Figaro, Mattia Olivieri; Susanna, Siobhan Stagg; Count Almaviva, Stéphane Degout; Countess Almaviva, Hrachuhí Bassénz; Cherubino, Anna Stéphany; Bartolo, Maurizio Muraro; Marcellina, Dorothea Röschmann; Don Basilio, Krystian Adam; Antonio, Jeremy White; Don Curzio, Peter Bronder; Barbarina, Sarah Dufresne. Conductor, Joana Mallwitz; Director, David Mcvicar; Designer, Tanya Mccallin; Lighting Designer; Paule Constable
The last time I saw The Marriage of Figaro on stage was mid-March 2020 (Opera North in Manchester); the audience had shrunk as people began to self-isolate; one of the volunteer stewards had a racking cough. There was an almost palpable sense of gloom over the whole production which Mozart’s music did not really dispel. Lockdown was very close………. By contrast, three and a quarter years on Covent Garden was completely packed for this performance with a very responsive audience.
I do wonder why ROHCG doesn’t feel obligated to prioritise some of the best young UK singers a little more in their casting decisions. Yes, there is the Jetta Parker scheme, but that is international also; yes, ROHCG is an international house, but I am sure there are just as capable UK singers as those we heard from playing Marcellina, Bartolo, and others Given the cuts to WNO, the likely slow demise of ENO, the slow disappearance of Scottish Opera, giving young singers experience seems to be an increasingly urgent issue.
The Marriage of Figaro is a wonderful work and it was hugely enjoyable to see it live again. Moments like the reconciliation of Figaro and Susanna in the final act unfailingly move me to tears. On this occasion, I don’t think any of the female singers erased memories of some of the great singers I have heard in the roles of Countess, Susanna and Cherubino (Kiri Te Kanawa, Ileana Cotrubas, Margaret Price for instance), but no one was less than good. Male singers in the parts of Count and Figaro I have fewer clear memories of from past performances (including Geraint Evans) and the ones in this performance were pretty impressive.
The production was straightforward – indeed a director meddles with this work at their peril … For some reason David McVicar and the design team had put everyone in Regency clothing. This makes no sense from multiple perspectives – the work was written before the French Revolution, Mozart was not contemporary with the Regency period etc. Yes, I know there was the 1830 Revolution, but why mess around? However, I suppose it did no harm. The Count at the beginning of Act 3 was fiddling with a scientific device that might have meant he was a proto-industrialist or a philosophe. Either way it gave no clarity to his personality – except maybe that he is happier dealing with things than handling people….. However,….. The basic grand house set had that massiveness one recognises from McVicar’s Met productions, but there was only one of it, it moved around in clever ways, with a moving box for Figaro and Susannah’ s proposed bedroom and was generally a good idea. Cleverly the big house set also doubled, with atmospheric lighting, as the garden in Act 4, with tables and chairs strewn around doubling as bushes and trees for people to hide behind. Someone came on at the curtain calls who (this was the first of the run) might have been McVicar himself or at any rate a staffer who had a similar beard…. whoever was involved, the handling of people was effective; above all the characters were credible, and that in opera is an achievement in itself. Interestingly the audience (impressively diverse in the Amphitheatre and including I would guess many people hearing the piece for the first time) laughed far more at the conversation on the surtitles than what was happening on stage – there were certainly no crude gags, but the characters’ various dilemmas came across very strongly and convincingly.
I had my doubts about Joana Mallwitz’s conducting, along similar lines to those expressed about some other – but not all – Mozart opera conductors in this blog. Tempi were often too fast, there were times when orchestral voices became occluded, and I was left wondering why, listening to this work from the cavernous Coliseum Balcony in the 70s, I often heard more orchestral detail then under Mackerras than I did at this performance sitting in the front row of the ROH Amphitheatre. There was some beautiful woodwind playing from the orchestra. What Mallwitz got right was the transitions between the ‘numbers’ in Acts 2 and 4 – in Act 2 Cherubino’s dressing up onwards was deftly done and without any awkward changing of gears. for instance.
Nearly all the singers decorated the reprise of their aria melodies and showed a good sense of ensemble. The Figaro, Mattia Olivieri, was, well, noisy – he flung himself around, had a stentorian voice and a temper on him – and he is of course a native Italian speaker, which counts in this work. He did the right things. I can’t say I warmed to him particularly but his was a good performance, sung strongly, and he conveyed more clearly than some the personal antagonism between Figaro and the Count – there was one point where he shouted ‘no’ to the Count which I have never noticed before. I thought the Count, Stéphane Degout, was probably the best performer of the evening on stage, along with Susanna – he had a good presence on stage, conveyed very well the frustrations with the menials outwitting him, and sang well. Susanna (Siobhan Stagg, Australian) had a very sprightly stage presence and did all that was necessary in ensemble and solos, without any really memorable phrasing, but (this is a BIG part) with intelligence and stamina. Both the Countess and Cherubino seemed to position emotion and passion over finesse in their singing. With Cherubino that’s a workable proposition and Anna Stéphany sang vigorously and passionately in a way that convinced me, while not removing from memory all the great renditions of Cherubino’s two big arias I have heard over the years. About Hrachuhí Bassénz as the Countess I was less sure. In the way she dressed and held herself she seemed more like one of the girls than I think Mozart and Da Ponte intended (? though what do I know) and to me she emoted in her arias too much – delivering power and energy rather than coolness/sadness and beauty of tone. Surely without being narrowly nationalistic there are better UK singers to sing these two roles, operating at the right international level? Sarah Dufresne sounded a very good emerging talent as Barbarina, surely to be singing Susanna somewhere soon……
As I looked down into the orchestra pit I sometimes asked myself- what if this had been Mozart bouncing about in front of the orchestra instead of Joana Mallwitz. What would he have made of his work being played more than 250 years after the first performance. I am sure he would have encouraged his players to be vigorous as they were at this performance while at the same time as being energetic also making sure all the notes he wrote got properly heard. He would have been delighted beyond measure with the sets, he would have loved the audience laughter but he would have considered the singers a bit quizzically- they would have sounded too heavy, not nimble enough, perhaps.
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