‘The most beautiful comic opera’

Can the innocent young girl be saved from her lecherous guardian by her young lover, a nobleman in disguise?

Most certainly, especially in opera. But it won’t be easy. First, you have to have a barber.

That is the plot prospectus for Gioacchino Rossini’s “Il Barbiere di Siviglia (The Barber of Seville).” Beethoven admired it and warned Rossini to write only comic operas (advice Rossini didn’t take). Verdi called it “the most beautiful comic opera in existence.”

Coeur d’Alene’s Opera Plus will give four performances of “The Barber of Seville,” sung in Italian with English supertitles, on Saturday and Sunday at North Idaho College.

The role of Figaro the barber will be sung by baritone Andrew Garland. The innocent but wily Rosina will be sung by soprano Christina Major, her love Count Almaviva by lyric tenor Joseph Muir, and the unscrupulous guardian Dr. Bartolo by bass Todd Robinson.

David Demand, artistic director of the Coeur d’Alene Symphony, will conduct. The stage director is Brenda Nuckton, head of opera for Portland State University’s music department.

Fred Glienna will discuss the opera one hour before curtain time at each performance.

This is the third year that Opera Plus has staged its own fall production after previously hosting appearances by traveling companies. “Barber” follows Puccini’s “Gianni Schicchi” in 2003 and Donizetti’s “L’Elisir d’amore (The Elixir of Love)” last year.

Garland, who holds an artist’s diploma and master’s degree from the University of Cincinnati’s College-Conservatory of Music, has been a participant in both the San Francisco Opera’s Merola Program and the Seattle Opera’s Young Artists Program, and appeared in the mainstage production of “Florencia en el Amazonas” in Seattle. He also has sung with Dayton Opera and Cincinnati Opera.

Major made her operatic debut in 1998 as a resident artist with Opera San Jose and was a member of Santa Fe Opera’s Apprentice Program, singing in the world premiere of “Madame Mao.” She has sung Mimi in the Knoxville Opera and Fort Worth Opera productions of “La Boheme,” and the Countess Almaviva in Amarillo Opera’s “Marriage of Figaro” – which shows what became of the characters in “Barber of Seville” in later years.

Muir, like Garland a former member of Seattle Opera’s Young Artists Program and like Major a former resident artist with Opera San Jose, will be heard again this season in Coeur d’Alene when he sings in the Coeur d’Alene Symphony’s performance of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony next May.

Robinson, another veteran of San Francisco’s Merola Program, sang in the Western Opera Theater’s touring production of “La Boheme” in 2002. He is a graduate of the State University of New York at Binghamton and understudied the role of Dr. Bartolo in last summer’s production of “Barber” in Santa Fe.

The cast also includes Portland bass Konstantin Kvach as Bartolo’s co-conspirator, Basilio, and local singers Julie Powell as Rosina’s maid, Berta; Max Mendez as Fiorello; Robert Brannan as an army officer; and Bert Newman as the notary.