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Le nozze di Figaro
“The role of Count Almaviva was surely made for Gerald Finley.” www.musicalcriticism.com
“The finest element of the evening, however, is Gerald Finley's dashingly self-absorbed Count, sung with a technical focus, sensitive musicality and crisp enunciation...” The Telegraph
"...the superb Gerald finley on blistering form" The Independent
“Hai gia vinta la causa was as finely sung as I’ve ever heard…” Seen & Heard
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Composer |
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart |
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Libretto |
Lorenzo da Ponte after Beaumarchais |
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Venue and Dates |
Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, London: 31 January; 2, 4(m), 7, 10, 13, 15, 17, 20, 22, 25 February 2006 |
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Conductor |
Antonio Pappano |
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Director |
David Mcvicar |
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Performers |
Il Conte di Almaviva: Gerald Finley La Contessa Almaviva: Dorothea Röschmann Figaro: Erwin Schrott Susanna: Miah Persson Cherubino: Rinat Shaham Marcellina: Graciela Araya Don Bartolo: Jonathan Veira Don Basilio: Philip Langridge Don Curzio: Francis Egerton Barbarina: Ana James Antonio: Jeremy White First Bridesmaid: Glenys Groves Second Bridesmaid: Kate McCarney
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Production |
Design: Tanya McCallin Lighting: Paule Constable |
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Notes |
A DVD of this production is due to be released on 1 March 2008. Click the photo for details:
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Rehearsal photos
(ROH programme)
What the critics say
Dominic McHugh for MusicOMH.com
http://www.musicomh.com/opera/figaro-3_0106.htm
Five out of five stars
Opera doesn't get much better than The Marriage of Figaro. The score is probably Mozart's finest for the stage, full of comedy, romance, envy, joy and bitterness, not to mention all those memorable tunes. But it takes a really fine musical performance, and a sensitive production, to make it come off.
And to salute the composer in his 250th anniversary year, the Royal Opera has come up with a gem of a new production, with David McVicar showing once more his intelligence and insight into Mozart after his memorable The Magic Flute for the company a few years back. Indeed, I think it's his best for the House, matching his magnificent La clemenza di Tito for ENO last year, and it's easily the best new production the ROH has put on in the last twelve months.
From the word go, it was a gripping experience. Tanya McCallin's designs are extremely handsome, and of particular delight was the evocative lighting by Paule Constable, especially in the moonlit final scene.
McVicar updates the opera to 1830, setting it in a Regency period chateau. There is a restrained romance about the production which even the most hard-hearted of critics could surely not fail to be moved by. The overture is accompanied by onstage business, which at once foreshadows the production's rigorous depiction of the stratified society of the court of Count Almaviva. A sumptuous long gallery is lined with windows, light casting down on the floor. Figaro and Susanna's bedroom then moves smoothly onto the stage, and is again full of detail: the bed drops down from the wall, shelves lie empty, waiting for the newlyweds to move in together. The Countess' bedroom is similarly evocative, whilst the final set revolves from the interior to the exterior of a veranda; trees and falling leaves make the backdrop for the reversal of characters between Susanna and the Countess in the final scene when the Count is duped into submission.
The finesse of the sets is such that this is guaranteed to become a classic production. Equally legendary is the conducting of Antonio Pappano, which was his finest at the House to date, in my opinion. The orchestra was immaculately prepared, finely phrased and accompanying with sensitivity, and the conductor himself also played the recitatives on the harpsichord (a real homage to Mozart's performance practice).
The cast was also excellent, if slightly undistinguished in some cases. The role of Count Almaviva was surely made for Gerald Finley. His rendition of the Act 3 aria brought the house down, strongly projected and delivered with an aristocratic authority. His long-suffering wife was sung by Dorothea Röschmann. Everything she sang was deeply felt, but for me the easy legato that is so essential in this music was lacking in her upper register; these factors made Dove sono moving but slightly unconvincing.
Erwin Schrott was a superb Figaro, a real lyric baritone with a feel for the humour and the heart of this character. ROH debutant Miah Persson stunned as Susanna, producing spine-tingling half-tones in Deh vieni, non tardar. She carried off her character's stage-managing the events of the whole opera, and had a beautiful, if small voice, and a nice ringing tone.
Rinat Shaham took a while to warm up as Cherubino, but was cheeky and charming; Graciela Araya a witty Marcellina; and Philip Langridge was luxury casting as Don Basilio. Barbarina was the lovely Young Artist, Ana James a strong impression at the start of Act 4.
The great news is that the BBC are televising the production during Easter, and the first revival is at the ROH in June. I, for one, can't wait to see it again.
Anthony Holden for The Observer, February 5, 2006
http://arts.guardian.co.uk/reviews/observer/story/0,,1702471,00.html
How to arrange a happy marriage
Napoleon supposedly said of Beaumarchais's play Le mariage de Figaro: 'C'était la révolution déjà en action.' First performed in Paris in 1784, it was adapted by Mozart and Da Ponte in Vienna the following year - in secret, because of an imperial ban - and premiered there in 1786, three years before the storming of the Bastille. So why, in his new staging, the Royal Opera's 250th birthday present to Mozart, does David McVicar fast-forward the action from a pre-revolutionary Spanish castle to an 1830-ish chateau?
To begin to understand that you must delve into McVicar's programme notes. Steeped in the ardour and learning of this passionate man of the theatre, they explain everything but his maverick choice of time and place. 'Watch, listen, participate,' McVicar commands us, preferring to such secrets 'embedded within the act of performance'.
Those who don't read the programme, which should never be necessary, may not even notice. Count Almaviva's staff might misbehave with a cockiness more in tune with the second revolution of 1830, but beyond this and the period costumes (and an elaborate contraption with which the Count toys at the beginning of Act III), there is little to suggest that this is not pre-revolutionary Europe, littered with uppity servants constantly listening at their masters' doors. A hag with mop and bucket even opens and closes the action, rejoicing in her boss's humiliation by his valet.
Like Shakespeare, Mozart has broad enough shoulders to sustain the subtlest of time-shifts. The compliment is rewarded by a stylish if otherwise rather traditional staging, with few more surprises hidden amid Tanya McCallin's monumental sets.
Always a deft master of stage detail, McVicar is blessed with a multi-talented cast who can mostly act as well as they can sing, primarily Uruguayan baritone Erwin Schrott's feisty Figaro, a bundle of mischievous energy who takes as many liberties with the score as with his master's plans for this 'crazy' day. In her Royal Opera debut, Swedish soprano Miah Persson complements him beautifully, a Susanna as comely and sassy as pure of voice and sweet of tone, stilling an awed house with her sublime 'Deh, vieni'.
Gerald Finley's nobly sung Count is less physically imposing than usual, lending stronger emphasis to the dark, scheming side of his shameless nature, angry and self-righteous enough to administer a shocking slap across the face to his long-suffering wife, superbly sung by the stately, if sometimes statuesque Dorothea Roschmann.
Also new to Covent Garden, Israeli mezzo Rinat Shaham makes a charmingly gamine Cherubino, perkily popping up in all the wrong places at the wrong times. The supporting cast could scarcely be stronger; Philip Langridge, Jonathan Veira and Graciela Araya all make the most of their chances as Basilio, Bartolo and Marcellina.
The inclusion of Marcellina's and Basilio's arias makes for an overly long last act, although McVicar's skilful use of costumes and veils brings welcome clarity to those complex events in the darkened garden. If the Countess's final 'perdono' is as ravishing as ever, one is left far from convinced that she will now live happily ever after.
Himself playing continuo, conductor Antonio Pappano permits his singers to ornament their arias and gabble the recitatives, lending greater theatrical urgency to an often startlingly new musical take on this most familiar of works. It will be interesting to hear if such liberties are permitted by the veteran Mozartian Sir Colin Davis, who will bring back this production in June with a largely different cast.
Tim Ashley for the Guardian, February 2, 2006
http://arts.guardian.co.uk/critic/review/0,,1700064,00.html
Four out of five stars
David McVicar's new production transposes Mozart's comedy from its usual 18th century setting to a French chateau on the eve of the July 1830 revolution that saw the restored Bourbon monarchy replaced by the liberal bourgeois era of Louis Philippe. The events of that summer were famously commemorated by Delacroix in Liberty Leading the People. The production charts the transformation of Figaro, gloriously incarnated by Erwin Schrott, from naive, liveried flunky to a politically engaged figure who belongs on Delacroix's barricades.
Yet the reasons for the transposition tend to the obscure and its efficacy is at times questionable. In a programme note, McVicar argues that the opera has less to do with the 1789 revolution than we assume and that its values are those of the "emerging bourgeois class" to which Mozart belonged. Accordingly much is made of the contrast between bourgeois marriage, grounded in the free assent of both parties, and the emotional catastrophes attendant on aristocratic codes of sexual behaviour, with their emphasis on proprietorial masculinity and female submission. Dorothea Röschmann's Countess, in anguishing over her husband's infidelity, is also rebelling against such values, and at the end sweeps, like a grand society hostess, into the debris-strewn garden to initiate a new order by confronting and forgiving Gerald Finley's aggressive, insidiously attractive Count.
While the political dynamics aren't always clear, the emotional and sexual issues are more cogently explored. Bartolo (Jonathan Veira) and Marcellina (Graciela Araya) are Sadean monsters getting off on the idea of destroying Figaro. Röschmann is by turns bewildered and delighted when she realises she has the hots for Rinat Shaham's Cherubino. The relationship between Schrott and Miah Persson's Susanna is rooted in deep sexual contentment, which makes their brief suspicions of each other all the more painful.
Musically the evening is remarkable. Röschmann is exceptional in giving voice to the Countess's despair. Finley is the most dangerous of Counts, Persson a sensual, feisty Susanna. Schrott, meanwhile, handsome of presence and gorgeous of tone, is a star in the making. Antonio Pappano's conducting is full of wit and emotional depth. A flawed but compelling evening.
Rupert Christiansen for The Telegraph, 2 February 2006
A handsome dog, and some old tricks
David McVicar is a very good opera director, and his new production of Le nozze di Figaro - the Royal Opera's first contribution to Mozart's 250th birthday celebrations - will doubtless give audiences pleasure for years to come.
Beaumarchais's scenario is updated half a century to the 1830s, allowing the designer, Tanya McCallin, to give Almaviva's palace a fresh visual elegance - the walls are bare, the costuming is early Victorian. Servants scuttle around and listen at doors; nobody is ever quite alone, and private marital dramas are unwittingly played out in public.
The characters emerge warmly and sympathetically - McVicar may not be the easiest of people to work with, but he certainly knows how to get the best out of singers. The staging is smoothly managed. At times, there's a bit too much bustle, but there are no cheap gags or interpolations unwarranted by the score or the libretto. It is all so very tasteful.
And yet, and yet, I wanted more. McVicar's activity is non-stop - he must direct four or five productions a year - and, although I have never known him to fall below a level of competence, I sometimes feel he is resorting to a book of old tricks rather than starting from scratch: the floor-sweeping which accompanies the overture, for instance, was last seen in his Giulio Cesare at Glyndebourne this summer, and the eavesdropping business was a big feature of his ENO Manon.
Here, I felt that his translation of Figaro to the 1830s was more a quick coat of decorative gloss than an exploration of motivation and implication.
In the 1780s, the droit de seigneur that the Count pretends to renounce was a seriously inflammatory issue, which would have pushed Figaro and Susanna towards republicanism and maybe Robespierre. In McVicar's version, the Count's household seems to run without discipline or deference, and the Count seems nothing more than a dandy-turned-rake, like Sir Mulberry Hawk in Nicholas Nickleby. Good theatre, perhaps, but not truly illuminating interpretation.
Still, it's a lovely performance all the same. Antonio Pappano conducts (and accompanies the recitatives) with brisk vivacity and clarity, if not much imagination. The cast is strong: Erwin Schrott is a handsome dog of a Figaro, less of an oaf than usual and firmly sung. His Susanna is the pitch-perfect Miah Persson, radiating determination and competence until a dreamily beautiful "Deh vieni non tardar" shows another side of her personality.
As the Countess, that fine musician Dorothea Röschmann starts awkwardly with a nervous "Porgi amor", but hits vocal form in the evening's second half with a richly eloquent "Dove sono". Rinat Shaham is an ebullient Cherubino, and Jonathan Veira (Bartolo), Graciela Araya (Marcellina) and Philip Langridge (Basilio) make a splendidly Dickensian trio of conspirators.
The finest element of the evening, however, is Gerald Finley's dashingly self-absorbed Count, sung with a technical focus, sensitive musicality and crisp enunciation that disarms criticism. What a great operatic artist he has become.
The Stage
http://www.thestage.co.uk/reviews/review.php/11469/le-nozze-di-figaro
Directors should resist mission statements. David McVicar asserts he’s “scraping off a patina… of meaningless, crap tradition” in his new Figaro production. Instead, he skilfully lays on cliches. During the Overture McVicar brings alive the Almavivas’ chateau. Denizens from below stairs troop around, mug and grope, distracting from the music. Predictably thereafter, he deploys eavesdropping housemaids and footmen to raise easy laughs. They undermine the Susanna/Marcellina exchange of insults, blunt the intensity of the Almavivas’ edgy recriminations after his unexpected return, ruin Act III’s finale by cavorting amateurishly.
Mozart, McVicar declares, “understands the quality of love and its great, great cost”. That the Almavivas’ mutual love survives despite everything is never established. The Count’s jealousy remains unmotivated, the “great cost” and “necessity of reconciliation” do not convince. Only Miah Persson’s sublime Susanna exemplifies love’s redemptive powers - ‘Deh Vieni’ is exquisitely sung.
McVicar offers merely cardboard stereotypes - an aggressively boorish Count, a Countess without gravitas, a swaggering, self-regarding Figaro enthusiastically projected by the charismatic Erwin Schrott. The Cherubino is a cipher and Philip Langridge’s simperingly grotesque Basilio an embarrassment.
Worse is Antonio Pappano’s conducting, its breakneck speeds retarded by an indulgent phrasing of occasional setpieces. Dorothea Roschmann’s Countess gamely accommodates the soupy accompaniments to hers.
Rushed tempos force Schrott and Gerald Finley’s Count into coarse blustering, handicap performers in singing expressively off words - notably in Figaro’s ‘Aprite un po’quegli occhi’ - and frequently render recitative ‘Sprechstimme’. Act II’s concluding ensemble barely held together.
However, the first-night audience’s enthusiasm signals a palpable hit for the ROH
Judith Monk for Musical Opinion and The Opera Critic
http://theoperacritic.com/tocreviews2.php?review=mo/2006/rohfigaro0106.htm
A must see Figaro
Mozart would have loved this operatic tribute in his special anniversary year! This sexy, raunchy, romp of an opera, the Royal Opera's new Figaro, which I saw on the opening night, 31 January, is a triumph. Director David McVicar has searched for the essence of the composer and found it; fun filled, sensitive, romantic and serious by turns, all reflected in this production.
Tanya McCallin's early 19th-Century French style sets and costumes are fresh and realistic; beautifully lit by Paule Constable; they create easily assimilated arenas for each scene.
Well cast singers ensured that this opera is one you could proudly proffer to newcomers as a fine, accessible example of the art form. Good looking Uruguayan bass Erwin Schrott was a 'hands on' Figaro with an expressive, rich hued voice. He was well matched by his Swedish Susannah, soprano Miah Persson, whose lyrical range brought both sweetness and mischief to the role. All the cast were fine actors and effectively emphasised the Italianate characters and language.
Countess Almaviva, sung by German soprano Dorothea Röschmann, fully expressed her terror, dignity, sadness and autocracy while the louche, two timing Count, powerfully portrayed by Canadian baritone Gerald Finley, arduously tried to seduce Susannah.
Comic touches abound in both the production and the surtitles to the extent that there were gales of laughter from the packed house throughout the evening. British tenor Philip Langridge's Don Basilio as an effete dandy added to the humour level as did Israeli mezzo Rinat Shaham's naughty page Cherubino, ardently chasing anything in a skirt. Both of them brought great character and fine voices to their roles.
The orchestra, conducted by Antonio Pappano, who also played the Harpsichord continuo, was always focused and assured, capturing and holding the moments of tension to perfection and sustaining the romance of Mozart's lovely music as required.
This is a 'Must See' opera! You'll regret it if you don't!
Barbara Diana for Giornale della Musica
http://www.giornaledellamusica.it/rol/scheda.php?id=1888&l=1
On the occasion of Mozart's anniversary, the Royal Opera House has staged a new production of Nozze di Figaro, a work not seen at Covent Garden since 1995 - a long time for one of the most popular operas in its repertoire. It is reasonable to expect though that the present production will not be remembered as a landmark. For reasons unknown to others, the producer David McVicar moves the action from late 18th century Spain to early 1830s France, a decision he does not discuss in his programme note. It must suffice for the audience to know that the stage is his platform for self-expression, and that his reasons are theatrical. As has become customary in his productions, the staging is characterized by visual elegance and great attention to detail, and he is supported in this by the designs of Tanya McCallin. At the same time, a somewhat eclectic dramaturgical approach seems to lack overall vision, and the dramatic tension tends to dissolve in what appears to be a series of momentary solutions. Maybe for this reason, the cast seems to lack unity, although there are some considerable individual performances: Erwin Schrott is an imposing Figaro, both from a vocal and a dramatic point of view, although occasionally his performance lacks discipline, and Gerald Finley is excellent as the Count. Dorothea Roschmann's Countess shines in the intimacy of her two arias, and Miah Persson creates a magical moment of stillness with her performance of Deh vieni. The orchestra of the Royal Opera, conducted by Antonio Pappano, produces now and then a strangely angular sound, with some debatable choices of tempi (particularly noticeable in the recitatives, which are at times simply frantic), in contrast to the overall reading of the score.
Erica Jeal for Opera, April 2006
Royal Opera at Covent Garden, February 7
This was Covent Garden's first new Figaro for 19 years-and don't be surprised if it doesn't get another one for at least as long. From the sky-high walls of Tanya McCallin's elegantly grubbied country-chateau sets to the army of extras milling around as the Almavivas' employees, David McVicar's new staging has longevity written all over it; it seems to come from a next-door stable to such enduring Covent Garden favourites as the late John Schlesinger's Der Rosenkavalier. While it won't completely persuade those who feel that McVicar is working too hard and too fast-and getting tired and emotional at too many awards ceremonies-to achieve the level of insight he reached in, say, his Rape of Lucretia at Aldeburgh nearly five years ago, it is an often thoughtful, often revealing piece of work.
McVicar has moved the action on half a century to the days before the July 1830 revolution, tying it in with the emergence of the bourgeoisie- which makes, in truth, not a great deal of difference, except that the distinction between master and servant is perhaps more artificial than ever. He stages the overture-tearing along crisply under Antonio Pappano-which can't help but feel superfluous, but at least the comings and goings he choreographs tell us something about the hierarchy among the servants themselves. Erwin Schrott's brusque yet likeable, well-sung Figaro who has, after all, chosen to come and work for the Count-obviously considers himself high up in this; when in the first scene he urges 'Susanna, pian pian', he hurries to close the door so that their colleagues can't overhear their humiliation.
Little, indeed, is private in this production. Susanna's and Marcellina's argument over who goes through the door first is a very public spat. Susanna's 'Deh vieni'which crowned an impressive and vivacious debut here from Miah Persson-is sung next to the silent Countess, which makes dramatic sense in one way but at the same time seems to rob the Susanna-Figaro relationship of what is, curiously, its most intimate moment. Conversely, having Figaro sing 'Non piu andrai' only to Cherubino and Susanna makes less sense, but does at least facilitate a nifty scene change as the Countess's room appears behind the valet's.
It's in his portrayal of the Countess that McVicar is most unsparing. Dorothea Roschmann didn't look or sound her best at this third performance in the run, clad in McCallin's doubtless well-researched but unflattering, drab costumes and delivering her arias with the tone of a desperate woman, all passion rather than poise. Coming so soon after Joyce DiDonato's spirited Rosina in Il barbiere, it made the character's decline all the more poignant, and perhaps too much so; the Countess might be less of a victim than McVicar thinks she is. (Having said that, it was clear from the faces of the female servants in the first act that the Count had had his way with just about all of them, so perhaps in this case she was.) Gerald Finley had the Count's hypocrisy down perfectly; he sang the role beautifully if perhaps without the last ounce of complacent, aristocratic richness, and his final 'perdono' was irresistible.
Pappano's musical interpretation matched McVicar all along. The recitatives crackled by, almost as if spoken, from Schrott's impetuous Figaro in particular, and the string playing was characterized by an almost raw edge. It was almost too much for Rinat Shaham's Cherubino-her voice is a touch small for this theatre-yet she was unsettlingly boyish enough to be unusually convincing. Jonathan Veira's goggleeyed Bartolo stayed just the right side of caricature, as, ultimately, did Philip Langridge's Don Basilio, though with his pomaded quiff and diamante earring he seemed to have minced in from another production. Graciela Araya's con strained- sounding Marcellina was a weak link, but Ana James made a bright Barbarina. Yes, in a few revivals’ time, rehearsed by a less stringent director and under a flabbier conductor, it’s possible to envisage McVicar’s Figaro blending into the Covent Garden furniture. But it has the potential to serve Mozart and da Ponte well for a good decade or so first.
George Hall, Opera News, May 2006 , vol 70 , no.11
Royal Opera’s new Le Nozze di Figaro (January 31) was conducted by music director Antonio Pappano and staged by David McVicar. McVicar and his designer, Tanya McCallin, brought the period forward to 1830 — a year of revolution in Europe — though by then the ancien régime had been swept away, and many of its feudal structures had vanished. But aristocrats still maintained large country houses with armies of servants in attendance, and this class of underlings was virtually omnipresent during the show, watching the goings-on above stairs with considerable interest, as they presumably would.
The overture was presented as a typical morning in the castle (a building beautifully realized, incidentally, in McCallin’s grandly elegant sets, which were sensitively lit by Paule Constable), beginning with a cleaner mopping the floor, then gradually opening out into a full-scale bustle of activity as small divisions of maids, pages and others in the hierarchy of household support set about their duties. These apparently included a hefty quotient of by-play and even horseplay, as the shortly-to-be-married Figaro (Uruguayan bass Erwin Schrott) had his trousers amiably removed by some of his colleagues.
Once into the first scene, between Figaro and Susanna (Miah Persson in her house debut), in the lumber room apportioned them by the Count, McVicar showed keen attention to text in the sharp detail of the dialogue, as well as in the no-less-focused overview of each situation or relationship. When the Countess (formerly Rosina) saw Dr. Bartolo, her late guardian, turn up in the Act II finale, the shock of recognition on Dorothea Röschmann’s face for an old adversary she had not cast eyes on for years was palpable. With its constant reverses and counter-reverses, this is never an easy plot to articulate, but McVicar succeeded brilliantly in demonstrating exactly what was happening at any given moment, even in the complex comings-and-goings of the final garden scene, whose swiftly altering situations need to be clear to the audience, even if the characters rarely grasp precisely what they have become involved in. The production represented McVicar at his best. As a show, it was simply dazzling.
Pappano is not a conductor associated with the period-instrument movement, but there is more than one way to play Mozart, and his is as musical as any. The tempos were well selected and convincing, working for each of the singers. Pappano also played his own recitatives on the harpsichord, adding a sly reference to the patriotic song “Rule, Britannia” when Figaro mentioned the Count taking the post of ambassador to London.
The cast was strong, led by Schrott’s highly-charged Figaro. His tendency to use a little too much Sprechstimme in the recitatives was regrettable, but he’s a bona fide star. Persson partnered him nicely, delivering a sweet-toned, vocally shapely account of the music, ably acted.
Gerald Finley’s Count was a study in constant frustration, sexual and social, as his clever little schemes fell apart one by one. His vocalism was robust. Röschmann’s Countess was not the most gracefully-sung ever encountered at this venue, but she offered a skillful dramatic study in neglect and low self-esteem, quite properly transformed at the close. The Israeli mezzo Rinat Shaham, another Covent Garden debutante, sang a personable Cherubino, though she was hard to mistake for a young man and somewhat deficient in vocal character.
Jonathan Veira, as Bartolo, punched his way impressively through his aria and was always dramatically centered, while both Philip Langridge’s Basilio and Graciela Araya’s Marcellina gave good value and were accorded their last-act arias — often cut and not, frankly, without reason — in return. Jeremy White’s Antonio, meanwhile, was a scene-stealer, and one quite regretted the absence of an aria opportunity for the head gardener.
Edward Seckerson, The Independent, 2 February 2006
http://arts.independent.co.uk/music/reviews/article342716.ece
Rating four out of five stars
Hear those hormones rage
An immense room, a tiny maid, mop and bucket at the ready - another day, another three acres of floor to scrub. It's going to be an eventful 24 hours in the Almaviva household, and, to the strains of the busiest overture in the repertoire, the preparations begin here and now. A fleet of servants ferries household supplies back and forth. There's enough food to feed the whole of Seville and already, one can sense, enough intrigue to keep it in gossip for years to come.
David McVicar's brilliantly observed staging doesn't waste a second in setting the scene. Before the overture has run its breathless course, we know exactly what kind of household we've dropped in on. Tanya McCallin's huge sets look lived-in - a little grubby, a little the worse for wear, despite the obsessive scrubbing. These walls have tales to tell and the juiciest of them is about to unfold.
The text and spirit of Mozart and Da Ponte's best opera has rarely been more thoroughly and painstakingly explored. Not a word, not a motivation has been taken for granted. No rattling aimlessly through recitatives impatient for the next big number. Both the Countess's arias, for instance, can and do often feel marooned in glorious isolation - marvellous set-pieces far removed from the ebb and flow of the action. But here they emerged like painful truths from the surrounding fabric.
Dorothea Roschmann's extraordinarily intense account of "Dove sono" was genuinely a moment of self-revelation. The deployment of aching embellishments in the da capo was for once neither cosmetic, nor musicological, but entirely dramatic. Earlier in the same scene we witnessed the Count (the superb Gerald Finley on blistering form) - "unfaithful on principle", as the Countess so perceptively puts it - angrily taking stock of his situation in plain view of all the characters on which his slowly unravelling plot is so dependent. The point being that he has little or no control over the events unfolding around him. The super-naturalism of every action and interaction here speaks volumes for detailed preparation. It's good to see such finely tuned ensemble work in a major international house. For once, it's more than evident where all the rehearsal time has gone.
If I had any criticism of the staging, it would be that the scale of it sometimes threatens to overwhelm the intimacy of this most "domestic" of dramas. McVicar and his designer are so at pains to convey the cultural divide that the grandiosity, the exaggerated gauntness of the sets becomes almost cosmic. But the cast are in the main so strong as not to be undermined. At the centre of things Erwin Schrott's charismatic Figaro is as cocky, confident and showy with his big notes as you could wish. But he must beware of carrying his vividly laddish way with the recitatives too far into the sung text. I wanted to hear a little less speech-song and a little more pure singing.
Miah Persson's deliciously pretty Susanna certainly provided that. Her final-act romance, ravishingly sung, truly revealed the tender-hearted young woman beneath the feisty exterior. And, boy, is she feisty. She slams the door on Figaro seconds into the first scene of the opera and you know that it's only a matter of time before she duffs up Marcellina. That's why Figaro loves her so much. She fights for what she wants. As for the randy Cherubino, Rinat Shaham (such a memorable Carmen at Glyndebourne a couple of seasons back) has him panting at the bit from her breathless "Non so piu" onwards. Again, a wonderfully complete performance. You can almost hear the hormones raging.
And speaking of raging hormones, Antonio Pappano is unstinting with Mozart's. With the pit raised for optimum immediacy, his big-boned and romantic account of the score may not always ring true in terms of style, but it does remind us in this big-birthday year that of all the gifts Mozart gave us, this one may be most precious.
Anna Picard, The independent, 5 February 2006
http://arts.independent.co.uk/music/reviews/article343643.ece
Mozart, but with no marzipan in sight
David McVicar's production of Le nozze di Figaro transposes Mozart's opera to 1830s France. The revolution anticipated by Beaumarchais has happened, and the slow unravelling of an order that will be lost within a century has started. Still run by an army of servants, Count Almaviva's household shows signs of decay. The plaster is cracked, the windows dirty, and a speculative design of an industrial machine - perhaps one the Count will invest in on his arrival as ambassador to London - can be seen in the study.
Aside from the elegiac late-summer beauty of Paule Constable's lighting and Tanya McCallin's set, the most striking aspect of this Figaro is its seriousness. But for a brief reference to Charlie Chaplin in "Se vuol ballare" and the dreamlike Jarmanesque scene change for the Act III finale, this is not a playful production. McVicar's protagonists are Romantics who feel acutely the nuances of rejection. The Count (Gerald Finley) and Countess (Dorothea Röschmann) are a married couple who, as George Eliot put it, "make sad mistakes about their symptoms". In a vastly different way to that envisaged by Mozart or Da Ponte, this is revolutionary.
Space forbids a catalogue of the sidelong glances, the bitten ribbons, and the subtle movements of the non-singing actors. (I half-wondered whether the oldest maid was Barbarina remembering her youth.) McVicar is good at details. What makes the production outstanding, however, is the way in which he and Antonio Pappano have identified the points at which the opera changes focus - the scene change above, and that between Acts I and II - and shaped the drama around them. With Finley's suave, complex Count, and Röschmann's impassioned Countess as the tragic heart of the opera - their Act III arias are devastatingly good - the ease between Figaro (Erwin Schrott) and Susanna (Miah Persson) shows what they have lost, while that between Marcellina (Graciela Araya) and Bartolo (Jonathan Veira) shows what can be recaptured.
Already hailed as the Brando of opera, Schrott's closest cinematic likeness is in fact the young Mel Gibson. It's not just the Ultrabrite teeth. It's the ants-in-his-pants twitchiness of an actor desperate to deliver - or ad lib - his next line. This itching-powder urgency is engaging in the recitatives but unwieldy in Figaro's arias. When not muttering, his is a hefty lug of a voice - the Lenny to Finley's George - and he has difficulty controlling it. Schrott aside, the only thistles in this rose garden are the chorus, who have little to do but did it badly, and Araya's Marcellina: a terrific comic characterisation undermined by choleric coloratura. Rinat Shaham's delicate Cherubino and Ana James's ditsy Barbarina are scampering Goya urchins, Persson's sharp-witted Susanna sweet and spicy. Philip Langridge's louchely dandyfied Basilio amuses, while Veira again does the best eye-rolling in the business. The ensembles, and too many of the arias to list, are impeccably phrased.
If Pappano's harpsichord continuo is too secco for comfort - I enjoyed the "Rule Britannia" quotation - the orchestral playing is wonderful: nippy, witty, languid in the right places, and totally engaged with the rhythm of the production. The trumpeters and horn players played sans valves, and their sunlit sound and pristine articulation of the flourishes in "Non piu andrai" were peerless. This is a thoroughly thought-out Figaro: strong, clear, sincere, and worth its weight in cut-price anniversary compilations and chocolate-coated marzipan balls.
FT WEEKEND MAGAZINE - CRITICS' CHOICE: Music
Andrew Clark, Financial Times, 28 January 2006
The Royal Opera's contribution to the Mozart 250th anniversary is a new staging conducted by Antonio Pappano, directed by David McVicar and designed by Tanya McCallin. Can McVicar forget he is in a big repertory theatre and focus on essentials? Let's hope so, and he has a youngish cast to help him - stiffened by the wonderful Gerald Finley as Count Almaviva and the experienced Philip Langridge as Basilio.
FT WEEKEND MAGAZINE - CRITICS' CHOICE: Music
Andrew Clark, Financial Times, 11 February 2006
The Royal Opera's contribution to the Mozart 250th anniversary is intelligently acted and stylishly conducted by Antonio Pappano, under whose guidance the singers engage in their own subtle decorations. David McVicar's staging, designed by Tanya McCallin and Paule Constable, sets the Beaumarchais "crazy day" in a chateau of Restoration France, about 30 years after the revolution it is supposed to foretell. Little is gained from this update: despite some stunning scene changes the production never deepens. Erwin Schrott is the finest Figaro since Terfel, meeting his match in the implacable Count of Gerald Finley. There's a brilliant cameo from Philip Langridge as Basilio and Miah Persson is the personable Susanna.
Melanie Eskenazi, Seen and Heard, 2 February 2006
http://www.musicweb-international.com/SandH/2006/Jan-Jun06/figaro0202.htm
Covent Garden’s anniversary production could just as well have been called Le Nozze d’il Conte, at least in musical terms, since it was only in Gerald Finley’s stylish account of that role, and arguably in the performance of his henchman Basilio by Philip Langridge, that we heard truly world class singing. This is a particularly autocratic Count, not above some rough treatment both of his equals and his inferiors, and it is not just the mixture of hauteur in the characterization and beauty of line in the singing that make him a paradoxically sympathetic figure. Finley is always a tower of strength in ensemble, and here Esci, ormai, garzon malnato launched the Act II finale superbly: Hai gia vinta la causa was as finely sung as I’ve ever heard it, despite having to compete with an onstage retinue – but more of that later.
Langridge is an equally fine Mozartian and it was a pleasure to hear him in this relatively minor part – he too is telling in ensemble, his utterances of Cosi fan tutte le Belle delightfully pointing up the situation in the discovery scene. His portrayal seemed to have wandered in from the entourage of fops in the same director’s Zauberflöte; appropriate in this context of course, although I was perturbed to read that one critic found his depiction a nastily camp echo of his Aschenbach, to me not at all a ‘camp’ assumption.
Basilio was supported by an outstanding Bartolo in Jonathan Veira and a Marcellina (Graciela Araya) who for once gave the impression that she could rival Susanna as the object of a young man’s affections. Ana James was making her Royal Opera debut as Barbarina, and it was a notable one from this fine young singer whose Queen of the Night impressed me at the RCM.
It’s all downhill from there, at least in terms of the level one might have expected in this house at this time. Erwin Schrott’s Figaro is Bryn Terfel, only fourteen: this is a wonderful natural voice, a real ‘base barreltone’, but it is mostly used for shouting, mugging and muttering. Tutto è tranquillo e placido gave hints of what his singing could become, with discipline. His Susanna was the very pretty Miah Persson, who sang nicely but without any special distinction. Rinat Shaham was a positively irritating Cherubino, with a whole wardrobe full of physical tics, and I found her voice too light for the part.
I was very surprised that Dorothea Röschmann was singing the Countess: I thought her voice too light, and on this showing I was not mistaken. She was not helped by the director’s neurotic concept of her role, which robbed her of all her pathos and dignity: rushing on breathlessly to sing Porgi Amor is hardly appropriate for an aria conceived as a prayer to Eros, offered up in the quiet of her lonely sanctuary. Dove sono was sung with anxiety rather than longing, and the lovely creamy legato lines which should characterize this aria were absent – di dolcezza, e di piacer should be sung in one fluent arc of sound, not with a snatched breath in the middle, although such phrasing might well have been dictated by the production.
With what do you associate Spain? Sun perhaps, light, mañana – but certainly colour above all, and there was precious little of that onstage. It was as if Spain had had all its colour leeched out, leaving only a wash of inoffensive sludge. Yes, I did take the point that the scene had been ‘updated’ to a French Château in the eighteen-thirties, but since this failed to illuminate anything very much, one could only ask, what for? I had been wondering where I’d last seen the line of windows which dominate Act I, and it dawned on me that they were just like the ones which graced Faninal’s palace in Miller’s ENO Rosenkavalier, although where Faninal’s were sparkling, the glass at Aguas Frescas was clearly in need of a few spurts of Windolene – really, what were those sixteen servants up to when they’d finished swishing their brooms about? Figaro and Susanna’s room looked rather like Rigoletto’s home in McVicar’s ROH production, and one might have wondered why Figaro needed to measure the space for the bed since it was already attached to the wall.
The lighting (Paule Constable) was beautiful in its subtlety, and there were one or two nice touches such as the intricate ‘generator’ with which the Count was toying at the start of Act III , but overall the production was safe rather than enlightening, missing out on many of the music’s most delectable moments. For example, Susanna and Marcellina’s ‘No, you first’ scene should be a combination of the sweet interweaving of their voices and the bitchy gesturing at the door, but here it went for nothing: when the Duke comes back ready to break down the door in Act II, he remarks that all is exactly as he left it – but of course it isn’t, and that’s the joke, but here it fell flat.
I found Act IV quite insulting, to be frank. There was no garden to speak of, just knocked over bits of furniture and a fragile screen of leaves and a few suggestions of trees – where were those shaky pavilions, those pinprick stars, that dark blue sky, those looming cypresses? These are not idle questions since in Mozart’s time a garden was a place where nature was tamed and ordered according to the rules of harmony, against the backdrop of which reason triumphs over passion: I’m afraid a couple of thrown about chairs and a few slender poles just aren’t good enough.
Antonio Pappano directed the orchestra from the harpsichord, although his contributions to the recitatives were workmanlike rather than witty: the orchestra played well for him but in keeping with everything else this was a muted rather than effervescent account. I’m sure this production will be seen by my grandchildren, and that critics then will greet it with comments like ‘It looks as good as ever’ since it is bland, middle of the road and ultimately unexciting.
Sabby Sagall, Socialist Worker
http://www.socialistworker.co.uk/art.php?id=8241
David McVicar’s Figaro: a marriage made in heaven
Figaro bubbles with wit and imagination
The Marriage of Figaro, first performed in 1786, is arguably Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s most overtly political opera. It is based on a drama by radical French playwright Pierre Beaumarchais.
The struggle against aristocratic privilege it depicts clearly foreshadows the great French revolution of 1789.
The opera is filled with a sense of indignation against class rule and it expresses the 18th century Enlightenment’s optimism – the possibility of progress and a new, more just society. It also contains some of Mozart’s most glorious arias (solos), which express the full range of human emotion.
David McVicar’s new production is part of the anniversary celebrations marking 250 years since Mozart’s birth. It bubbles with wit and imagination. But it is not clear why he sets the opera in a French chateau in the run-up to the revolution of 1830.
The singing is in general superb, with fine performances from Erwin Schrott as Figaro, Miah Persson as Susanna, Gerald Finley as the count and Dorothea Roschmann as the countess. The orchestra does justice to Mozart’s brilliant score.
Curtain call photo used with kind permission of:
http://www.geraldine-curtis.me.uk/photoblog/