Rossini’s The Barber of Seville, Wilton’s Music Hall, Graces Alley, London E1. 3✩✩✩ Review: Clare Colvin.

Rossini’s The Barber of Seville, Wilton’s Music Hall, Graces Alley, London E1.

3✩✩✩ Review: Clare Colvin.

“Barber of Seville goes Way out West.”

Half the fun of a show at Wilton’s Music Hall is the building itself, the world’s oldest surviving Victorian music hall, hidden away in seclusion from the despoiled East End of London. It’s worth getting there early for a pizza and a drink beforehand to get into the mood of being out of everyday time.

​Charles Court Opera, now in situ until Saturday 23 March, has stepped out of time and country in this cheerful wild west version of Rossini’s The Barber of Seville, re-written by musical director David Eaton, who is the sole pianist for the evening. Eaton felt the farcical world of Rossini’s opera was right at home in a Wild West Saloon. To my mind, it slightly misses the point, in that The Barber of Seville is essentially about confinement, written by a young man of 24 who would have been very aware of the restrictions on young women then, but the pace keeps cracking along fast enough not to raise too many questions in the process.

​Joseph Doody as Count Almaviva and Samantha Price as Rosina make a sympathetic pair of young lovers, and Jonathan Eyers is a fast-moving resourceful Figaro. Matthew Kellett’s baffled bear of a Dr Bartolo is nicely baited and Hugo Herman-Wilson’s Basilio similarly gets run out of town and takes to his bed. Star turn of the evening is Ellie Laugharne as Bartolo’s down-trodden housekeeper Berta, in her bemoaning the fate of the older woman. Charles Court Opera’s Artistic Director John Savournin directs.

Director John Savournin; Musical Director David Eaton; Designers Good Teeth; Lighting Designer Ben Pickersgill; Production pictures Bill Knight