Lyric Opera has married pitch-perfect casting to go-for-broke direction in its season opener, The Barber of Seville. Thanks to that, and Gioachino Rossini’s brilliant score, this 200-year-old satire, peopled with what could be stock characters in a conventional plot of forbidden but victorious young love, bounces uproariously to life.
Sets by Scott Pask employ just enough wrought iron and arches to set the action in old Seville, and on opening night Andrew Davis, whose retirement after next season has just been announced, led a nuanced and jubilant performance by this terrific cast and the Lyric orchestra and chorus of a score that prances from breakneck patter pieces and delicate recitative to Rossini’s famous chest-pounding crescendos.
Through 10/27: performance times and ticket prices vary, see lyricopera.org
