Written in three weeks by a 24-year-old Rossini with a bottom drawer overture hastily thrown in for good measure, The Barber of Seville deserves to show at least some signs of being a rush job or the odd failure of inspiration. Not a bit of it. Two hundred years on (its birthday is February 20), it remains the perfect example of opera buffa and stands as eloquent testament to the composer’s skill with musical comedy. There’s never a dull moment.

First seen in 1995, Elijah Moshinsky’s production is a homage to the silent movie – all kohl around the eyes with a bit of commedia thrown in and filtered through the lens of a Fellini. It too deserves to be showing its age, or at least fraying around the edges. Not a bit of that either! Twenty-one years on (its birthday is next June 14), it remains as sharp as Figaro’s razor and is a reminder – if you needed one – that for all his heavyweight intellectual directorial rigour, Moshinsky is also a master of the light touch and even the downright side-splitting. There’s never a dull moment.

“… Moshinsky is also a master of the light touch and even the downright side-splitting”

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