The Barber of Seville
CHAN 3025
Gramophone
‘What gives unalloyed pleasure – in addition to the ensemble work of the whole company – is the scrupulous, easy sounding virtuosity of the principals, Della Jones and Bruce Ford especially, as they deal with scales, grupetti, high notes and so forth.

In such graceful accomplishments this recording can compete with any.’
An opera in two acts
Critical edition by Alberto Zedda
Libretto by Cesare Sterbini
after the play Le Barbier de Séville by Beaumarchais
English translation by Amanda & Anthony Holden
The Cast
Bruce Ford, tenor - Count Almaviva
Andrew Shore, baritone - Bartolo
Della Jones, mezzo-soprano - Rosina
Alan Opie, baritone - Figaro
Peter Rose, bass - Don Basilio
Peter Snipp, baritone - Fiorello
Jennifer Rhys-Davies, soprano - Berta
Christopher Ross, bass - An Officer

English National Opera Chorus
English National Opera Orchestra
Gabriele Bellini - conductor


Recorded in Goldsmith's College, London 9-14 August 1994
Producer - Brian Couzens, Sound engineer - Ralph Couzens, Assistant engineer - Richard Smoker
Opera
'... here is an assertion that opera in English translation is alive still. But it is more than that...I maintain that the enterprise has never been more brilliantly done. The Peter Moores Foundation is midwife to this new Barber. The result is as admirable for musical values and sharp characterisation as for clarity and verbal relish. Della Jones blends coloratura skills with a comic artfulness far better than that of the conventional minx. No mere token American importation is Bruce Ford: his secure, shining Almaviva interacts with the robust but unexaggerated comedy of Opie’s Figaro and Andrew Shore’s Bartoli.'