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Sovereign Quality: Aidan Lang's The Marriage of Figaro

01/06/2010

PUBLICATION: Music and Vision daily Classical Music online magazine
http://www.mvdaily.com
REVIEWED BY: Howard Smith
WHERE: St James Theatre, Wellington

Mozart's Marriage of Figaro, the first presentation of NBR New Zealand Opera's 2010 season, offered comedic staging, modernistic vertical sets and wonderfully expressive singing; all in all a gorgeous, irrepressible production.

Regular opera-goers may justifiably have believed the company would be hard put to overshadow such recent productions as Janácek's powerful, grisly Jenůfa and Rossini's zany, sunlit Italian Girl in Algiers. But not so.

The combination of neo-period costumes (designed by Elizabeth Whiting) and a set (designed by Robin Rawstorne) that brought to mind Le Corbusier combined to lend the Mozart/da Ponte opera buffa a degree of verisimilitude which is rarely achieved. Whiting's costumes effectively spanned the (eighteenth to twenty first) centuries; especially via the arresting denim-clad Chapman Tripp Chorus. Furthermore Rawstorne's large high circular window openings and larger, higher open ellipses, together with ceiling-less 'adjacent-adaptable rooms', facilitated director Aidan Lang's ingenious staging, serving to heighten the comic action.

For fortunate opera-goers who attended, some insight into the painstaking dedication involved can be found in the Director's Diary (dated 28 April 2010) on NBR New Zealand Opera's website (click on Go-Backstage).

Second in Pierre de Beaumarchais' Figaro trilogy of plays, Mozart's work follows the action of The Barber of Seville. Beaumarchais completed work on both plays in 1773 (Barber of Seville) and 1778 (Marriage of Figaro).

Here the plot is very largely concerned with comic stratagems concocted to forestall lecherous aristocrat Count Almaviva, intent on ius primae noctis with Susanna, Figaro's betrothed.

These subterfuges were worked out and staged so ingeniously that Lang's production glimmered with an effervescence seldom encountered, even in the world's musical capitals.

Moreover, consistent top-drawer musical values were sustained within all four acts.

From the outset (Act 1), the situation with Count Almaviva is revealed in the duet between Figaro 'Se a caso madama la notte ti chiama', and Susanna 'Così se il mattino il caro Contino'. And here (husband and wife) bass Wade Kernot and lyric coloratura Emma Pearson displayed a spirited theatrical empathy maintained throughout the evening.

No strangers to Mozart opera, Kernot has appeared in the early Mozart singspiel Bastien und Bastienne (1768) and his final opera Die Zauberflöte (1791), and Pearson has featured in Così fan tutte (1790) and as Queen of the Night in Die Zauberflöte.

Pearson was no less persuasive in her scenes with other women (Marcellina, Barbarina, and the Countess) while duping Almaviva; indeed she commanded audience attention with a display of ardour, quick-witted gaiety, natural ease in conveying Beaumarchais' risible ploys, and singing of sovereign quality.

Marcellina was in shrewish, sharp-tongued voice as portrayed by multi-talented Helen Medlyn, last seen in contrasting guise as austere grandmother, Starenka Buryjovka (Jenůfa, NBR NZ Opera, 2008). Multi-lingual Gennadi Dubinski, born and trained in Russia, excels in diverse roles and genres and here he appeared as Marcellina's opposite number, Dr Bartolo.

Others in the cast were tenor Richard Greager (Don Basilio), bass Richard Green (Antonio), tenor Derek Hill (Don Curzio) and soprano Alexandra Ioan (Barbarina). How meltingly Ioan lamented over the lost pin in her Cavatina 'L'ho perduta, me meschina'.

As Beaumarchais' Countess, captivating Sicilian-born soprano Nuccia Focile assumed the aura of a gracious, wily noblewoman; even more, she delivered Mozart's standout arias ('Porgi, amor, qualche ristoro' and 'Dove sono i bei momenti') with breathtaking warmth and beguiling vocal artistry.

In 1786 the year Marriage of Figaro was premièred in Vienna, French finance minister Charles Alexandre de Calonne, informed Louis XVI (1754-1793) that the royal finances were insolvent. Three years later, in 1789 the (Paris) Bastille fell.

By then 'Count Almavivas' of Europe must have seen 'the writing on the wall' and within this re-imagined 'time frame' lanky Italian baritone Riccardo Navaro strutted his stuff - wholly convincing as the 'delusional' aristocrat; at first imperious and then befuddled.

Cherubino, by his nature, is a difficult character to re-create with conviction. Lang was fortunate in casting mezzo Wendy Dawn Thompson; extensive UK appearances have equipped her for Mozart's taxing 'counterfeit gender' role; they include appearances at the Aldeburgh Festival, English National Opera, Edinburgh Festival, Wigmore Hall, Birmingham Opera, English Touring Opera and the BBC Proms; she has also worked for Opera Australia and throughout New Zealand.

The stellar casting was complemented by bracing, adroit accompaniment from Vector Wellington Orchestra with distinguished English conductor, Lionel Friend.

From Mozart's perennial bustling overture to 'Gente Gente all'armi, all'armi ...' at the opera's conclusion, this was an exquisite performance, likely to linger in the memory when many other entertainments are long forgotten.