Verdi considered «The Barber» to be «the most beautiful of all existing comic operas,» and Beethoven urged the author at their meeting: «The main thing is to write more ‘Barbers’!» It was this opera by the «swan of Pesaro”—as Gioachino Rossini was called even during his lifetime—that became the most popular and in… Of Russia.
It’s impossible to argue with Rossini — that’s what Evgeny Pisarev, a recognized theatrical comedic writer and the author of the current production at the Bolshoi, believes. In his opinion, this story is so light and fantastical that he simply «didn’t dare to take it seriously.»
Thanks to him, the Bolshoi is staging *The Barber of Seville* in a humorous vein, using the «theater within a theater» technique. The action unfolds in two spaces. The first is the «stage,» a stylized theater from the time of Beaumarchais, a «choreographic» space and, in the literal sense, sublime. Below is the «backstage,» designed as a modern theater. While the performers are in the down‑to‑earth, «everyday» space, they behave like ordinary people. Someone is sitting in a tracksuit, someone is getting their makeup done, someone is being examined by a doctor… But when they step onto the «stage,» they put on different, theatrical costumes, change their body language and the way they interact with each other. And everything that then happens on the «stage» — whether dramatic or comedic — is already «real theater» (within the theater), outright buffoonery, commedia dell’arte, including, of course, on the actual stage of the Bolshoi.
