was a noise-monger,

but audiences loved his work.

We're here in the centre of Rome

and, just above me, you can see a plaque, that reads,

"Living in this house, Gioachino Rossini found eternally

"new harmonies in The Barber Of Seville."

It's beautifully poetic and very Italian.

Rossini had a furious working pace.

Over his composing career, he wrote an average of two operas a year.

Some years, he penned four.

This may be why the librettist Cesare Sterbini

is reported to have been reluctant to sign up.

Legend has it that Rossini wrote his entire masterpiece

in just three weeks. Some say the maestro and Sterbini

worked together here, sleeping on a sofa when they could no longer

stay awake, and eating only when necessary.

But it was worth it. Beethoven told Rossini

in 1822,

"Barbiere will be played as long as Italian opera exists."

Before I start singing a role, I always immerse myself in the text.

I'm very curious about

the rest between...

SHE READS THE LYRICS IN ITALIAN

The fact that there's a rest there tells me that, maybe,

she's fishing her way through the phrase.

Maybe she thought, "Oh, these are just the words to the song...

"..from The Useless Precaution."

So, she's coming up with it on the spot.

And, so, this is how one builds an interpretation.

So, I was very excited that our conductor,

Enrique Mazzola, planned to perform Barber as Rossini intended...

..especially for what's known in Italian as the "recitativo",

where dialogue is sung in a conversational style.

Rossini wanted his recitativo to follow the rhythms

of natural speech.

But, over the centuries,

various traditions have become accepted that changed

the overall delivery.

Every famous singer

of the past puts something new.

Sometimes, it is just the...

singer...

singer's ego.

"I can do a very high and nice

"beautiful note", like a high C.

'Our Figaro, the German baritone,

'Bjorn Burger, and I have come in to lightly rehearse and review

'the maestro's back-to-basics approach.

'We will look at the famous scene, where Figaro intrigues Rosina

'with information about her suitor.'

If I sang...

SINGING:

-Yeah, yeah.

-This would be sung.

-Yeah.

-This would be to sung

for a restive soul. The sounds of the voice

is less important than where the word sits,

so the difference of that is like...

SHE SINGS

-No, we have reached the rhythm of the...

-Yeah.

-..of the spoken...

I like very much this moment when you say "my bella".

I still struggle with it.

I have to say, "Ma... Ma, a bella?"

But when I am singing it, I can't always get the exact same...

-Argh! It really annoys me!

-But you have to go "in normal life".

Ah! # A bella? #

Ja, ja, ja.

Do it normal, like this.

You see, it is magic.

'This sparkling scene ends with a well-known duet.

'Well, two arias sung at the same time, really,

'and Rossini's rules for arias are different from the recitativo.'

And then, the duet starts.

And then, the fear begins!

ALL LAUGH

I hate this bit!

It is my, literally, most feared phrase.

Thank you, BBC, for filming this bit(!)

SINGING:

Bravo. A very good example of the difference

between recitativo and the sung part

-with the orchestra.

-Yes.

-In this moment...

STACCATO SPEECH

The rhythm goes exactly with the rhythm.

It doesn't go in the rhythm of the words.

When the orchestra is playing -

may you play the bass C? - the left hand of the orchestra.

PIANIST STARTS PLAYING

You see how it fits?

It fits. So, exactly, this is the tempo.

'Enrique wants the arias to end with a bang, just as Rossini liked.'

You know what I have always in mind? You know those American movies

with a car... going out from a building

-and crashing in a big window, a glass window?

-Yes!

-Big crash.

So, I think the final of this aria should be like this.

Yeeeeew - crash!

So, let's go again.

This is Rossini.

-This is the genius of Rossini.

-Yep.

Before I sing a performance, I need to warm up my voice.

Be advised...

this is not the most glamorous part of my job.

I am taking the approach that,

in order to, like, truly lift the lid on a process,

you need the good, the bad and the ugly.

So, erm, this is the ugly.

MOUTH MUSIC

When you're working with an instrument that is variable,

like a human voice, which can be, like me today,

a little bit gunky,

it means that you do have to use

your training, to assess what you might need more of,

in terms of the exercises. It's exactly like being

a sports athlete. If you are feeling a little bit tight

in your hamstrings, you do more hamstring stretches.

We can do the same thing with our voices.

So, what I am going to do is I am going to do these straw exercises,

which are going to, essentially, do like this to my vocal cords.

They are just going to stretch and tone them and it will start to

clean off the gunk.

SHE HUMS SCALES

I put headphones on, so I don't have to listen to myself.

It's so easy to...judge yourself.

So, in my case, I just put my little iPod or phone on to "shuffle".

OK, I have got a bit of Sting.

SHE HUMS ALONG TO MUSIC

I do this other very ugly exercise.

It is...putting a pen

inside your mouth...

..and singing without letting the pen drop out.

We'll do this.

HUMMING

SINGING

Now, putting the pen in my mouth means my jaw is immobilised

from getting in the way.

So, that is why it's an ugly thing to do, but has a big pay-off

if you...coordinate your air, as a result.

So, Renata Tebaldi

was, apparently, like, absolutely effortless, when she sang.

Erm...I suppose that's the benchmark there,

but, you know...we'll try!

Opera is not just about music.

Glyndebourne was one of the first venues to emphasis the importance

of acting.

Opera is about telling stories.

In order to bring the story across, we need very good actors.

And Danni being one perfect example.

When I was a little girl,

just starting out, my mother taught me that there is

a crucial distinction between singing and performing.

It's not just my lines that matter,

but how Rosina interacts with and responds to

the various men in her life.

So, I have been working on different body language and movement,

to reflect these very different relationships.

I think Rosina loves Figaro, as well as the Count -

just in a different way.

She trusts Figaro

and can be very playful with him.

So, when Bjorn and I are on stage together, we interact very freely

with one another.

APPLAUSE

And, of course, the way Rosina relates to Bartolo,

whom she despises, is rather different.

Bartolo is Rosina's legal guardian, so she has to be respectful.

But I make my body language rigid and tense.

I pull up my ribcage a little higher.

My legs are stiff with frustration.

It is my way of showing that,

while Rosina may be doing

her "dovere" - her duty -

she really doesn't like it.

There is something very feline about Danni.

Danni has an enormous facility to be able to sing and move and play at,

all at once. And that makes her very exciting and enormous fun

to play with.

Hopefully, all these tiny details will make my Rosina

very believable as a complex young lady

and a well-rounded character.

Rosina is incredibly attracted

to Count Almaviva,

but he's a stranger, really.

So when he embarks on Figaro's next plan and enters the house

disguised as a drunk soldier, Rosina's excited but also nervous.

I can express this physically,

tilting my chin slightly forward in an amorous way,

but pulling my body back a little to suggest uncertainty.

If you can't engage your body from head to toe in that same way

for a character, it can be a very, very beautifully sung performance

and something is missing.

It's a little bit like those wind-up ballet dolls

and a little ballerina, they're turning, and it's amazing,

it's beautiful, it's crystalline, it's perfect,

but it's...lifeless.

And for me, if you can marry to a wonderful vocal performance

a stunning physical performance, then you have theatrical magic.

The details of our characters' appearance are a crucial part

of expressing their complexities.

Perfecting Rosina's hair and make-up has been a key part

of the process for me.

So here we are, I'm with Sarah Piper, our head of make-up,

and Sheila Slaymaker, our head of wigs and hair

and we're starting to get ready to create Rosina.

The process has been entirely collaborative.

Annabel has directed me to really come with

a very fresh innocence at the beginning

and so then that will really affect our decision-making together,

what colours we're going to go for.

It's got a nice luminosity to it, that base,

hasn't it? It has got a sort of luminous...

It's nice.

The general feeling of Rosina,

she's young and effervescent and ebullient and alive.

And she's very present and her eyes, you know, speak volumes

and that's what we wanted from Rosina

and I'm really lucky I've got people who can go,

"OK, we'll get her eyes to pop like that."

Pink.

I think any girl who wears lipstick would be able to say that

even for going out to a party, you would know when you hit the jackpot

with your lipstick colour and the same happens with characters here.

And when I got this colour on, I'm like...

SHE GASPS I'm looking out the window,

I'm hopeful, I'm happy.

It's great! I love it.

Another big decision was which wig I should wear.

Now, this may sound frivolous, but it has a huge impact on how

Rosina fits in with the overall concept of the opera.

You know, this also takes place in Spain

and so we needed this kind of...

caliente, we needed this sort of dark, smouldering...

young, but smouldering.

It's a very tough balance. I mean, I feel like we've achieved that.

We were trying to also fulfil Joanna's desires with your character

and Annabel's input to have something

just a bit different and now.

Annabel decided against our other wig option.

It was wonderful, but maybe a little bit too much.

-OK.

-Here she comes.

God!

Isn't that so amazing?

-It's so different, isn't it?

-It's so different.

This has youth and it has rebellion in it,

which I think is an important quality of Rosina.

And of course, I had, like, off the shoulders,

so that's what it would have looked like.

-You know, you get...

-The fun.

-..the fun and, like, grrrr!

You get all that. But I was really nervous that,

like, this quality of, like, just looking to the face,

looking right into the soul might not be there.

But I think we've kept a bit of that grrr in Rosina's character.

We had a lot of fun with that one.

That's one of those things that was discarded, but it's still there

and I think both her and I are sort of,

still thinking about it.

Erm...

So, yeah.

Yeah.

Maybe she'll go out in it one night.

And we can go dancing.

The same amount of thought and care went into preparing our costumes.

Joanna and Annabel spent months perfecting them.

We trawled the streets of London for fabrics and we went into shops

and we'd be, like, "Does this work with this?"

You know, swatch after swatch after swatch after swatch.

Glyndebourne is quite unusual because all of our costumes

are made here on site.

And we'd meet the cutters and I've got 15 fabrics

working in these layers.

This is one of my favourite parts of the production process.

I was always the kid at school in the dress-up box.

This is my act one costume.

Di and I know this quite well now.

We've been practising getting into it.

And it is an amazing piece of art, really, when you look closely

at all of the applique.

What it makes come alive for the character of Rosina

is this flirtatious playfulness, her youth.

Shall we put it on?

I think we should. You might have to look away now.

It's essential that my costume allows me

to move and breathe easily on the stage.

We don't sing from the neck up, we sing with our diaphragm

and our support in our abdominal cavities here,

and when you're wearing a corset, you basically have something to...

..push against.

Although, Di - my wonderful dresser - knows that there's two

little hooks in the back of my costume which I always ask her

to release around my upper ribcage, just to allow me to breathe.

Two layers, so it's quite difficult

when she's warming up at the same time

to get her into it.

It's in these fittings that my character becomes complete.

There is a vulnerability to this costume that really appeals

to my senses of who I think Rosina is.

I really wanted to capture this somehow,

so the moment when I put this costume on, I thought,

"Now I have a thread from the inside of my soul

"to the outside of the skin of the character.

"I have the vulnerability that I'm looking for."

You're hoping that she's felt what it's like and she is somebody

who does... She's very sensual in that sense,

so I think the memory of something, she inhabits.

Shoes, oh, my God!

So...

I love shoes.

Shoes, for me, are something I'm willing to suffer for.

I'm now going to put on the shoe for you that...

..we chose in the end.

Which is actually a dance shoe.

Let me see if I can balance my way into that, Di.

They have that...

They've got that sass.

They've got that little bit of spitfire character in her that shows

that Rosina is somebody who,

like, who could break out into dance at any moment.

She could be ready with a quick retort.

This is what I love about Rosina, so we settled on these shoes.

To fully realise all the nuances of our characters' movements

and appearance onstage, the lighting has to be perfect.

So the lighting designer will have come in with an idea

of how they want the production to look.

Because we run our festival

with performances practically every night of different operas,

we will try to light over the rehearsal

that the singers are having onstage.

We'll then try to schedule some sessions which are just dedicated

to lighting so that the lighting designer is happy with the levels.

When all of these elements work in harmony onstage,

musically and dramatically, the result in Rossini are spectacular.

Especially at the end of act one where the Count,

in drunken soldier disguise,

comes to blows with Bartolo and the police arrive.

KNOCKING

It will all lead to a wonderful scene of ensemble singing.

And suddenly, the chorus, the principles, all the soloists,

they start to sing something crazy.

Rossini was a master at composing ensembles,

weaving together multiple voices to marvellous musical effect.

To sing them is incredibly rewarding

and totally terrifying.

Often, were all singing different lines but at the same time.

# Si, signor, si, signor Si, signor, si, signor! #

This is a typical Rossinian solution.

This...

Also, I would say, very Italian.

This way to show that we are crazy, that we don't understand,

that we are confused, we are lost.

Rossini's music builds and builds through multiple crescendos,

each one reaching new levels of impossibly fast chaos and confusion.

I think you have to embrace the fact that it is mad

and it builds and builds and gets madder and madder.

But it is an enormous challenge.

It's like a tapestry or a Persian carpet or a kaleidoscope.

By the end, all of our characters are reduced to insanity,

as the libretto says.

It is a musical masterpiece though, and really great fun to perform.

Argh!

And, of course, Rossini loved to leave cliffhangers

at the end of act one.

After all, you don't want people going home during the interval.

My first-night performance of Rosina was pretty nerve-racking.

And after the madness of the act one finale,

it's strange being in my dressing room alone.

Especially as Glyndebourne traditionally

has a long 90-minute interval for the audience to dine and picnic in.

The challenge for me is to keep focused

on my character and performance.

OK, so, it's the middle of the opening of Il Barbiere Di Siviglia

and, how am I feeling? Erm...

I'm feeling really good. I...

I'm still really, really nervous, actually, but...

I also was so excited to get here.

And fear is a very big part of singing, I think,

but...so is faith and that's what I'm focusing on today.

Now I'm going to shut up so that I can get ready for the second act.

Our first show made me wonder about Rossini's own premiere.

It happened in Rome, so while I was there,

I visited the venue to get a flavour of that historic first night.

So, behind me is the Teatro Argentina

where The Barber Of Seville had its first public performance

on the 20th February 1816.

I'm so excited. I've never been to Rossini's theatre before.

Let's go and have a look inside.

OK, here we are.

SHE GASPS

Wow! This is incredible.

To think that Rossini was just right there, playing, conducting,

I'm, er...

It's hard to bring yourself back in history

until you have a moment like this when you can just walk here,

be here, breathe the air, spend time on the floorboards.

I'm trying to imagine what it would feel like on a premiere

to walk in Rosina for the first time and sing those first few notes.

I sort of can't resist. I think I'm going to try a little something.

SHE SINGS IN ITALIAN

Quite a good acoustic! I love it!

SHE SINGS IN ITALIAN

Bellissimo! It's really so fabulous to sing in.

So, surely the premiere was a magnificent triumph, right?

Rossini expert Daniele Carnini told me all about it.

How did it go?

Well, the premiere was not a success.

It was a disaster, frankly.

There was someone who was against Rossini...

Groups of people who are more or less,

are they paid to applaud for one person or boo somebody else?

Yes, probably.

They were paid, but we are not sure about that

and, as Rossini told to his mother,

there was an enormous whispering

throughout the premiere so the music was barely understood.

That must have been quite distracting

for both the singers and for Rossini.

Yes, in this case, it was really impossible, as Rossini said,

to understand...la note, no?

-Yes, the notes.

-Yeah, exactly.

There had been a previous opera adaptation

of The Barber Of Seville by Giovanni Paisiello.

It's said that his supporters were not happy about Rossini's version.

So, did anyone clap?

No. No, no applause. No applause.

-That sounds awful!

-Except in Rossini himself.

At the end of the first act, he applauded his singers to say,

-"OK, it has been..."

-To give them courage.

-"This has been a difficult first act, but..."

-We need it!

And the public boo! One of the most...

The greatest disaster of Rossini's career.

But Rossini maybe didn't attend the second performance.

He called himself off,

"I'm ill so I'm staying home."

Rossini was worrying too much.

The rest of his run was a storming success.

Rossini wrote to his mother that the audience

"cheered this work of mine with an enthusiasm

"for which I came out five, six times

"to receive applause of a totally new kind

"and that made me cry with pleasure."

I loved that letter Rossini wrote to his mum.

These immortal composers are made of flesh and blood,

just like the rest of us.

The maestro's emotional rollercoaster

during the premiere makes me feel closer to him.

And so we move on to act two of Rossini's musical masterpiece.

APPLAUSE

Poor Bartolo isn't rid of Rosina's suitor just yet.

KNOCKING AT DOOR

You have to give credit to Count Almaviva -

he's pretty determined.

He dons yet another disguise and, in religious robes,

charms his way inside by pretending to be a music teacher.

The singing lesson scene that follows

is perhaps the most famous and funniest scene in the opera.

It's also one of the hardest to get right.

Operatic comedy is very difficult to do

and it's much easier doing tragedy, in my opinion.

The thing about comedy is it's about timing.

You have to be so at one with the music

that you can play the comedy on top.

LAUGHTER

You need to be really free just to flick your eyes at your partner

and keep it alive.

'We were still perfecting this scene, even after opening night.

'Today, we've arranged a session with our Bartolo,

'Italian baritone Alessandro Corbelli,

'and American tenor Taylor Stayton, who plays Almaviva.'

Taylor's objective is he wants to touch Danni and she wants it, too,

but she doesn't want Bartolo to see.

OK, so that's the scene.

'The comedy here depends entirely on the dramatic tension

'so we have to resist playing this scene solely for laughs.'

Part of the trap of this particular scene is that it can descend

into kind of a comedic thing, whereas we need to keep the tension.

You're right, Danni.

It mustn't descend into a cheap comedic thing,

but the high, high stakes of the comedy

are that they are pushing their luck

as far as they can push it.

HE SNORES

What I was thinking about, actually,

Fawlty Towers and you know that you're going to spend

half an hour laughing your head off,

but if you actually look at all the actors, they're not laughing at all.

They're sweating, they're freaking out,

they're trying to remain calm,

they're trying to get through a situation.

HE SINGS IN ITALIAN

Yeah, we finally are here, he's asleep and I think, well,

in the end, the kiss happens because we forget all about him being there.

-That's true.

-Wasn't I here?

'Balancing the tension and the timing is key to judging

'when the lovers should finally touch.'

When you're really on a stage, this works better

cos this, funnily enough, kills everything.

-It has some sort of finality about it.

-Yeah.

-Yeah.

"Here we are, we did it."

It has to be real between you. The emotions have to be real.

I do believe that kiss.

Rosina's act two costume reflects this change in her character.

Act two, for me, is when Rosina comes into her own.

She lets all of this sort of voluptuous, sensual energy out

and we know she's going to try to break free,

but the colours of this breaking free

are quite deep and quite rich

and they have purples and burgundies to them

and they have a bit of sort of blood in them.

There's a bit of sort of sweat and blood and tears

that come out in this as well.

Even the petticoat is black.

Alas, there are more obstacles for these lovers to overcome.

Bartolo lies to Rosina so she thinks Lindoro has betrayed her.

Recently, Maestro Mazzola was told about another aria for Rosina

that Rossini wrote for this part of the opera.

Rossini composed it for a soprano voice

three years after the premiere.

I immediately thought, "Danni."

Glyndebourne, we have a soprano.

It's like Rossini writing something new for Danni.

SHE SINGS AN ARIA

'I worked hard to perfect this piece with my voice teacher.'

-What's that?

-Better.

I got the B.

HE SINGS AN ARIA

Like, if you were on that B,

you should be able to be in the same space as the G.

'Composers often added arias for favourite performers

'or ones who demanded a bigger role.

'Rossini added his for this lady, Josephine Fodor-Mainvielle,

'but it's rarely performed.

You know, often when you add an extra aria to an opera,

even one that's written by the composer, that's usually...

You kind of think, "Oh, is this going to slow down the dramaturgy?

"Are people going to be checking their watches or whatever?"

HE SINGS A HIGH NOTE

'Following the great Rossinian tradition,

'Maestro Mazzola and I wrote some vocal variations

'for the aria rather late one evening.'

SHE SINGS AN ARIA

Do you know, it was all dark, there was only this light, the piano,

the blank paper, a pencil and two crazy people...

-HE MIMICS THE SINGING OF ARIAS

-..doing like this.

It was funny at the moment and when I think of this moment,

I found it magical, because...

Because this is Rossini.

200 years ago...

..the Rosina of the time and Rossini were doing exactly the same thing.

Rosina reveals her vulnerability.

She longs for Lindoro to be innocent.

And that's something that adds tremendous dimension

to her character, but also tremendous ballast to the drama...

..and prepares for the denouement, the happy denouement.

After Rosina rejects him,

Lindoro finally reveals that he's been Count Almaviva all along.

The lovers are reconciled.

LAUGHTER

So, in this opera, I don't have to tragically die

of a wasting disease or hurl myself off a tall tower.

Everything turns out OK in the end.

Rosina is happily married and true love wins the day.

After all, it's The Barber Of Seville. It's a comedy!

I'm always happy when we finish The Barber

and Rossini gives this message - "Enjoy. Enjoy the opera.

"Laugh with the person you're sitting with

"and go home with a lighter heart and a big smile,"

and this is very important.

I would say today, 2016, we need this.

APPLAUSE We did it! Did you see it?

'As a performer, it's really touching to receive an ovation.

'It means the audience have been moved by what we've done.

'After months of hard work, this is the icing on the cake for everyone.'

Performing is exhausting, of course,

but I'm also completely exhilarated at the end of a performance.

I'm delighted to have brought this character to life.

Viva Rosina and viva Rossini!