Marcus Berry
THE BARBER OF SEVILLE
For my assignment I recently watched classical opera for the first time in my life, and I loved it. The opera I watched was called “Barbiere Di Siviglia” which translates to English as, “the Barber of Seville” and I picked this show to watch because of the famous Bugs Bunny cartoon that borrows its music and setting from this play. At first, I was hesitant about watching any classical opera to be honest, it was spoken and sung in Italian and happened to be two and a half hours long. When I watched it, however, it proved to be rather entertaining and not completely dissimilar to the comedic style and story elements of a classic Bugs Bunny cartoon. But being very story driven, I had a bit of trouble trying to implement interesting ideas that would complement the natural progression and events of the opera.
First, I’ll discuss what I liked about the opera’s story and the ideas that I thought were important to include in the making of a game. As I said before, I chose this opera because I am a fan of Bugs Bunny cartoons, and I found it very interesting how similar the comedic tones of these two mediums were. For instance, the opening of the play introduces us to our heroes right at the beginning. And, not unlike a Bugs Bunny cartoon, they are singing songs and dancing about so that the audience recognizes they are fun and likeable, all while the lyrics of the song are telling us about the character’s plights. Our first hero is a lord, desperately in love with a peasant girl he has never met in person. The lord sneaks out into the town at night and hires a dozen musicians and locals to shine candlelight with mirrors on his face in order to make his song to her more endearing. The next song is that of Figaro, the Barber of the small town called Seville. Because it is such a small town, most everyone knows Figaro as he cuts everyone’s hair. Figaro establishes himself as a clever man, with not much money, but many friends. Our villain is mostly a caricature, as he seems to have little depth and only cares about the one thing that keeps our main characters from being happy. He is a wealthy doctor who has a live-in woman that he intends to marry even though she has no love for him. The woman, of course, feels trapped by her situation and is unable to freely pursue the mystery man that sang to her. The story is much like a fairy tale in style, and the plot points are based on conversations and the reading of letters and the like. The comedy is well sprinkled throughout the play; the doctor has a comically pompous portrait of himself hanging above his fireplace, Figaro sneaks into his house disarming his servants casually by using a chloroform rag and a pepper shaker to cause a sneezing fit, the male servant of the doctor is a constant victim of slapstick humor and by the end of the play is covered in bandages, several obvious-to-the-audience disguises were used to trick the villains into letting the lovers spend time together, the doctor’s internal dialog is said aloud and directly to the audience, and my favorite part was when Figaro switches places with the leading lady during a dance sequence and the doctor accidentally kisses all the way up his arm. The humor and the music carry the audience through the plot, and I feel they are what needs to be represented in the telling of this story.
That being said, it’s difficult to try and convert this classical opera into a modern day video game, because it has virtually no violence, combat, or high octane action sequences. My first thought was to make it a game about being a barber, cutting hair, washing it, and using favors and cunning dialog to gain favors and information from customers. But to be honest, Figaro hardly does any hair cutting during the play. So I came to the conclusion that the best adaptation of this story would be in the style of old point-and-click adventure games made for PC by the game company Sierra, who made the King’s Quest series, the Space Quest series, and many others. Games like this had the main character rely on their wits and collect items to use in clever ways to get out of difficult situations. The world of the game would exist as a number of static screens viewed mainly from one side, much like the stage of a play, that you explore and learn about the more you play. In the story, the characters often have to find ways to get around the villains without them noticing, to deliver letters to each other and by making connections and getting people to go along with their plans and disguises. For instance, the lord would have to find the captain of the guard and win his favor with a bribe to get a uniform to sneak into the house. Or, Figaro would go through his friends in the village to collect a chloroform and pepper to keep from getting caught by the doctor’s servants. These item collecting and exploration segments would be broken up by minigames, such as cutting someone’s hair in the right way as a favor to receive a specific item, or segments when the protagonist must sneak through the doctor’s house while actively hiding from the villains’ direct line of sight by hiding behind curtains and pillars. I can imagine that if the doctor catches you in his house, he holds up his keys and rattles them about to call for his servant. The game itself would of course use music from the opera whenever possible and wherever they appeared originally in the play. The main character would be Figaro, the Barber of Seville, but you would also switch between playing as the lord and the lady often, each having their own specific inventory making it all the more necessary to have the characters meet each other and trade items.
In conclusion, I enjoyed my first opera greatly and I can honestly imagine a game like this existing. To be honest, I feel that the character of Figaro reminds me a lot of Bugs Bunny and the casual way he disposes of comical villains. The music and comedy were entertaining and I look forward to seeing more this genre has to offer.
