Nov 27 2009
Desperate Love
Desperate love – that’s what all the characters of the play Barber Of Seville experience in one way or the other. It may be the notion of romantic love as in the case of Count Almaviva and Rosina, the love and desire of fame and success for Figaro and the love for money and wealth for both Bartolo and don Basilio. Throughout the play it seems as if these characters are puppets in the hands of their own respective desires and passion. It’s these desperate longings that govern the actions and thoughts of the characters and form the crux of the play.
Barber of Seville can be considered a rare masterpiece of it’s time as it presented the anxiousness of the characters to reach their goals through comic means, making the play attention-grabbing, compelling and entertaining in a carefree way. Instead of applying a grim and serious tone to present this desperation, the use of humor made me truly appreciate the challenging task of having achieved this feat. As a result of this at the end of the play I walked home not with a heavy heart with the optimistic and immensely satisfying feeling of happy ever after.
I love your outlook on the whole opera, you seem to be one of the few who really enjoyed it. I agree it is, at its core, a story about love, and that is what (I think) has made it so timeless.
Love is love eh? It was depicted great in the opera, even though it was in Italian. A person could keep up with what was going on despite the transitioning; the only reason I didn’t take a nap was most probably because of the loud stomping of the actors’ feet on the stage.
The humor definitely lightened the mood up. It was something I was proud to accept.
I was tired of the constant seriousness that you see in other performances, it was time to see a funny one.
I saw the entire performance as a caricature of a dramatic play, almost like a parody.
I agree with you Harshita because the humor was unexpected and really added flavor to the performances. Regardless of each characters’ motives and ultimate goals, their light humor took away any unnecessary drama. It led to an overall success, in my opinion.