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Opera

Cruel and absurd: WNO’s Barber of Seville reviewed

Where’s the charm and tenderness in Rossini’s comedy? And why on earth does David Pountney think it’s got anything to do with Downton Abbey?

20 February 2016

9:00 AM

20 February 2016

9:00 AM

The Barber of Seville

Wales Millennium Centre, Cardiff, until 25 February

‘Forget Downton Abbey!’ exhorts David Pountney in the programme for Figaro Forever, Welsh National Opera’s season of Beaumarchais operas, The Barber of Seville, The Marriage of Figaro and Elena Langer’s Figaro Gets a Divorce. ‘A televisual age in which the vast narrative panorama of a “series” strung out across many episodes seems to capture people’s imaginations is perhaps exactly the right moment to follow the fortunes of the Count and Rosina, their servant Figaro and his fiancée, Susanna,’ he continues.

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