Announcing the NEMPAC Opera Project 9th Season 2020 Production: Il Barbiere di Siviglia

The North End Music & Performing Arts Center (NEMPAC) is thrilled to announce the NEMPAC Opera Project 2020 MainStage Production. This year, our Artistic Director, Alexandra Dietrich, has selected Gioachino Rossini’s vibrant comedic masterpiece “Il Barbiere di Siviglia”, or “The Barber of Seville” as Americans have known and called it since its 1819 American Premiere in New York. This opera buffa is based on Pierre Beaumarchais’s French comedic play, “Le Barbier de Seville”, but the melodies will be instantly recognized as having appeared in hundreds of movies and television shows such as the famous Looney Tunes cartoon, “The Rabbit of Seville” and the famous lines of “Figaro! Figaro!” in “Mrs. Doubtfire” as sung by Robin Williams.

“This opera is a celebration of wit, charm, love, and laughter with Italian music that has left audiences clapping and roaring time and time again. 200 years after its American Premiere, I chose to bring it to the North End this season,” Dietrich explains, “where we still value those same joys in life and where we boast an embarrassment of riches in our multitude of beloved barbers, many of whom have carried on that noble, ancient trade for generations in their own families and brought them over from Italy to our Salem and Hanover Streets. As Seville, the setting of our opera, was historically the economic center of the Spanish Empire, and one of the most important trade cities on the Iberian Peninsula, I am excited that throughout our opera, NEMPAC Opera performers will be singing in both Spanish and Italian to heighten the comedic foibles and honor the impact of Spanish language and culture in an Italian-Spanish libretto World Premiere.”

This season will mark the second time that NEMPAC Opera Project has produced an opera by Rossini, after 2016’s “La Cenerentola”. This opera will also feature young performers from the NEMPAC community throughout the opera as the mischievous towns children who aid Figaro, Rosina, and Count Almaviva in their hilarity of repeatedly tricking Don Bartolo with costumes and disguises. This production will be staged at Boston’s historic Faneuil Hall on June 18th and 20th, 2020 and will be conducted by Tiffany Chang who excitedly states that “Il barbiere will bring audiences on a wild ride of mesmerizing coloraturas, delightful melodies, and extravagant ensembles—all recounting a ridiculous plot that only Rossini’s music could pull off. This iconic pillar in the repertory is not to be missed!”

Entering its ninth performance season, “Il Barbiere di Siviglia” will be fully stage opera sung in Italian and Spanish and continue the NEMPAC Opera Project’s initiative to stage children with professionals as in past productions. Thank you to Boston Barber & Tattoo Co. for allowing us to feature their beautiful shop located at 113 Salem Street in our season announcement. NEMPAC looks forward to featuring all of our neighborhood’s Barbershops as we approach our performance dates which provide the North End with their highly-skilled trade and services that have been integral to the North End’s industry for decades. NEMPAC Executive Director, Sherri Snow, agrees, “This year, ‘The Barber of Seville’ will resonate in the hearts of our local Italian-American community here in the North End, where the organization was founded and has since begun to flourish. Proudly continuing with our 9th consecutive year of the Opera Project, we will keep providing hundreds of local artists with the resources and professional opportunities to propel their musical careers forward in the City of Boston.”

Auditions for adult principal roles: February 21st-23rd, 2019

Auditions for child acting roles (ages 8-14): February 23rd, 2019

This production will be staged at Boston’s historic Faneuil Hall on June 18th and 20nd, 2020.