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Le Nozze di Figaro
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Composer |
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart |
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Librettist |
Lorenzo da Ponte after Beaumarchais |
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Venue and Dates |
The Metropolitan Opera House, New York 10, 14, 17, 21, 24, 28 November & 1 December 2007 |
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Conductor |
Philippe Jordan |
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Production |
Production: Jonathan Miller |
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Performers |
Il Conte di Almaviva: Simon Keenlyside Figaro: Bryn Terfel La Contessa di Almaviva: Anja Harteros Susanna: Ekaterina Siurina Cherubino: Kate Lindsey Marcellina: Marie McLaughlin Basilio: Greg Fedderly Antonio: Patrick Carfizzi Peasants: Jennifer Black, Leah Wool |
Photo Gallery
(courtesy NY Met website)
What the critics say
Anthony Tommasini, NY Times,
12 November 2007
Beware, Conniving Count, This Rugged Figaro Will Have You Dancing to His Tune
Cast changes are inevitable during the run of a production at a repertory opera company. But when Jonathan Miller’s staging of Mozart’s “Nozze di Figaro” returned to the Metropolitan Opera on Saturday afternoon after a break of more than three weeks, the company fielded an entirely different cast from the one introduced in early October.
The lineup included two major stars: the bass-baritone Bryn Terfel as Figaro and the baritone Simon Keenlyside as Count Almaviva. The only holdover was the 34-year-old Swiss conductor Philippe Jordan, every bit as impressive as he was before.
The cast was working at a disadvantage. Given the constraints on scheduling at the Met, it is not possible for singers who step into a run to have a stage rehearsal in the house with the orchestra. All the more remarkable, then, that this performance was so rich, affecting and confident.
Singing the role of his momentous 1994 Met debut, Mr. Terfel was a larger-than-life Figaro. As his husky voice matures and darkens, he can still adapt it to the lyrical turns and fleet passagework in Mozart. Tall, rugged and burly, here was a Figaro who in a burst of desire could lift up his Susanna in one arm and twirl her around.
There was real threat in the dead-serious account of “Se vuol ballare,” when Figaro vows that if the lecherous Count intends to ensnare Susanna through an aristocratic dance of seduction, his lordship will step to Figaro’s tune. Yet in phrases in which Figaro ponders his dilemma, Mr. Terfel sang with haunting sotto-voce subtlety. The lovely young Russian soprano Ekaterina Siurina made a charming and sassy Susanna. Her tone was clear and true, her sound warm and luscious.
It was no surprise that Mr. Keenlyside gave such a complex and volatile portrayal. A consummate stage artist, he made an entitled and preening Count: effete, yes, but in a strangely sexy way. His singing was as nuanced and contrary as his characterization, elegantly dignified one moment, bullishly impulsive the next. In encounters with Susanna he seemed as hormonal as the adolescent page Cherubino, here portrayed winningly by the vocally rich and dynamic mezzo-soprano Kate Lindsey.
Marie McLaughlin as Marcellina and Maurizio Muraro as Don Bartolo were delightful. The biggest ovations, and well deserved, went to the German soprano Anja Harteros as the Countess; in both her poignant singing and her vulnerable presence, she conveyed hurt and shame over the loss of her husband’s affection. For a soprano with such a strong and earthy voice, Ms. Harteros can shape phrases with melting pianissimo tenderness.
Mr. Jordan, recently appointed music director of the Paris National Opera (starting in 2009), is emerging as a major musician. Though the performance he drew from the orchestra and cast was lively and articulate, there was plenty of space for phrases to breathe. The music flowed with disarming naturalness. His debut with the New York Philharmonic on Dec. 6 now looks like an important event of the season.
John Yohalem, Opera Today, 12 Nov 2007
http://www.operatoday.com/content/2007/11/le_nozze_di_fig_4.php
Le Nozze di Figaro, in 1786, was the longest and most elaborate opera buffa ever composed and (though it is seldom given complete) is still the longest you are likely to see in the regular repertory.
There are so many variables that a critic can easily find something to object to. A Countess short of breath in “Porgi amor,” with which (no warm-up) she opens Act II; a Cherubino too feminine for adolescent male outpourings; a Count insufficiently virile for his masculine vanity (the engine that drives the plot) to be credible; a Marcellina too young to be Figaro’s mother (Beaumarchais turns Oedipus into farce here, showing how close tragedy and comedy really are); a lackluster conductor; a “concept” staging that ignores half the plot; an ugly set; an incompetent fandango or leap from the window – there is always (as Gilda Radner would say) something. Attending the Met’s Figaro in a year when few world-famous names have signed on for it, the manipulator of the poison pen whets his fangs in malicious anticipation.
At the matinee of November 10, the Met fooled me: until the last two minutes of the staging (and then it was Jonathan Miller’s unaltered original direction that let me down, not anything the performers did), Le Nozze was as near perfect as you are likely to get, and none of those obvious lapses occurred. Anja Harteros sang both the Countess’s arias flawlessly and was, in addition, a radiant beauty whose neglect by any husband puzzled everyone and made him look an oaf. She won the ovation of the afternoon – even for one who missed the angelic quality Kiri Te Kanawa brought to the Countess’s final lines of forgiveness. (The opera – and buffo in general – is primarily about forgiveness for everybody’s human imperfections – which is why the original, imperial audience found it easy to overlook the revolutionary subtext.) Ekaterina Siurina, a plump Russian tidbit, as Susanna sang a radiant “Deh vieni non tardar” and a “Venite, inginocchiatevi” with the proper giggly bounce. Kate Lindsey is a real find – her Cherubino looked like an adolescent boy, a very pretty one to be sure but with an arrogant chin and a “street” sort of strut that made this cocksure kid a credible threat to the older males. She sang gloriously too. Marie McLaughlin made an ardent but not preposterous Marcellina – for once one regretted the omission of her aria – and Anne-Carolyn Bird, though a bit tall, sang a sweet Barberina.
Among the men, Bryn Terfel naturally stood out in the title role. I did not like his Figaro when the production was brand new – he seemed so anxious to show what an actor he was that he huffed and puffed and groaned and grimaced instead of singing; Mozart took a back seat to Beaumarchais. He has calmed down considerably over the years, and though still a bouncing buffo-man with plenty of time for comedy (if his pretence of jumping off the balcony is not quite believable), he now sings the arias at a less frenetic pace, with more of the elegance they require and reward. Simon Keenlyside played the Count as an elegant fop, forever tossing his curls and pratfalling on the polished floors, but this never interfered with his musical authority. Maurizio Murano’s blowhard Bartolo, Greg Fedderly’s slithy Basilio, and Patrick Carfizzi’s lumpish Antonio earned most of the day’s laughs.
Philippe Jordan is a young Swiss who conducts with zest and delight, as if he wanted to grab you by the ears and prove this is a masterpiece with charms you never suspected – hardly necessary with Figaro, but what I mean is, he takes none of it for granted, he is thrilled by the music and eager to share.
And what did I object to about the conclusion? In the Met’s rush to get the Countess into a new and glittery gown for the finale, no one has thought (and Mr. Miller years ago did not think) to have her show the ring to the Count, revealing to him that she is the mysterious lady he made love to in the dark. The audience knows this, and Figaro and Susanna know it, but the Count does not, and his heartfelt, aristocratic apology is inexplicable if he doesn’t. The laws of farce are immutable: If you do not tie all the knots, the machine unravels. It’s such an easy piece of business to fix – and so satisfying when it’s fixed. Patch it up, Met.