Don Juan en el nuevo teatro de Valencia

by Jorge Binaghi (Operayre)

«El nuevo teatro de Valencia, que hace parte de un más ambicioso y vasto complejo, es un enorme edificio, algo faraónico e intimidatorio, con una sala principal de 1800 asientos y una de cámara. Estrenado con prisa hace exactamente un año, ha empezado a funcionar a ritmo normal hace unos tres meses, con Fidelio . A este título siguió La bohème , y allí se produjo el percance técnico que obligó a cancelar algunas funciones. Una de las plataformas giratorias, o escenarios, sufrió un deterioro en el mecanismo y al foso de la orquesta, vacío por fortuna, fueron a parar los decorados y por suerte nadie más. Mientras este Mozart, que ya había conocido modificaciones y debates por la puesta y por los roles atribuidos a algún cantante, se desarrolló en el proscenio, se dice que ahora proseguirá la temporada con un solo escenario fijo.

De momento, la sala tiene buena visibilidad y acústica algo unidireccional, y como todas las nuevas resulta un tanto impersonal, aunque cómoda.

En cualquier caso, desde mi punto de vista, lo importante es el producto que se ofrece,más que el marco en sí o el acondicionamiento ultramoderno (de poco sirven si lo que se da no resulta interesante).

La nueva puesta de Miller, que no tiene casi decorados, repite, cuando presenta alguna idea, su ya antigua régie (que se vio hace dos años, luego de unos quince, en Florencia). Por ello, si algún intérprete se destacó, se deberá imputar más bien a cualidades personales que al trabajo del director. Si es verdad que impuso que los recitativos se dijeran en forma hablada, hizo un flaco favor a los cantantes que lo siguieron (no todos lo hicieron) y a Mozart.

Lo mejor fueron los trajes. El coro se desempeñó bien en su no muy largo cometido y la orquesta parece realmente buena en su conformación. Lástima que Maazel no parece ser un director para óperas de Mozart, o al menos para esta. Empezó como Beethoven, siguió a ritmo lento y más bien triste, lento y monótono casi todo el tiempo, y tuvo uno que otro momento interesante hasta que llegó la escena final, que fue la única que tuvo una lectura teatral, tal vez excesivamente dramática. Supongo que es suya la idea peculiar de doblar el continuo sumando al clave un violonchelo absolutamente fuera de lugar y que tampoco parecía muy compenetrado con esa labor. Los desencuentros con Zerlina en sus arias se debieron seguramente a que la cantante intervenía por primera vez en el espectáculo, y se salvaron por la experiencia del maestro, pero también a tiempos que convirtieron a los dos momentos en eternos, como también retiró la sensualidad a ‘Là ci darem la mano’. De paso, Fontosh cantó correctamente pero sin imaginación ni peculiar brillo aunque por suerte es una soprano y no una mezzo. Lo mismo, en cuanto a la tesitura, ocurrió con la Elvira de Damato, una soprano interesante y de medios importantes que todavía debe seguir perfeccionando (la emisión del agudo no es siempre segura y los graves suenan opacos), aunque durante la función –era su primera intervención también- fue progresando. Como intérprete es más bien convencional y seguramente en otro repertorio lucirá más.

Lo mismo será quizá también verdad de la otra ‘doña’. El nombre de Poplavskaia se conoce por su intervención como protagonista de La Juive en Londres, y las características de su voz generosa tendrán tal vez mejor ocasión de explayarse que en Mozart, pero aquí, muy aplaudida, y con un italiano perfeccionable, hizo una primera escena y un ‘Or sai chi l’onore’ sorprendentes por caudal e intensidad (no así el recitativo precedente, del que poco se entendió) y se las arregló muy bien con los temibles agudos en pianísimo,aunque allí se advirtió el origen de su escuela, y si bien cantó muy bien la segunda aria, el trino resultó más imaginario que real.

Francesco Meli fue su Octavio. Ha mejorado técnicamente con respecto a su interpretación en Génova hace un año, pero la voz es ahora más decididamente lírica y menos flexible. No obstante administró su fiato de manera loable y el único momento en que tuvo que detenerse, en ‘Il mio tesoro’, debe imputarse, de nuevo, al tempo imposible que le impuso Maazel. Intenta hacer de su personaje ‘todo un hombre’, pero me parece que se le va un tanto la mano (y su interés por Elvira parece desplazado).

Vaneev, con una voz menos oscura que otras veces, sin esforzarse mucho, hizo un excelente Comendador, muy imponente. Mucho más no se le puede pedir a nadie que interprete este personaje.

Di Pierro fue un excelente Masetto. Se mueve y dice bien, aunque me llama la atención que se lo defina ‘bajo’ y que entre sus papeles aparezca ‘Colline’. Yo he escuchado un barítono, y no muy oscuro, y a sus 22 años tal vez le convenga más ‘Schaunard’ para quedarnos en la misma obra. Si evoluciona hacia el registro más grave, siempre estará a tiempo de ‘profundizar’.

Vinogradov es un bajo cantante no muy imaginativo ni de timbre particularmente atractivo: lo primero es más importante para Leporello. Tal vez era su primera ocasión, pero en cualquier caso no resultó muy gracioso (él también tuvo algún problema con el italiano) y pareció muy pendiente de hacer lo que se le decía (y como no parece haber sido ni mucho ni muy novedoso…). ‘Madamina’fue tan correcta como desteñida.

Lo que nos lleva al protagonista. Schrott ha cantado este papel seis veces en seis producciones distintas y contarapuestas en poco más de un año (puede que se me escape alguna; con esta vez, le he visto cuatro). La voz parece haberse hecho más grande desde la última vez que lo escuché (en el mismo papel y en el San Carlo de Nápoles, que es un teatro más grande y de acústica imbatible). El papel no parece reservarle demasiadas sorpresas ni tener aún secretos, pero, como el artista inquieto y completo que es, continúa buceando en él. Su carisma es innegable y cada vez más fuerte: aparece en la escena y los ojos van a él porque se advierte que ahí va a ocurrir algo interesante. Sigo sin estar de acuerdo con la tendencia a ‘decir’ los recitativos (esta vez los empezaba hablando para pasar luego al verdadero ‘recitado’ en algo que me parece una complicación innecesaria y que no da mayor ni diferente dimensión al personaje ni a la obra), pero pocas veces he oido semejante carga sensual en ‘Là ci darem la mano’, frenada también por el dichoso tempo, como le ocurrió también con la despreocupación y ‘la furia de vivir’ que hay, y que el artista daba claramente, en ‘Finch’han del vino’. Su versión de la serenata resultó superior a anteriores por un mejor dominio de la media voz, y tanto la escena del cementerio como la final son, desde el vamos, uno de sus fuertes por intensidad, emoción, ironía y dominio escénico. Habría que destacar su ‘Metà di voi qua vadano’y el final del primer acto por la propiedad del acento, la pastosidad del timbre, su homegeneidad y extensión y la posibilidad de aligerarlo…Sólo se me ocurre que, pasado el año Mozart, y sin dejar a este autor fundamental para la voz, alterne más al amo con el criado y dé más lugar a Figaro (no lo veo aún para ‘Alfonso’ de Cosí , y ‘Guglielmo’ es demasiado claro, aunque no le ofrecería, creo, problemas…)Sigo creyendo que, dentro de esa categoría ambigua de bajobarítono, por color y ‘naturaleza’ su voz se acerca más al primero que al segundo, aunque la extensión en el registro agudo no le ofrece problemas…»

Lorin Maazel elogia el Don Giovanni del uruguayo Erwin Schrott

Entrevista de César Rus (Las Provincias de Valencia, online on Klassicaa Magazine)

«Es uno de los grandes; su nombre es inherente a la más alta calidad artística y ahora ese nombre va unido al Palau de les Arts de Valencia. Nos encontramos en su camerino: él está sentado en una butaca más alta que el sofá en el que me siento. La situación recuerda un poco a la distancia del podio con la orquesta. Durante toda la entrevista contesta con cordialidad y economiza con inteligencia sus gestos de complicidad, lo cual no impide que se muestre en todo momento muy amable.

–¿Cómo un director veterano y que ha llegado a los puestos más altos en el mundo de la música, acepta el reto de comprometerse con un proyecto totalmente nuevo como el Palau de les Arts?

– Precisamente por eso; después de haber hecho una carrera siguiendo una cierta línea que me ha llevado a dirigir las mejores orquestas de mundo, haber dirigido un repertorio multidimensional y haber actuado en los principales festivales, he entendido que es la obligación de un músico de cierta edad establecer un contacto profesional con la juventud. Un contacto que permite asegurar una continuidad a la música clásica en el advenir.

– ¿Y la experiencia?

– La calidad es lo que cuenta y puede estar en un ser humano joven o un adulto. La experiencia cuenta hasta cierto punto.

– ¿Pero no tenía miedo a los posibles riesgos?

– Naturalmente. Un teatro nuevo, en rodaje, es siempre una barca en zozobra. No se sabe lo que puede pasar, pero la única forma de conseguir llevarlo adelante es reunir a artistas y profesionales de la máxima calidad.

– ¿Y afrontar la labor de crear una nueva orquesta?

– El reto de poder formar una orquesta músico por músico a un alto nivel, era un reto que no pude resistir. Además soy un fanático de la ópera (muchos músicos no se encuentran cómodos en el mundo de la ópera), tal vez porque mi padre era actor, me encanta el teatro. Tengo las raíces de actor.

– ¿Cómo ha sido primer contacto con la orquesta?

– Muy bien. Son simpáticos, bien preparados. Están encantados con la experiencia; siempre me dicen que para ellos es un sueño tocar con Mehta y conmigo.

– ¿Y con los cantantes?

– Estoy entusiasmado. Nunca había dirigido una compañía tan joven y estoy entusiasmado son artistas llenos de entusiasmo.

– He observado que deja mucha libertad a los cantantes, por ejemplo ese agudo postizo de Erwin Schrott en la escena final.

– No es que haya dejado libertad a los cantantes, es que he dado mucha libertad a Schrott, porque es un cantante verdaderamente dotado. Tiene un instinto muy fuerte y es un personaje extraordinario sobre la escena. Crea un Don Giovanni muy dramático; además es un hombre atractivo y carismático; aprecio a los artistas que tienen ese carisma, esa magia que cautiva a los mejores públicos.

- ¿Qué diferencias encuentra con Ruggero Raimondi (con quien grabó la obra)?

– Raimondi era mayor que Schrott cuando hicimos Don Giovanni, era más señoril, más demoníaco. Sin embargo Schrott es más creíble, más humano. Él dibuja un retrato de Don Giovanni con sus debilidades y dudas; por el contrario Raimondi era más oscuro. Daba miedo, este no da miedo.

– ¿Con cuál se queda?

– Schrott es más simpático. El personaje de Don Giovanni termina mal, pero no es justo verlo siempre del lado negativo.

– En el resto del reparto hay también grandes artistas que ya son estrellas como Barbara Frittoli.

– Frittoli tiene una gran experiencia aunque es todavía joven, pero es una artista al nivel de Mirella Freni. También estoy muy contento con Francesco Meli quien tiene una magnífica voz, cuidadísima.

– Jonathan Miller se enfrentó a un verdadero reto tras lo ocurrido con el escenario hace unas semanas ¿Cómo ha sido el trabajo juntos?

– Él hizo realmente un milagro. En dos o tres días fue capaz de crear una nueva escena y lo ha hecho con prácticamente nada: dos bancos, una mesa, una silla… y ya. Para eso se necesita experiencia y una mano muy flexible.

- Pero al parecer tuvieron algún problema poco antes del estreno.

– Se habían olvidado de comunicarme ciertos cambios en la escena. Fue una cuestión de intermediarios, pero claro, si doy una entrada al cantante por la derecha y el cantante entra por la izquierda, pues la verdad es que uno se irrita. Pero aprecio a Miller. Ambos estábamos decididos a llevar adelante esta ópera. Por eso el primer día, antes de inclinarnos ante el público, nos dimos la mano.

– En las próximas temporadas va a interpretar muchos de sus grandes especialidades operísticas ¿piensa incluir algún nuevo título?

– Mi ópera.

– Pero ya la interpretó en el Covent Garden ¿cuándo piensa interpretarla aquí?

– La próxima temporada traeré 1984 (su única ópera).

– ¿Y otras obras contemporáneas?

– Mi compromiso es el de hacer algo de repertorio, incluyendo los grandes títulos: Carmen, Simon Boccanegra, etc. Habrá nuevas piezas pero dirigidas por otros. A mí me gusta la música contemporánea –yo soy compositor– pero mi mayor experiencia como director es en el gran repertorio. Así se establece una relación con la tradición. Es muy importante que exista esta unión. ¿Cómo van a aprender si no cómo se hacía Tosca en el siglo XIX?»

Casi una versión de concierto

by Rosa Solà (EL PAÍS)

«El fallo en la maquinaria recién estrenada que, hace 15 días, dejó al Palau de les Arts sin las modernas plataformas sobre las que descansa la escenografía, puso al Don Giovanni previsto para diciembre ante una tesitura complicada: o se eliminaba para esta temporada (como ha sucedido con La Belle et la Bête), o se retrasaba (como se ha prometido con la sesión de López-Cobos), o se hacía de cualquier manera en la fecha prevista. Se optó por esta última solución, quizá la menos costosa políticamente: en dos semanas se ha montado una tarima que cubre parte del foso (hay una fila de músicos que tocan por detrás de los pilares que la aguantan) la cual, unida al breve espacio que antecede al telón, proporciona una estrecha franja (cuatro o cinco metros de profundidad, a lo sumo) para la representación. Detrás, como decorado inmutable, un inmenso panel negro (con algunas puertas y ventanas), ocultaba el desastre ocurrido en la caja escénica.

Con tales mimbres no cabía esperar maravillas, a pesar de las declaraciones de Jonathan Miller en torno a sus logros sobre teatros en ruinas. Pero sí un poco más de imaginación. No podía evitarse, probablemente que el coro, y hasta Lorin Maazel, tuvieran que salir a escena por las mismas puertas que utiliza el público para entrar en la sala. Sin embargo, algo se hubiera podido hacer para crear ambientes diferentes, incluso con un mismo decorado. En el dilatado transcurso de la ópera, la iluminación -en ese campo no había nada estropeado-, prometida por Miller como “alternativa” a las deficiencias escénicas, sólo varió, levemente, en un par de momentos. También podía haberse explorado, quizá, el hoy en día utilizadísimo recurso de las proyecciones. Cualquier cosa, en fin, para lograr cambios de clima, en lo que respecta a la escena, desde el asesinato del padre de Donna Anna hasta la serenata de Donna Elvira, pasando por el cementerio, la mansión de Don Giovanni y, sobre todo, el hundimiento de éste en los infiernos, metafóricamente simbolizado el sábado por unas pálidas y virginales ánimas que se lo llevaron, sin pena ni gloria, por una puertecilla lateral. Cabría también hablar de los aspectos en que la escena debe ayudar a la traducción del estado anímico de los personajes. Ciertamente, 15 días son muy pocos para improvisar todo ello, pero si no se podía hacer más de lo que se ha hecho, quizá hubiera valido la pena no empecinarse con el seguir a toda costa dando como ópera, lo que fue, de tapadillo, una versión de concierto de las que se califican como “semiescenificadas”. Disimulada, eso sí, con un bonito vestuario de Clara Mitchell.

Lo que salvó el espectáculo, como tantas veces sucede en la ópera, fueron la música y las voces. Al igual que en La Bohème anterior, y a diferencia del Fidelio que abrió la temporada, se jugó con voces jóvenes en su mayoría, con muy buena materia prima, pequeños fallos sólo hilando finísimo en los requerimientos del canto mozartiano, y capacidad para actuar en el exiguo espacio del que disponían.»

Un catálogo

by Alberto Gonzáles Lapuente (abc.es)

«Suena «Don Giovanni» en el Palau de les Arts de Valencia. En escena está Erwin Schrott, a quien ser el protagonista, digámoslo ya, le sienta como un guante. Ataca «La ci darem la mano». A mitad de la estrofa hace un súbito pianísimo. De pronto, Lorin Maazel se encoge. Baja la orquesta y se funde con el cantante. Es otro. Al maestro le sientan bien estos acicates que transgreden su niquelado convencionalismo. Y aún ver a Maazel acompañar es algo digno de contemplarse. El gesto, la seguridad, el control exacto y pausado lo son todo. No es de extrañar que suene tan bien la orquesta del Palau. O que Schrott pudiera explayarse cómodamente en infinidad de matices, regulando sutilmente la potencia de su voz, luciendo «fiato» y plantándose con resolución, chulería y, ante todo, altura, marcando distancias. Su Don Giovanni es ya otro hito valenciano. Y no se acaban. En aquel sensual «duettino» también intervino Maria Grazia Schiavo, una Zerlina de voz delicada e insinuante. O si se quiere, juguetona con el dolor y el deseo que es algo que apresura el ánimo conquistador. Por otras razones merece la pena citar a Marina Poplavskaia, siendo lo suyo más racial: se le salió la vida al proclamar, como Doña Anna, «¡Ése es el asesino de mi padre!», luego decayó algo dejando medias voces y vibración, el refinamiento justo y un grueso italiano.
Es igual. Su consistencia se unió a la dramática regularidad de Barbara Frittoli, enjundiosa y gran Doña Elvira; al muy bien asentado Leporello de Alexander Vinogradov y a la aparentemente saludable claridad del Don Octavio de Francesco Meli. Entre ellos sonó la resuelta expresión de Nahuel di Pierro, Masetto, y la lírica expresión del Comendador Vladímir Vaneev bordando aquello que otros desgañitan. Esto es: todos entretejiéndose. Haciendo virtud en el total.
Tras el hundimiento de la plataforma escénica, a Jonathan Miller sólo le quedó un poco más de la corbata. Puso un fondo negro. Y aún así hubo mucho teatro. Convirtiendo en tragedia de lo «giocoso». Disfrutando y haciendo disfrutar. Una gran representación.»

Roma – Accademia S. Cecilia: La Damnation de Faust

by David Toschi (Operaclick)

«Breslavia sul fiume Oder; Praga sulla Moldava. Viaggiando fra fiumi e luoghi mai immobili, fra una tappa e l’altra in diligenza, Hector Berlioz conretizzò, nel 1846, il lavoro iniziato vent’anni prima che prenderà la sua veste definitiva col nome della Damnation de Faust.
Apre con questo lavoro la stagione sinfonica dell’Accademia di Santa Cecilia. In questo 2006/2007 il Parco della Musica ci ricorderà come, per quanto inconcludente possa essere stata la nostra evoluzione musicale – perennemente costretti a goderne i piaceri in luoghi inadatti, maldestramente sfruttati per kermesse politiche – si possano affrontare percorsi poco battuti prestando la necessaria attenzione al pubblico e al botteghino.
Sarà così che programmi non particolarmente accattivanti come La damnation de Faust, i Giocatori di Šostakovič o il Boris Godunov di Musorgskij si intrecceranno con il Concerto di Natale con la IX Sinfonia di Beethoven o il Gala straussiano dei primi dell’anno, assicurando mondanità e snobismo, partecipazione entusiasta e presenza filantropica. La Damnation de Faust di Antonio Pappano, direttore musicale sulla carta, ma forse mentore effettivo della stagione, segue le pieghe di questo ragionamento di soddisfazione delle parti. Da un lato vi è una composizione romantica, generata su uno dei soggetti più stilisticamente puri del repertorio, dall’altro vi è l’inquinamento “teatrale” che ne sposta artificiosamente l’ottica, mostrando al pubblico una composizione sinfonica e al tempo stesso una proiezione operistica. Se però funziona la prima, grazie al contributo impagabile di un’orchestra e di due cori, quello dell’Accademia di Santa Cecilia e quello di Voci bianche di Roma, parimenti protagonisti eccelsi, la seconda si arresta di fronte alla constatazione che se di un aspetto drammaturgico, semioticamente pertinente quindi rispetto ai testi musicale e letterario dobbiamo tener conto, esso non soddisfa per eccesso di semplificazione, ahimé oramai consueto nelle elaborazioni del direttore Pappano.
Fra i due fattori, infatti, v’è un abisso incolmabile di coerenza. Fin troppo enfatizzato l’aspetto sinfonico che fa sì che l’orchestra adotti spesso dinamiche e timbriche in grado di coprire il canto e l’espressione dello stesso. Poco curato e al limite della sciatteria invece l’aspetto teatrale, che sfugge per più di una ragione. C’è, ed è vero, la poca consistenza del cast. Tre nomi altisonanti non riescono a regalare alcun momento di forte comunicazione. Diverse le ragioni: alla poca rilevanza della voce di Jonas Kaufmann, tenore di belle speranze, corrisponde un peso energico, ma scarsamente gestito, dell’impianto di Vasselina Kasarova, mezzosoprano di lungo corso ma dalle sfaccettature estremamente limitate e qui, talvolta, imprecise. Bene si comporta soltanto il baritono Erwin Schrott, che riesce a restituire un Mefistofele piuttosto verosimile al personaggio schizzato da Berlioz che più che creatura demoniaca assume, in questa Damnation, la figura di uno stravagante contadino blasfemo.
Ecco, forse il principale limite di Pappano e della sua lettura è proprio qui: nell’inspiegabile seriosità religiosa che il direttore anglo-italiano dà di quello che è un soggetto non strettamente riconducibile a Goethe ma a un personaggio che fa intrinsecamente parte della mitologia occidentale e quindi, malleabile e plasmabile alle esigenze di ogni autore che vi si confronti.
Ecco, forse il limite ultimo della lettura tutta seriosa di Pappano è nel non aver preso atto del carattere dissacrante di Berlioz, che non si faceva problemi ad ammettere che «Sì… Dopo il pedale obbligato e la cadenza finale della fuga, avanza Mefistofele e dice: Vrai Dieu! Mensieur, votre fugue est fort belle, et telle, qu’a l’entendre on se croit aux saints lieux. Souffrez qu’on vous le dise: le style en est savant, vraiment religieux; on ne saurait exprimer mieux les sentiments pieux qu’en terminant ses prières, l’eglise en un seul mot résume. Maintenant, puis’je à mon tour riposter par un chant sur un sujet non moins touchant que le votre?». A un appassionato di musica che andò a trovarlo domandandogli «la vostra fuga sull’Amen è ironica? Vero che è ironica?», Berlioz rispose: «Ahimé signore, ho paura di sì!» e sorridendo aggiunse: «Non ne era sicuro!!!».»

La dannazione di Faust: concerto o teatro?

by Luca del Fra (il giornale della musica)

«Ecco la scommessa dell’apertura della stagione sinfonica di Santa Cecilia: riportare alla sua originaria dimensione concertistica la “Damnation de Faust”, che dalla fine dell’Ottocento conta una consolidata tradizione di allestimenti scenici, i cui frutti migliori vanno probabilmente ricercati proprio nel teatro contemporaneo andato a nozze con la rapsodicità della narrazione da Berlioz. L’approccio di Pappano è in questo senso duplice: un clima decisamente sinfonico si avverte nelle prime due parti, con pregevole dilatazione dei tempi a vantaggio di un fraseggio sinuoso, decise accelerazioni con momenti di virtuosismo direttoriale come nella marcia ungherese, vertiginosi crescendo all’insegna della tensione psicologica. Va detto che in tutto questo non è stato d’aiuto Kaufmann, il cui timbro scuro bene si sposerebbe al personaggio di Faust, ma appariva afflitto da problemi di raffreddamento. Dalla scena della taverna in poi, era però la dimensione più teatrale e istintiva a prendere il sopravvento, facendo perno sul Méphistophélès particolarmente amabile e intrigante di Schrott. Fascinosa la Margueritè di Kasarova, cui si devono i migliori momenti di canto. Ritrovando dopo quattro anni come maestro Balatsch, il Coro ceciliano conferma la sua classe marcando straordinariamente la differenza tra le voci del popolo, della taverna, dei demoni fino agli spiriti celesti dove si sono fatte valere le voci bianche. Altrettanto notevole è la prestazione dell’orchestra, con spettacolari soli di viola e oboe: in Pappano sembra avere incontrato un direttore ideale per una bella serata di musica da cui si esce con la speranza che, senza i clamori della Festa del Cinema imperversanti in questi giorni all’Auditorium romano, lui torni sulla partitura per dargli il colpo di grazia.»

Il «Don Giovanni» scritto da Mozart era un’altra cosa

by Lorenzo Arruga (Il Giornale)

«Chiedo scusa alla compagnia di canto. Accennerò soltanto a loro: d’altra parte sono stati felicemente radunati e sono specialisti: l’espertissimo Carlos Alvarez, Ildebrando d’Arcangelo dalla voce sempre bellissima, la molto efficiente Carmela Remigio, l’insinuante Veronica Cangemi; Francesco Meli ed Alex Esposito, poi, sono due certezze per un eccellente futuro e Monica Bacelli (sostituita alla “prima” da Annette Dasch) riesce con la sua classe a darci sempre un’immagine alta dei suoi personaggi. Lungo le prove, ci si è accorti anche della statura di grande protagonista del secondo Don Giovanni, Erwin Schrott. Ma oggi il discorso urgente riguarda tre altri punti: la direzione, la regìa, la Scala.
Direttore era Gustavo Dudamel. Venezuelano, venticinquenne. Qualcuno ha scritto che viene unanimemente considerato una rivelazione. Diciamo non più di quasi unanimemente, perché non tutti la pensiamo come ci dicono nelle conferenze stampa. Per esempio, a me sembra talentoso, dilettantesco e male indirizzato. È bello che alle conferenze stampa sappia dire che Don Giovanni per lui è la libertà e che un giovane lo sente tanto quanto un anziano. Ma è molto brutto che usi la bacchetta con un gesto perennemente su e giù come un bastone da maresciallo o da majorette, che a ogni insieme o a ogni insidioso cambio di ritmo rischi di staccare da sé qualche cantante. Ed è fastidioso ascoltare un’opera misteriosa di ombre, di sottovoce, di sussurri, di «pianissimo» all’insegna d’una tonante energia. È un bel personaggio, con le sue orchestre ha salvato tanti bambini dalla strada. Ma nessuno ha mai affidato un’opera a Don Bosco, che lo faceva anche di più. Regista era il loquace Mussbach, che ha messo due alti muri scuri rotanti e un po’ stazzonati al posto delle scene, e tutti attorno a correre e agitarsi. Nessun contrasto giorno/notte, intimità/folla, tante esibizioni di gesti fra l’avanspettacolo e il bordello, a ogni manciata di secondi qualcuno che veniva buttato per terra. Tutti quando sono insieme cercano di accoppiarsi. Ci si chiede in che cosa consista la trasgressione del grande libertino, se quello è già l’andazzo. In ogni momento, si dimentica il momento che procede. Non c’è storia, ma sciorinio. Se serve per vendere il prodotto, oggi, in questo ambiente devastato dall’ignoranza e dalla paura di non essere abbastanza moderni, può funzionare, perché non sono in molti ad accorgersi che questa roba è un avanzo della vecchia scuola tedesca di regia. Ma sento il dovere di avvertire quelli che vengono alla Scala, esaurendo il teatro in ogni recita, per il Don Giovanni, che Mozart aveva scritto un’altra cosa.
E qui bisogna onestamente riflettere sulla Scala. Che sta organizzandosi molto bene, ma attorno a che cosa? Sembra ambire a far parte d’un circuito medio-alto, generico, di moda. Questo, in una città fieristica come Milano, può piacere: sembra un aumento di internazionalità. Per cui bello è lanciare giovani agli inizi, interessante ospitare artisti di formazione diversa dalla nostra tradizione, ma allora bisognerebbe avere una direzione artistica molto competente e molto forte e il coraggio di accettare di non essere più il sospirato punto d’arrivo per gli interpreti, ma una delle più prestigiose rampe di lancio dell’impresariato musicale. Comunque ieri sera il pubblico ha festeggiato tutti, salvo il regista che ha avuto una buona parte di dissensi.»

Dudamel e Don Giovanni, con qualche delusione

by Stefano Jacini (il giornale della musica)

«Portato in palmo di mano, lodato innanzitempo con troppa generosità, Gustavo Dudamel sul podio del Don Giovanni delude molte aspettative. Non s’è mai sentita l’orchestra della Scala implodere in buca a quel modo: pur se energico, il suono resta impastato, senza trasparenza né leggerezze. L’esecuzione finisce quindi per essere tutto sommato noiosa, plumbeo come un metronomo per esempio il duetto “Là ci darem la mano”, i recitativi spesso slabbrati, con pesanti vuoti. L’allestimento merita invece un altro racconto. Il regista Peter Mussbach (sovrintendente dell’Opera di Berlino) imposta il tutto attorno a due grandi parallelogrammi neri che si muovono, si dividono, convergono, ma cosoni neri restano, monotoni e senza idee. Delle quali invece è ahimé ricchissimo Leporello. Più che di volgarità però andrebbero tacciate di becerismo culturale; una per tutte (dedicata ai benpensanti), Leporello che infila un dito nella vagina di Donna Elvira e poi si succhia il dito. Più consenziente di lei è Donn’Anna che monta esplicitamente Don Giovanni dopo il tentativo di stupro, riproponendo polverosi stereotipi sul proprio personaggio. Don Giovanni invece, con l’immancabile palandrana nera ma con la variante del torso nudo con bretelle, viene spogliato anche di eroicità. E’ un semplice gaglioffo che merita la fine che fa, ad opera di un Commendatore molto simile a quei mimi immobili e dipinti di biacca che s’incontrano per strada. Tranne quando nel finale, invece di afferrare la mano del protagonista, si rimette a tirar di scherma con lui. A dire il vero, non c’è battuta del libretto che coincida col gesto o l’oggetto scenico relativo. Anche se con questo si volesse per caso dimostrare che tutto è finzione, capirai la novità, fa male vedere Don Giovanni che dopo aver ordinato “versa il vino” beve a canna o Leporello che invece di “un pezzo di fagiano” addenta un enorme gigot. Infastidisce perché la coscia di fagiano sta al servo ladro come la lancia sta a Wotan, certi simboli andrebbero rispettati e non sostituiti da quelli privati del regista. Altra trovata è il ventaglio di Don Ottavio. L’infelice lo maneggia di continuo, straniandosi così in una sorta di Rasputin gay, tanto che quando canta “Dalla sua pace” non risulta più plausibile. Quanto alla Vespa sulla quale scorazza Donna Elvira, in fondo è il male minore. “Vendetta ti chiedo” verrebbe comunque voglia di dire, ma a chi?
PS: Queste note sono state scritte dopo aver assistito alla prova generale del 9 settembre col secondo cast e ascoltato per radio la prima del 10 settembre con il primo cast. Nel secondo cast è da segnalare la buona prova della coppia Don Giovanni e Leporello di Erwin Schrott e Alex Esposito, anche nel sostenere il gioco scenico; corretto Jeremy Ovenden in veste di Don Ottavio. Del primo cast segnaliamo il Don Giovanni di Carlos Alvarez, interprete dalla lunga esperienza e dal timbro scuro, meno agile ci è parso il Leporello di Ildebrando D’Arcangelo; Carmela Remigio è a proprio agio come Donn’Anna, nonostante l’esilità di voce. Annette Dash, in veste di Donna Elvira in entrambe le serate (anche la sera della prima ha sostituito Monica Bacelli), non è giudicabile in quanto indisposta, anche se la sua intonazione lascia spesso a desiderare. Alla prima applausi generalizzati per i cantanti, quanche fischio a Dudamel, cassato nettamente il regista a suon di buu.»

La nobleza del libertino

(Jorge Binaghi – Operayre)

«No “la carrera”; eso queda para los que se convierten en donjuanes por voluntad, o por casualidad, Que se hacen, no que nacen. Y lo que nos cuentan Da Ponte y Mozart es la esencia del ‘libertino innato’, con la carga de subversión de todos los órdenes que eso comporta. El “Viva la libertà” del final del primer acto es, por supuesto, pulverizar cualquier norma, pero también que lo que estaba reservado a algunos ‘está abierto a todos’. Y algunos de esos ‘algunos’ son muchas veces los primeros en entenderlo y en ponerse a la vanguardia. Con todos los riesgos que eso comporta. Y la puesta de Martone lo marca; el protagonista sabe cuál es su función, pero no pocas veces queda perplejo ante la enormidad que le toca cumplir: hay cierta melancolía y desencanto, y hasta algún tipo de ‘remordimiento’ -no es la palabra exacta- que son prueba terminante de lucidez. Y de ahí el rechazo a salvarse. Martone ha hecho una especie de teatro o ruedo rodeado de graderías que se van vaciando en la medida en que los espectadores se incorporan a la ‘representación’….en el primer acto, porque en el segundo, en la penumbra, vamos advirtiendo que los pocos que quedan son cadáveres. Y de la muerte que lo rodea y a la que va ‘castigado’, el protagonista insiste siempre en comer, beber, hacer el amor como afirmaciones de vida. El regisseur ha optado, además, por hacer que los movimientos surjan del texto y de la música, con lo que Zerlina resulta claramente de armas tomar, y eso lo descubre gracias al seductor, porque Masetto es decididamente un tonto; don Octavio es un noble que se escuda en sus derechos y doña Ana en sus ofensas para no dar ambos un paso más que el necesario y guardar las formas. Los únicos que de alguna manera ‘entienden’ o ‘quieren’ al protagonista son Elvira y Leporello. Y cuánta tristeza en el concertante final, todos separados, encerrados en sus vidas ‘definidas’, que Martone les hace cantar desde la gris tiniebla en la que ahora se instalarán con mayor o menor comodidad. Por suerte, para plasmar a amo y criado, contó con el simpatiquísimo, estilista perfecto y buen cantante que es Andrea Concetti para Leporello y, sobre todo, con Schrott para el protagonista. No sé si está monopolizando a don Juan o don Juan a él, pero es el hecho de que lo ha cantado mucho y en teatros importantes en un año y todavía tiene algunos por delante. Como es un joven que trabaja y es serio, se ha ajustado cada vez a la concepción artística que se le pide (no todas me han parecido igualmente acertadas, pero eso es otro cantar), ha logrado descubrir y descubrirse diversas facetas y matices del personaje y se nota en su actuación, pero también en su canto: la voz suena, en este inmenso templo de la lírica que es el San Carlo (una joya más que un teatro) con total facilidad y con mayor potencia que en anteriores ocasiones, y sólo la vehemencia de la interpretación hace que algunos recitativos todavía necesiten un mayor control vocal y el cantante se afiance más en las medias voces. En una labor tan empinada es difícil encontrar pasajes ‘mejores’, pero si tuviera que elegir uno, sería esta vez ‘Metá di voi qua vadano’, que no sólo es difícil de cantar y representar, sino que, en mi experiencia, es la primera vez que veo a un don Juan que realmente se mueve y habla -canta- como Leporello. Mariella Devia es una cantante reverenciada en Italia por su técnica, su estilo y la duración de su carrera. Personalmente, la sigo encontrando limitada en la expresión, con un timbre oscurecido (y nunca ha sido bello), pero las dos arias de doña Ana fueron muy bien cantadas (mejor la segunda) y recibieron ovaciones de delirio. Sonia Ganassi fue Elvira: no es la primera mezzo a la que se confía el papel, y sigue pareciéndome un error más grave aún que el de hacer lo mismo con Zerlina. Ganassi es en origen un contraltino que está pasando a mezzosoprano capaz de medirse no sólo con Rossini o cierto Donizetti, sino con los grandes roles de ‘falcon’ y, por ejemplo, sus últimas ‘Adalgisas’ han sido notables. Pero los ataques de Elvira desde el aria de entrada hasta la temible ‘Mi tradì’, si exigen graves (no ‘ a la Verdi’, ni siquiera ‘a la Rossini serio’) también piden un tipo de extensión y de emisión en el agudo que aquí resultan insuficientes en timbre, en duración y se ven obligados a la transposición. Norberg-Schulz es una Zerlina encantadora y tendría los medios para hacerla memorable: no sé si se trató de la función que vi, pero empezó absolutamente opaca y destimbrada y por fortuna se recuperó, pero parcialmente, a partir de su primer aria (la interpretación de ambas fue lo mejor escénicamente junto con la labor de Schrott y Concetti). Su Masetto pasó sin pena ni gloria: nasal y atenorado, no parece que haya demasiado en el futuro para Giampiero Ruggeri en tanto que barítono brillante. Marco Spotti comenzó muy bien, pero en la última escena su Comendador se oyó poco. Y queda don Octavio. Martone, hombre de teatro, sufre con la acumulación de arias que es la secuencia ‘Or sai chi l’onore’ seguida de la agregada ‘Dalla sua pace’. Sobre la base de sugerencias del propio Mozart, decidió pasarla al final del primer cuadro. Ni por música, ni por situación escénica queda mejor o bien: sigue siendo un pegote, maravilloso, con el agravante de que aquí Octavio tiene que cantar después de un momento vocal y dramático muy diferente. No es excusa para la insuficiencia demostrada por Davislim, incapaz de cantar piano, rígido y forzado en el agudo, con un fiato no siempre capaz de hacer justicia a Mozart; las agilidades fueron mejor y el timbre es -sin ser nada especial-claramente de tenor lírico; y tampoco fue nada especial su concepción del personaje. En ese aspecto, es el que más respondió a la batuta gris -desde el mismo ataque de la obertura- de Yoram David, pese al buen hacer de la orquesta desde el punto de vista de la ejecución. Don Giovanni será un héroe negativo, pero si se mira a los demás hombres de la ópera -y alguna de las mujeres- se convierte, de lejos, en el mejor.»

Napoli: tris mozartiano di Martone

(Ansa [alternative link])

«Successo per il Don Giovanni al S.Carlo diretto da David (ANSA) – NAPOLI, 16 APR – Il ‘Don Giovanni’ ha chiuso ieri sera al San Carlo di Napoli il trittico delle opere mozartiane dirette da Mario Martone. Il regista ha proposto un allestimento teatrale leggero, che penetrava tra il pubblico anche fisicamente: il palco si prolungava verso la platea con due bracci a circondare la buca dell’orchestra. A dirigere l’orchestra c’era Yoram David. Particolare apprezzamento e’ stato espresso per Erwin Schrott, il cantante uruguayano nei panni del protagonista.

Don Giovanni: un’ottima esecuzione che ha sacrificato al buio della punizione la luminosità del gioco della seduzione e del teatro

by Dario Ascoli (Oltrenews.it)

«Con “Don Giovanni” (dal 15 al 26 aprile 2006) si è completata la trilogia italiana di W.A.Mozart al Teatro San Carlo; le aspettative del pubblico e della critica erano molto vivaci ed alimentate dalle brillanti produzioni dei due precedenti capolavori scaturiti dalla collaborazione tra Lorenzo da Ponte e il genio di Salisburgo.
La cifra stilistica mozartiana dell’orchestra del Massimo napoletano è andata crescendo sotto la guida di direttori dotati di ottima sensibilità filologica a cominciare da J.Tate, per proseguire con G. Korsten e infine Yoram David.
Il pubblico della prima, la cui competenza non sempre è pari alle disponibilità finanziarie, come testimonia l’intempestività degli applausi, è stato sostanzialmente appagato dalla rappresentazione del capolavoro mozartiano e a ragion veduta.
Schiere di intellettuali si sono interessate al Don Giovanni di Mozart, non solo per la sublime qualità di quella musica, che pure Kierkegaard ritiene indispensabile per qualificare “il seduttore sensuale” ben più di quanto possa fare la prosa di Molière o di Byron; i “seduttori in prosa” , servendosi della parola, negano quell’ identità ideale di sensualità che conquista attraverso l’ incarnazione del desiderio stesso e, in quanto tale, non ha obblighi né estetici né etici.
La parola può essere strumento di quello che si definisce “seduttore psichico”, il quale media e predispone piani di conquista, Don Giovanni , viceversa , è un “seduttore immediato”, “non ha bisogno di alcun preparativo, di alcun progetto, di alcun tempo(..) perchè seduce con l’immediatezza del suo stesso desiderare”.
Nell’ analisi del pensatore danese il desiderare, essendo riferibile all’astratto, diversamente dal suscitare il desiderio, è esso stesso strumento di seduzione; l’estetica di un seduttore sensuale assoluto, a prescindere dalla qualità, costituisce un elemento di ostacolo perchè rimanda ad una dimensione del reale.
La seduzione per Don Giovanni è un processo immediato come solo la musica, tra le arti, può essere, per dirla con l’ossimoro del filosofo danese: “la musica è il medio dell’immediato”e ancora “il Don Giovanni non deve essere visto, ma ascoltato”.
L’ultima autorevole affermazione è di grande conforto per scenografi e registi che si cimentino col capolavoro del libertino e forse andrebbe stampata ben visibilmente sui programmi di sala allo scopo di sedare sul nascere ogni critica.
Il dramma in musica del libertino è diventato “L’Opera” per antonomasia; la vicenda del convitato di pietra ha attraversato secoli di letteratura e di teatro da Tirso da Molina (El burlador de Sevilla ), Andrea Perrucci, Tritto, Molière, Goldoni, Byron , e per certi versi G.B.Shaw (L’uomo amato dalle donne).
Nella commedia dell’arte italiana il mito di Don Giovanni ha perso in parte gli aspetti macabri e punitivi per assumere caratterizzazioni burlesche.
Ciascun autore vi ha introdotto elementi storicizzanti i quali, però, non sempre, e in Mozart meno che altrove, sono stati relegati sullo sfondo.
L’opera del musicista austriaco è oscillante tra rivoluzione bisogno di continuità; essa rimette in discussione valori, gerarchie e privilegi feudali ma si preoccupa, altresì di ospitare e proteggere nella riserva ideale dei territori del trascendente, la giustizia e la certezza del castigo divino.
Nell’ affermazione apodittica del Cavaliere dissoluto : “La nobiltà ha dipinta negli occhi l’onestà” c’è tutta l’ ironia corrosiva di Da Ponte; un’ excusatio non petita, un’esuberanza comunicativa propria dei mentitori, imbonitori o demagoghi che siano.
Cosa dire anche di un contadino dall’intelletto non brillante che recita: “Cavalier voi siete già, dubitar non posso affè, me lo dice la bontà che volete aver per me”, la cui mal riposta fiducia confermerà di lì a poco l’inaffidabilità delle promesse del Cavaliere ?
Quanto alla ricerca di certezze , notiamo che il dissoluto viene punito da un’anima dell’oltretomba, non da un nobile offeso nell’onore o privato con la violenza dell’affetto di un genitore, ma da una statua funeraria, “convitato pietra” che “non si pasce di cibo mortale”
Non vi è in Mozart quella fiducia nella giustizia degli uomini che troveremo nel Fidelio beethoveniano e nemmeno si prospetta un lieto fine di vendetta come in un melodramma romantico o verista.
Assistiamo ad una punizione divina più che alla vendetta di una vittima, non di un amante tradito ma di un padre ucciso nel difendere la figlia da un seduttore!
Sull’interpretazione di questa figura di padre vendicativo sono state imbastite teorie che hanno scomodato la mitologia e la psicanalisi, spesso a braccetto tra loro per darsi man forte.
Non vi è dubbio, però, che la storicizzazione più geniale operata da Mozart consista in quel Finale del I atto che da solo varrebbe la fama immortale all’autore.
La presenza simultanea di due orchestre in scena, che affiancano quella principale, dà forma alla metafora musicale della società dei lumi che si avvia con i suoi tre stati alla rivoluzione.
La contraddanza dei contadini che s’intreccia poliritmicamente col minuetto dell’aristocrazia in maschera (“Venite pure avanti, vezzose mascherette, è aperto a tutti quanti, VIVA LA LIBERTA’”) con il contrasto dei piedi ritmici, prepara l’affermazione della danza della nuova classe borghese: il Valzer.
Nella insieme di danze e di contrasti tra le classi Martone ha voluto offrire anche un improbabile, benché attraente, strip tease a seno nudo di una giovane contadina invitata a palazzo, ci sfugge la simbologia sociologica del gesto, ma non possiamo ipocritamente non apprezzarlo, anche perchè in linea con l’ atmosfera orgiastica.
Il Don Giovanni fu rappresentato per la prima volta a Praga, al Nationaltheater il 29 ottobre 1787 e da allora non ha conosciuto stagioni buie, è stato interpretato secondo stili e criteri interpretativi svariati, dalle romanticizzazioni di inizio secolo, alle modernizzazioni registiche di P.Sellars, alle filologie musicali di Gardiner e di Harnoncourt a quelle anche sceniche di Ostman, dalle teatralità spinte di Maazel , (riprese cinematograficamente da J.Losey), fino alle accuratezze levigate di Giulini e in tempi recenti di Claudio Abbado,il quale si avvalso di un cast vocale di giovani di assoluto pregio, a cui si è unito il non a caso monumentale Matti Salminen. (vedi disco-filmografia).
Non vi sono figure vocalmente di secondo piano nell’opera, il protagonista eponimo (Erwin Schrott, foto più in alto a destra) è indiscusso mattatore, ma alla Dama di Burgos, Donna Elvira, si richiede agilità e perizia articolativa che la proiettano in rilievo.
Cristallina e quasi handeliana, come la partitura e il carattere del personaggio suggeriscono, l’interpretazione ammaliante di Sonia Ganassi (foto a sinistra) impegnata in una tessitura più acuta del consueto registro di mezzosoprano, ha animato quello che, a nostro avviso, è l’unico personaggio autentico e sincero dell’intero dramma; il solo nel cui animo trovano collocazione risentimento e perdono, ira e pietà, in definitiva un sentimento complesso e contraddittorio che esaspera i contrasti e li conduce a sintesi nella tenerezza: l’ amore.
Donna Anna, nobile e sentimentale richiede padronanza di fraseggio e vivacità drammatica, nell’edizione in scena al San Carlo, un’aristocratica Mariella Devìa (foto a destra) ha incantato il pubblico, in particolare quella parte maggiormente disposta ad apprezzare un canto rotondo non privo di qualche piccola “licenza stilistica” di tipo romantico.
La contadina Zerlina (Elizabeth Norbergh-Schultz, foto a sinistra) affidata con alterne opzioni ad un mezzosoprano di agilità o ad un soprano, talvolta persino di coloratura, è un personaggio che richiede sensualità vocale e scenica.
Le qualità seduttive certo non difettano al sopreno norvegese a cui, data la carica di simpoatia, spiace dover imputare una discreta pochezza di volume.
Quanta sensualità, ben rappresentata dalla azione scenica voluta da Martone, in “Batti, batti o bel Masetto” , con il supporto eccellente del violoncello obbligato di Luca Signorini, e quanta malizia spiritosa in “Vedrai carino”!
Leporello (Andrea Concetti, foto a destra) è poi un buffo che scambia il ruolo col suo diabolico padrone e che percorre ininterrottamente quasi l’intero svolgersi della partitura.
Il giovane basso, già apprezzato nel Così fan tutte, ha presentato un Leporello di grande qualità, costretto dalle scelte registiche a performance ginniche rilevanti in lungo e in largo sulla discutibile scenografia di fissa (uno spalto rivolto al pubblico su cui siedono i personaggi a vista dall’inizio alla fine), disegnata da Sergio Tramonti , che ha curato anche gli apprezzabili costumi.
Don Ottavio è un tenorino dalla psicologia debole, ma obbligato ad agilità e cantabilità.
Di Steve Davislim, che ha tentato di interpretare il ruolo del promesso sposo di Donna Anna, possiamo dire, facendo appello alla magnanimità, che “è inconsistente”.
E’ imbarazzante elencare i difetti emersi dalla prestazione del tenore australiano, perchè la ricerca di avversative edulcoranti o di eufemismi di circostanza è un’impresa troppo ardua per la modesta fantasia del recensore.
“S’ella sospira, sospiro anch’io (…) quel che a lei piace, vita mi rende” esprimono, sulle elegiache linee melodiche mozartiane, una relazione di affinità quasi simbiotica che viene fuori grottescamente improbabile dal raffronto tra la vocalità scompaginata di Davislim e la maestosa fluenza della Devìa.
Masetto e il Commendatore, infine, in passato venivano affidate ad un unico cantante, al giorno d’oggi si affida ad un basso profondo il ruolo ricco di connotazioni ultraterrene del Convitato di Pietra, mentre ad un basso cantante quello del sempliciotto promesso sposo di Zerlina.
Il contadinotto è stato interpretato dal baritono Giampiero Ruggeri, che ha esaltato gli aspetti di intemperanza giovanile e di sprovvedutezza del personaggio; ben più che diligente la sua prova vocale e vivace la presenza scenica.
Il Commendatore è stato interpretato dal basso parmense Marco Spotti; Martone ha voluto a nostro avviso troppo presente in scena il Convitato di Pietra, come tutti i personaggi d’altra parte, e che quindi ha visto sottrarre al personaggio l’effetto sorpresa; La profondità vocale è stata adeguata e la stentoreità della declamazione assolutamente pertinente.
Il ruolo di Don Giovanni fu interpretato a Praga, nella prima rappresentazione il 29 ottobre 1787 dal baritono italiano Luigi Bassi, di cui si narra la leggendaria avvenenza ma anche la vocalità da baritenore (baritono brillante si direbbe oggi).
In due secoli, a seconda della visione dei registi e dei direttori, il ruolo è stato affidato a bassi, bassi-baritoni o baritoni puri; privilegiando gli aspetti satanici o quelli seduttivi, o quelli sensuali o lirici.
Erwin Schrott è un basso-baritono che mostra buona profondità e anche un registro acuto brunito ma esteso; ha impersonato un Don Giovanni molto diretto, senza satanismi, Kierkegaardiano nel senso dell’eplicitazione del desiderio.
Il giovane basso uruguaiano non ha mai mostrato segni di incertezza tecnica, sfoggiando un’emissione di rara omogeneità, gli si può rimproverare la tendenza a dilatare i tempi un po’ arbitrariamente (si ascolti la “serenata” iniziata in andantino e conclusa in largo con la complicità di un Yoram David troppo “accompagnatore” e accondiscendente) e di aver patito qualche affanno nel prestissimo “Fin ch’han dal vino”, ma la prestazione nel complesso è di pregio assoluto. Sarà interessante raffrontarla con quella che Simon Orfila offrirà nella recita del 26 aprile, vista la qualità del baritono spagnolo evidenziata ne Le nozze di Figaro.
Una nota particolare merita il trattamento riservato ai recitativi, eseguiti tutti in maniera molto secca, con un continuo ridotto all’essenziale, pochissime fioriture e molto “tasto solo” e condotta accordale; si direbbe che il direttore, di concerto col regista, abbia voluto rendere l’effetto del parlato, secondo quella che molti filologi ritengono dovesse essere una prassi nel ‘700, a dispetto di quanto notato nelle partiture. Vista la buona qualità di attori dei degli interpreti, diremo che la scelta ha pagato in termini di intelligibilità testuale e di godibilità.
Mario Martone ci ha ormai abituati (necessità virtù) alla fissità delle scene (della scena) e a minimalismi estremi, sia d’esempio la tavola imbandita su un tappeto che rimanda più al “tè nel deserto” che alla ricca ospitalità conviviale di un nobile spagnolo. Il regista napoletano non si lascia mai andare a quel sano divertimento teatrale e, dell’ossimoro dapontiano “dramma giocoso” , finisce con l’interpretare la sola prima metà.
Yoram David , ha condotto con precisione l’orchestra sancarliana e ha evidenziato con perizia gli aspetti polifonici spesso sacrificati a favore delle esigenze delle linee vocali; il direttore israeliano ha privilegiato la chiarezza di lettura forse a scapito della vivacità, ma ha mostrato capacità concertative notevoli, anche se riteniamo abbia patito talune scelte registiche che hanno dispiegato i solisti e il coro su spazi amplissimi (spesso in platea alle spalle del direttore), pagando dazio con qualche imprecisione di sincronia.
I mozartiani hanno di che essere soddisfatti del trittico fin qui offerto dal Teatro San Carlo di Napoli e predisporsi all’evento di Die Zauberflöte del prossimo autunno.»

Le Nozze di Figaro – David McVicar’s Figaro: a marriage made in heaven

by Sabby Sagall (Socialist Worker)

«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.»

Le Nozze di Figaro – Ordinaria amministrazione nell’anno mozartiano

by Barbara Diana (GdM)

«Per commemorare l’anniversaro mozartiano la Royal Opera mette in scena una nuova produzione de Le Nozze di Figaro, che mancava dal Covent Garden dal 1995, un periodo decisamente lungo per quella che è una delle opere più popolari del suo repertorio. Tuttavia è improbabile che la presente produzione rimanga negli annali. Per ragioni note solo a lui, il regista David McVicar traspone l’azione dalla Siviglia di fine Settecento alla Francia pre-Luigi Filippo, una decisione che non si preoccupa di spiegare in un articolo pubblicato nel programma di sala. A noi basti sapere che il palcoscenico è la sua piattaforma per l’auto espressione, e che le sue motivazioni sono di carattere puramente teatrale. Come in altre sue produzioni, la messa in scena è caratterizzata da eleganza visiva e grande attenzione al dettaglio, in questo aiutata dalle scene ed i costumi di Tanya McCallin. Allo stesso tempo, una certa ecletticità drammaturgica pare mancare di visione d’insieme, e la tensione drammatica tende a disperdersi in quelle che sembrano essere una serie di soluzioni momentanee. Forse è una conseguenza il fatto che il cast manchi d’unità, pur fornendo considerevoli prestazioni individuali: Erwin Schrott è un Figaro imponente, sia dal punto di vista vocale che drammatico, anche se occasionalmente la sua performance sembra mancare di disciplina, e Gerald Finley è un ottimo Almaviva. La contessa di Dorothea Roschmann rifulge nell’intimità delle due arie, e Miah Persson crea un momento magico con la sua esecuzione di Deh vieni.
L’orchestra della Royal Opera, diretta da Antonio Pappano, produce a tratti un suono stranamente angolare, con alcune scelte di tempo discutibili (specialmente nei recitativi, a volte decisamente frenetici), che contrastano con il tono generale della lettura.»

Le Nozze di Figaro

by Melanie Eskenazi (Seen and Heard)

«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.»

Le Nozze di Figaro

by David Blewitt (The Stage online)

«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.»

Le Nozze di Figaro – Go Figaro

by Hugh Canning (The Sunday Times)

«Just before Christmas last year, David McVicar staged Mozart’s Così fan tutte for the Opéra du Rhin in Strasbourg. It was the kind of production I had almost despaired of seeing again: beautiful, thoughtful, scrupulously faithful to the letter of Lorenzo Da Ponte’s exquisite libretto — though updated to the last quarter of the 19th century — and to the “romantic” spirit of the music.

With his strikingly austere but no less beautiful La clemenza di Tito for ENO, 2005 augured well, I thought at the time, for McVicar’s forthcoming production of Le nozze di Figaro for the Royal Opera’s 250th-anniversary celebrations. Last Tuesday night at Covent Garden, the results were more rewarding than I had dared to expect: a Figaro conscious of tradition, but in no way stale or conventional, one that, with luck and careful nurturing, will grace the Royal Opera’s repertoire for years to come.

Writing in the RO’s lavish programme book, McVicar feels the need to defend Mozart from his (preposterous) detractors, but Figaro, of all his works, has time and time again proved its durability and contemporaneity. More than any other comedy for music, it survives second-rate theatrical presentation and mediocre musical forces, and in a great performance — which this nearly was — it can seem the most perfect masterpiece ever produced for the operatic stage. In Mozart ’s birthday year, the Royal Opera rightly performs the work complete, including the usually cut Marcellina and Don Basilio arias in Act IV.

As in the case of his Strasbourg Così, McVicar and his designer, Tanya McCallin, update their Figaro, this time to an earlier part of the 19th century. In his programme thoughts, McVicar rejects the oft-quoted Napoleonic notion that the Beaumarchais play on which the opera is based shows a premonition of the storming of the Bastille in 1789 and its bloody aftermath.

Although Mozart and Da Ponte’s comedy is a social one, it is sexual politics that concern them primarily. Like Graham Vick — for ENO in 1991 — McVicar notes that the opera is about the troubled marriage of the Almavivas and their servants’ wedding. And clearly, as in his Così, McVicar is attracted by the erotic-romantic aspects of the work. “To Mozart,” he writes, “love is a democratising force.” And love (or lust) is the motor that propels the action of this unusually physical and sensual staging. McCallin’s sets are grand and adaptable, as McVicar transports the action from the grimy storeroom that is to become Figaro and Susanna’s bedroom to a plausible garden — albeit festooned, à la Vick, with furniture from the previous acts — in which the sexual-romantic tangle is unravelled.

Like Peter Hall and Jonathan Miller, McVicar pays Mozart and Da Ponte the compliment of treating their Figaro as a sung play, and it is the wonderful acting he gets from a well-balanced cast of singers that makes his staging so compelling to watch. Where so often the poignantly neglected Countess is the focus of directors’ attentions, McVicar throws the spotlight onto the central Figaro-Susanna-Count triangle, on which the drama hinges: Almaviva’s attempts to exact his droit du seigneur from the chambermaid before her wedding night is thwarted by the agile wit and resourcefulness of his servants, especially Susanna herself.

As played by the German soprano Dorothea Röschmann — an outstanding Susanna — this Countess, small and neurotic, emerges as a secondary figure, while Gerald Finley, as her wayward spouse, electrifies the stage with his magnetic presence and magnificent singing. (At the opening of Act III, he is seen ratcheting up an elaborate early dynamo.) When he slaps his wife in their Act II squabble, the effect is shocking. It would be out of character in a rococo context, but it works in the harsher era of the early Industrial Revolution. Even when played in period costume, McVicar reminds us, Figaro is about real, recognisably contemporary people and their passions.

Susanna, in the entrancingly beautiful person of the Swedish soprano Miah Persson, making an overdue first appearance, is the perfect foil. She’s not an earthy servant girl, in the Mediterranean peasant mould of Marie McLaughlin or Cecilia Bartoli. But beneath her cool, Nordic exterior beats a palpitating heart, and she crowns her lovely performance with as serene an account of Susanna’s Rose aria — the romantic kernel of the opera — as we are likely to hear today, exquisitely abetted by the flute, oboe and bassoon soloists of Antonio Pappano’s marvellous Royal Opera orchestra.

The chemistry between Finley and Persson in their Act III encounter is palpable, and it is only marginally less so between Persson and her charismatic, handsome Figaro, the Uruguayan baritone Erwin Schrott, whose manifest physical and vocal endowments are occasionally undermined by a lack of musical and histrionic discipline. There is an improvisatory feel to his performance that upsets the balance of the ensemble, but that may vanish during the long initial run. Unlike the rest of the cast, he delivers much of his recitative in a parlando style, more spoken than sung, but he gets away with it thanks to his perfect Italian. He clearly thinks he is the star of the show. On opening night, he wasn’t, but he could be by the end of the run. This is a wonderful talent, and we should see and hear more of it.

Vocally, Röschmann’s first Countess remains a sketch of what it might become. She is clearly a fine musician and an intelligent, sympathetic artist, but her erratic singing, scratchy and insecure in her tricky entrance aria, with explosive descents into the chest voice, suggest that she is overparted in a house the size of Covent Garden. She is a fine actress, however, responding with alacrity to McVicar’s direction when, for example, she registers mild outrage on hearing Figaro refer to her husband as a “Contino” (Little Count).

Innumerable “creative” directorial moments remain in the memory, such as Finley’s Count, unlike the Countess, refusing a celebratory glass at the wedding.Occasionally, McVicar teeters on the brink of caricature. Philip Langridge’s Don Basilio is a rouged Dickensian mountebank, creepily fondling Cherubino’s knees and thighs during the Act I trio. At 66, Langridge justifies the inclusion of his Act IV aria, which the squally, effortful Chilean Marcellina, Graciela Araya, does not.

The young Israeli mezzo Rinat Shaham plays an impish Cherubino, though her singing is dogged by intonation problems, while Jonathan Veira (Bartolo), Ana James (Barbarina) and Jeremy White (the Gardener) make much of little with their parts. And it was wonderful to see the veteran Francis Egerton, Don Basilio in my first Covent Garden Figaro in 1972, still very watchable as a severe, non-stammering notary.

Pappano has been sparing with his Mozart since he became the Royal Opera’s music director, but this fleet, witty Figaro left one wanting more. He cedes the baton to Colin Davis for the June/July revival, but one hopes he returns to this Figaro soon and often. With a bit of tweaking here and there, it has all the makings of a Covent Garden classic.»

Le Nozze di Figaro – For Better or Worse, a Bourgeois ‘Figaro’ in London

by Daniel J. Wakin (The New York Times)

«In this European musical capital, the highest-profile homage to Mozart during his anniversary year came about with surprising casualness.

“We have strong productions of ‘Così Fan Tutte,’ ‘Don Giovanni,’” said Antonio Pappano, the music director of the Royal Opera House at Covent Garden, “as well as ‘The Magic Flute.’ ” But the existing version of “Le Nozze di Figaro” had been put to rest, and it was time to bring the opera back.

“It was a no-brainer for us to do this piece,” said Mr. Pappano, who is increasingly popular as a conductor here and also leads the orchestra of the Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia in Rome.

The production, directed by the busy David McVicar, opened on Tuesday. It is a highlight of the celebrations for the 250th anniversary of Mozart’s birth in London, which will have a steady but low-key diet of performances in his honor by the city’s major orchestras and other groups this year.

Mr. Pappano pointed out in an interview that the opera house would present two lesser Mozart operas, “La Finta Giardiniera” and “Il Re Pastore,” next season. “I wanted to do one big one,” he said. “We didn’t have ‘Marriage of Figaro’ in the house. I needed to set that right.”

If the decision was not revolutionary, neither is the production — stylistically or conceptually.

In a program note, Mr. McVicar rejects the idea that the opera, based on Beaumarchais’s play challenging the aristocracy, was some sort of prelude to the French Revolution. Rather, Mozart and Beaumarchais “were part of an emerging bourgeois class, more interested in establishing their autonomous right to earn a living and be respected for their own achievements than leading mobs to the gates of Versailles.”

He said he chose to focus on the “democratizing idea” of the marriage contract, of the freedom to choose a spouse and of love itself.

While generally well received by London critics, the production took some darts for sidestepping sharper political issues.

“There is a hole at the heart of this ‘Figaro,’ a gaping void of ideas, a mentality that puts surface-dressing above interpretation,” Andrew Clark wrote in The Financial Times. “We get no flavor of why the work had such incendiary implications for its day.”

But Mr. Pappano said: ” ‘Figaro’ always gets that kind of treatment, in a sense, from critics. They’re always looking for political angle.” He pointed to Act III, in which Figaro stands up to Count Almaviva.

“This is one moment in the piece,” he said. “A lot of the piece is people chasing skirts. The relationship thing is much stronger than the fact that Figaro is a servant. It’s human relationships that are very, very important from the essential point of view, and marriage, and almost-marriage, and old love affairs.”

How the attraction and conflict between the characters are conveyed has been “worked out very, very carefully,” he said.

“Everybody’s fighting to get what they want, and everybody has tremendous ego,” he added. “You have to go to the extreme with each character.”

The opera does, after all, take place on the mad day of a marriage, he said. “There’s an incredible fever, which, when you think about it, on a wedding day is the usual atmosphere.”

Mr. McVicar’s direction emphasizes these passions. Count Almaviva and Figaro are, shall we say, in close physical contact with Susanna. There are violent touches: a shocking slap of the Countess by the Count and a catfight in which Susanna tears the bonnet off of her rival and soon-to-be-mother-in-law, Marcellina. One of the traditional slaps — when Susanna smacks Figaro, mistakenly thinking he wants to marry Marcellina — is replaced by a strategically aimed knee.

The action is placed in “the milieu of” a French chateau in 1830, Mr. McVicar writes, despite the opera’s setting in Spain. It is the eve of the July Revolution that led to the final overthrow of the Bourbons and the establishment of the “bourgeois” monarchy of Louis-Philippe.

Musically, the production and its unusually strong cast received much praise.

Erwin Schrott, the Uruguayan bass who recently performed Figaro at the Los Angeles Opera, was singled out in the role, along with Gerald Finley, a Canadian, as an unusually menacing Count Almaviva. Miah Persson, a Swede, made her Covent Garden debut as Susanna, and Dorothea Röschmann, a German who is making her reputation in Mozart roles, sang the Countess. Rinat Shaham, an Israeli-born mezzo-soprano, sang Cherubino.

Mr. Pappano played the harpsichord continuo and conducted an 18th-century-flavored orchestra. The trumpets and horns were natural, valveless instruments (with tubes added or subtracted), giving a more pungent and mellow quality to the sound.»

Le Nozze di Figaro – David McVicar Plays Safe in `Marriage of Figaro’ at Royal Opera

by Warwick Thompson (Bloomberg.com)

«David McVicar gave us bare breasts and gang rape in “Rigoletto.” In his “Tosca,” the soprano fondled a corpse with necrophiliac glee. So the buzz of speculation about his new production of Mozart’s comedy “Le nozze di Figaro” (The Marriage of Figaro) at London’s Royal Opera House was understandable.

Traditionalists needn’t have worried. McVicar’s staging is a safe show, complete with pretty frocks and realistic sets. His most significant innovation is to update the action from 1786, when the opera was written, to 1830.

Tanya McCallin’s designs show us the lofty rooms of a spacious French chateau which has seen better days. The women wear mutton-sleeve dresses with high waists, while the men appear in breeches and elegant coats. The master of the house is always well-groomed. In contrast, the rampant and rebellious pageboy Cherubino dresses in a more carefree, Byronic style.

This is the arena in which the arrogant Count Almaviva wants to seduce the fiancee of his servant Figaro. It’s also a world which McVicar stuffs with extra servants who listen at keyholes, gossip in corridors and frequently appear on the fringes of the main action.

He emphasizes the fact that Almaviva’s comfortable life depends on the labor of many, but that these minions also have their own ideas about their master. It’s a nod to the contemporary politics of the 1830s, the period of the “liberal revolution,” when the bourgeoisie attempted to curb the power of King Louis Philippe.

Fiery Figaro

McVicar doesn’t realize the power structures with enough accuracy, however. Figaro talks to Almaviva with too much fiery self-confidence, his fiancee Susanna is notably unservile with her mistress, and many of the other servants seem too ready to flout their master’s authority. The lack of deference lessens the fundamental conflict of their situation and lowers the stakes that everyone is playing for.

The context may be woolly, though the performances make up for it. Erwin Schrott (Figaro) has a thrilling, resonant voice, and Miah Persson (Susanna) floats her final aria “Deh vieni, non tardar” with exquisite beauty. They’re both also talented and lively actors. Perhaps too lively sometimes, and too anxious to fill every moment with business, but they’re sure to relax into their roles after first-night jitters are out of the way.

Drunken Cherubino

Gerald Finley is vocally and theatrically outstanding as Almaviva, and gives a fierce center to the character’s pride and arrogance. Young mezzo Rinat Shaham makes a memorable debut as the hormonally charged pageboy Cherubino. Her drunken turn in Act Four is a delight, and her deliberately awkward performance of “Voi che sapete” is charming.

Dorothea Roschmann occasionally struggles with the difficult, long phrases of Countess Almaviva, yet Antonio Pappano’s conducting is so fresh and plastic you can almost touch it.»

Le Nozze di Figaro – How to arrange a happy marriage

by Anthony Holden (The Observer)

«Napolean 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 leave 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.

The sexual politics of Mozart’s masterpiece shine dimly through a pre-Valentine’s Day love letter from British composer Mark-Antony Turnage to his fiancee, given its world premiere by the London Philharmonic Orchestra under Marin Alsop in the reborn Queen Elizabeth Hall. There was almost as much brassy turbulence as shadowy string seduction in his jazzy 10-minute Hidden Love Song, book-ended by a ticking clock as ominous as inviting.

Turnage’s elegant if slight billet-doux, an aria for soprano saxophone and chamber orchestra played with refined gusto by soloist Martin Robertson, had the misfortune to be buried in a vast, perhaps too ambitious programme of 20th-century works. It began at its best, with a revelatory reading of Eric Satie’s witty ballet, Parade, complete with siren, lottery wheel, typewriter, bottles and gunshots. No wonder this was the work that moved Guillaume Apollinaire to coin the term ‘Surrealism’.

By the time the stage had been rearranged between pieces, each introduced with a few chosen phrases and musical examples from the genial Alsop, Thomas Ades’s chamber symphony (written when he was a 19-year-old student) and poker-playing Igor Stravinsky’s Jeu de Cartes filled out a programme in themselves. But there was still James Macmillan’s Confession of Isobel Gowdie to come after the Turnage.

A packed house of LPO loyalists was thus treated to handsome value for money in rarefied repertoire giving every department of this fine orchestra the chance to parade its skills under a modern master. The Bournemouth Symphony continues to flourish under Alsop’s lively leadership, but it is our loss that it is Baltimore, rather than Britain, that has given this meticulous maestro her due place in musical history as the first female conductor of a major international orchestra.»

Le Nozze di Figaro – Hear those hormones rage

by Edward Seckerson (The Independent)

«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.»

Le Nozze di Figaro – A handsome dog, and some old tricks

by Rupert Christiansen (Telegraph)

«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.»

Le Nozze di Figaro

by Dominic McHugh (MusicOMH)

«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, making 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.»

Le Nozze di Figaro

by Tim Ashley (The Guardian)

«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.»

Le Nozze di Figaro – Cleverness with a hole in it

by Andrew Clark (Financial Times)

«No one could possibly object. The Royal Opera’s new Figaro, directed by David McVicar, looks good and sounds good. The set-changes are breathtakingly clever. The costumes seem vaguely in period (1820s actually). The conducting is fluent, the casting strong. Everyone can go home satisfied, then, can’t they? Not really. There is a hole at the heart of this Figaro, a gaping void of ideas, a mentality that puts surface-dressing above interpretation. We get no flavour of why the work had such incendiary implications for its day, or what it might say to us now. What Covent Garden is marketing here is reproduction opera.

When you think of Mc-Vicar’s Idomeneo in Glasgow all those years ago, when he first made his name, you wonder where the simplicity has gone, why he no longer engages with the core of the material, what can have diluted an imagination that once envisioned Mozart afresh.

The stagecraft has certainly matured. McVicar fills the breadth and depth of Tanya McCallin’s ancien régime sets with consummate skill. The comedy is intelligently observed and characters establish themselves quickly. There is a large cast of extras, all meaningfully employed – not least in the overture, during which the servants open up a believably distressed Almaviva chateau at the start of what Beaumarchais called La folle journée (the crazy day).

That cycle of morning-to-night reaches its climax in a garden scene that starts with one of McCallin’s magical stage-transformations and ends with all the twists and turns believably resolved. Meanwhile the opera’s explosive brew of power politics, social politics and sexual politics lies tantalisingly beyond reach, as McVicar’s lapses of taste and style accumulate: the servants greet their master with a printed banner, the Count slaps the Countess, Susanna and Marcellina have a public scrap. A society of dissolving class divisions? Why McVicar moves the period forward 30 years to Restoration France is anyone’s guess. He is fast becomingto the 2000s what Elijah Moshinsky was in the1990s: a purveyor ofbankable, risk-free opera to the establishment.

The balance of power on stage is evenly divided between Erwin Schrott’s Figaro and Gerald Finley’s Count. I would find it hard to imagine either role more engagingly sung. Schrott has something of the young Terfel about him – but is sexier, more elegant, with forebodings of Don Giovanni. Finley is a titanic presence and a true Mozart stylist. Miah Persson convinces us that Susanna does indeed have all the cards in her hand, while Rinat Shaham is a suitably cheeky Cherubino. Philip Langridge’s wickedly foppish Basilio earns his act four aria. The one dis-appointment is Dorothea Röschmann’s frumpish Countess.

Antonio Pappano, conducting, proves himself a winning Mozartian: there is not a single longueur and no hint of big-house Mozart. Orchestral timbres are up-to-the-minute, and Pappano himself plays the harpsichord continuo. The makings of a memorable 250th anniversary tribute are here. The eyes have it, but not the mind or the heart.»

Le Nozze di Figaro

by Richard Morrison (TimesOnline)

«Few of the trillion Mozart celebrations this year will match David McVicar’s new Royal Opera staging of Figaro for insight or passion. It isn’t a perfect show. Act IV sags, and seems untidily staged in comparison with the meticulously observed domestic warfare that has gone before. Dorothea Röschmann sings the Countess’s despairing arias with touching intensity, but also intermittent waywardness.

And the Figaro — the young, brazen and boundlessly self-confident Uruguayan Erwin Schrott — is allowed some shameless mugging. The ego has definitely landed when he’s on stage. But McVicar and his cast latch on to something so profound and truthful about human nature that these faults seem inconsequential.

The action is updated to the 1830s. That is vital: the servants can be far less deferential. And in Tanya McCallin’s vast chateau set, servants are everywhere: spying, overhearing, conspiring — in fact, more or less running this enclosed world from the overture’s first bars. It’s Gosford Park — the Musical.

Faced with this lot, Gerald Finley’s terrific Count is like a cornered dinosaur who senses the impending Ice Age but can do nothing except seethe impotently. Yet how magnificently he does seethe! I have rarely seen a Count who radiates so much pent-up anger, frustration and, at one truly shocking moment, physical brutality.

By their reactions to this raging aristocratic bull the other characters are defined. Figaro’s defiance seems all the more insouciant. There’s a spine-chilling moment when the two seem about to head-butt each other, like street thugs. Röschmann’s Countess, on the other hand, appears (and sounds) permanently on the verge of a nervous breakdown — a woman wrecked by humiliation, clutching at straws. Which makes her reconciliation with the Count even more fragile. Only the transcendental tenderness of Mozart’s music gives us hope that such a rapprochement is sustainable.

The other outstanding performance is from the young Swede Miah Persson, who looks gorgeous as Susanna (no wonder that neither Count nor Figaro can keep their paws off her) and sings with impeccable grace. In Deh, vieni 2,000 people scarcely dared breathe.

Rinat Shaham catches Cherubino’s adolescent gawkiness well, though her future probably doesn’t lie in impersonating boys. And Philip Langridge is superb playing Don Basilio as an uptight old queen. It is as if his Death in Venice Aschenbach has wandered into the wrong opera.

In the pit, Antonio Pappano keeps the orchestral sound spruce and springy. It’s almost too self-effacing in places: slight ensemble lapses suggest that singers can’t always hear instruments. Pappano should trust his instincts, and give his music more Romantic weight and colour. That would better complement this fascinatingly nuanced production.»

Le Nozze di Figaro

by Hairy McMungo (Primi Divi)

«From now on, Hairy McMungo wants to do things a bit differently. It’s going to take a lot of planning and organisation but these are areas in which a Scotsman always excels. As long as he’s not trying to organise difficult things like paying bills that is. Although Hairy McMungo obviously doesn’t read other people’s reviews before he writes his (p)review, the reviews do exist. Not that anyone has doubted Hairy McMungo’s integrity but Hairy thinks his (p)reviews might have more effect if they are posted before opening night, before anyone has seen it. Maybe some people might think Hairy McMungo has been to rehearsals and that’s how he knows but Hairy would just like to say he doesn’t go to rehearsals. They can be free but only if he pays about £100 a year. Which doesn’t really count as free to Hairy McMungo,

Speaking of free operas, there’s one on at the Royal College of Music soon. Hairy has his ticket and he might or might not be (p)reviewing it properly in the near future but since those of you reading this review are likely to be Mozart fans he thought you might like to know about it now. It’s Apollo et Hyacinthus so it’s probably one you’ve never seen before and there’s a Scotsman in it.

But getting back to the (p)review in hand, Le nozze di Figaro is special for several reasons although it doesn’t have a Scotsman in it but it will in the revival so you might want to wait until then if you’d like to save your Money and just see it once. It’s special because it’s the ROH’s first new production of 2006 and it’s their first Mozart production of Mozart’s anniversary year. It’s also part of the Beaumarchais series which began with that very odd Il barbiere di Siviglia (and Hairy does wish someone would write a decent version of the third in the trilogy, if no-one does it soon he might just write one himself set in a Scottish distillery and make it all about haggis hunting).

The new Le nozze di Figaro is a brilliantly sane new production directed by Scotsman David McVicar. Hairy McMungo feels very strongly that a production of Le nozze di Figaro needs as much sanity as possible because there’s so much madness in the plot. It’s one of the best operas in the world when you know what’s going on but it’s completely incomprehensible when you don’t. Hairy does know the opera backwards of course but even he was confused by the recent attempts by Glyndebourne on Tour and Garsington.

Erwin Schrott, who had a great success at the ROH as Leporello two and a half years ago, returns as Figaro. He has lots of physical energy, even when he’s still and if you heard the rumours Hairy McMungo heard about the beginning of the rehearsal period you’d have trouble believing them. He also has a good voice and timing of almost Highland perfection and he’s clearly a great match for Susanna even though she’s going to be the one wearing the breeches in this marriage. She was right to choose him over the Count.

Not that there’s anything wrong with the Count but he is a bit of a jessie. Gerald Finley clearly relishes playing the baddy but he’s not a baddy you hate. Everything goes wrong for him and it’s impossible not to laugh. Hairy was surprised to hear that Finley actually prefers the Count to Figaro, as the second role suits him so well but he is no less ideal for the Count. His singing could only be better if you added a Scottish burr.

Susanna is sung by Miah Persson, who is fairly attractive considering she wasn’t born in Scotland and much too good at putting men in their places. Hairy can’t quite understand how the Count dared to try it on with her, or how he dared to be unfaithful to Dorothea Roschmann’s lovely but not exactly vulnerable Countess. Her arias are touching but it’s very clear she’s going to win in the end. Hairy liked the end. He always likes to see the baritones on their knees.

Sophie Koch’s voice is on the heavy side for Cherubino but she’s wonderfully boyish and Graciela Araya and Jonathan Veira seem to enjoy themselves as Marcellina and Bartolo. Hairy McMungo can’t bring himself to be nice about Philip Langridge because he read an interview with Langridge in which he was complaining about how boring it was to sing Don Basilio. This makes Hairy McMungo cross as he would be happy to sing a wonderful role like Basilio. (Not for free though, although he doesn’t charge his new baby diva Caledonia when he sings it to her, not even when he does the actions.) You couldn’t tell how much Langridge hated being there but Hairy still hasn’t forgiven him. And as for Ian Bostridge saying Don Ottavio is boring which Hairy read about on the same day, well Hairy McMungo always thought Bostridge was an alien. He looks like the Mekon anyway.

The smaller roles were all brilliantly sung. Jeremy White got full comic worth out of Antonio and Ana James sang Barbarina’s aria beautifully although she didn’t show a great deal of interest in either Cherubino or the Count. Not that Hairy McMungo blames her. He wouldn’t either. Francis Egerton was a good Don Curzio, but you need a Scotsman to do the stutter really well. Not that Scotsmen stutter as a rule but it is something that happens to Hairy sometimes when he’s been drinking whisky so it is quite a familiar feeling to a Scot.»

And yet another review by Cunning Little Vixen (Primi Divi)…

«When the first half of an opera is ninety-seven minutes long, you usually know all about it long before that amount of time has elapsed. The arrival of the interval in Le nozze di Figaro, however, is more likely to provoke cries of: “The interval already?!”. David McVicar’s new Figaro at the ROH gives you the additional conviction that had cast decided to encore the whole of the first two acts (and the final two, for that matter), there would only have been more cheers.

The set doesn’t really appeal to me, but the performances are of such towering magnificence, that the set fades into the background. McVicar’s dirty set used in the first act might grow on me in time, but, at the moment, it seems at odds with the sparkling comedy. Il pino should not have seats and dressing room screens in, and the drunken Cherubino seems an unnecessary invention. The second half of Act Four is overflowing with comedy as it is, and Cherubino is more than capable of making passes at women without the stimulus of alcohol. However, the Countess’ bedroom is beautiful, and the precision in the physical direction offers almost continuous brilliance.

It is difficult to imagine a cast more perfect. Perhaps a perfect cast would have included a Marcellina who looked old enough to be Figaro’s mother – although she would ideally have the acting skills and the vocal and physical beauty of Graciela Araya, who, youthful as Erwin Schrott is, doesn’t look any older than her son. The perfect cast might also have included a Cherubino who seemed more vocally comfortable with the role than Rinat Shaham, but not many singers could beat her wonderful picture of gawky adolescence.

In the title role, Erwin is delightfully energetic and revelling in the comedy, but also very moving when he needs to be, and has a particularly nice line in looking pathetic. He’s also oozing with sex appeal, which is always highly acceptable. His Susanna is Miah Persson, gorgeous in both looks and voice. She was deliciously witty, with a sneaky way of charming your socks off (and probably the rest of your clothes) whilst still retaining an absolutely adorable innocence. I don’t blame the Count at all.

Speaking of the Count, Gerald Finley really is a revelation. When Gerald declared that he’d rather sing the Count than Figaro, I have to admit it, I thought he might be going prematurely senile. The Count is a good character, but Figaro runs rings around him literally and figuratively in intelligence, wit and energy, not to mention having better music. Right? Wrong. Gerald shows there was far more to the character than I ever suspected. His Count is a vicious, violent and a very naughty man (also not lacking in sex appeal) but somehow he is also a very pathetic and vulnerable man, who tries so hard to stay in control but somehow always ends up a complete, humiliated mess. It happened time and again throughout the opera, and even though I laughed at the Count every time, I did kind of want to give him a hug too. (Although I’d need to keep a very stern eye on where he put his hands.)

With such an unusually sympathetic Count, the role of the Countess becomes even more difficult, especially since, in this production, the Count definitely has good reason to worry about his wife’s relations with Cherubino. But nothing seemed too big a challenge for Dorothea Roschmann. Although only recently graduated from Susanna to the Countess, she is vocally ideal for the role: thrillingly warm in tone with top notes to make you catch your breath (and I’m not usually a top note sort of person). Her acting is equally effective: as well as offering two thoroughly moving arias, there was enough girlish hope in them to reconcile her with the giggling young girl who participates so enthusiastically in Susanna’s and Figaro’s plans.

The production also has an Antonio and Barbarina, who, in addition to being vividly characterised individually, have a very realistic onstage rapport. Jeremy White loses none of Antonio’s comedy by singing beautifully, and Ana James, as a sweet and perpetually smiling Barbarina, sounds as though she would not disappoint if she had to take over the role she was covering: Susanna. Philip Langridge (great fun as Don Basilio) and Graciela Araya gave welcome renditions of their rarely-performed arias, each winning enthusiastic and well-deserved applauses. And didn’t slow the action down one bit. Jonathan Veira’s Bartolo, with roving hands to compete with the Count’s, also gave a very strong performance: McVicar’s decition to let him stay in the room for Susanna and Marcellina’s first bitch fight was inspired. Francis Egerton is an unusually dignified but still very enjoyable Don Curzio, and the ROH Chorus provided a lovely pair of Bridesmaids in Glenys Groves and Kate McCarney. Antonio Pappano conducts a ROH orchestra which almost seems to be making jokes of its own.

It really was perfect – but don’t rush out and buy tickets until I’ve had a chance to buy some more for myself.»

Le Nozze di Figaro

by Geraldine Curtis (Mad Musings of Me)

«It is my favourite opera of all, and has only gone up in my estimation as a result of this performance. Although it and the play it was based on were written in the 1780s, it was updated to the 1820s, and I know that because it said so in the newspapers. I didn’t read the programme notes beforehand (except for looking at the pictures) and as I’m not an expert in the subtle differences in interior and clothing design, I would not have known, nor cared. And I don’t think it made one iota of difference.

Overall, I thought that the orchestral playing, the singing, the character depiction, the sets and the production were separately and together, first rate. My main criticism would be the interpolation of Bach’s Toccata and a loud “hello” into the beginning of Voi che sapete. People who not only let their mobiles ring, but answer them “I’m in the opera” should be forcibly ejected from the auditorium and barred for a year. A second offence would involve stocks and pillories. When practically the entire amphitheatre is saying “shush”, there is, in my view, an argument for restarting the intro to the aria.

One of my reasons for liking it is that however many times I see or hear it, I find something new in the story or music or both. However good the principals were, and they were, one of the best touches was the servants listening in at the door to all the intrigues.

Many parts of it were very funny, especially the almost farcical quality of the two scenes where Cherubino is hiding first in Susanna’s bedroom, and then in the Countess’s bedroom. And the Final Act, in the garden, when it seems that half the cast are running around trying to hide from each other. There were excellent bits all the way through; of course, the director must get a large part of credit for this, but there would be little point in planning clever moves without intelligent acting-singers to act them out.

The cast was of a very high standard. As soon as the ROH announced the new season last Spring, and I saw Nozze di Figaro, my heart beat a little faster, and when I saw “Gerald Finley” as the Count it beat even faster (and I’ve become an even bigger fan of his since last Spring!). I hadn’t heard any of the rest of the principals, and, in some cases, hadn’t even heard of them. And then when smaller parts are taken by the likes of Philip Langridge, who is, presumably winding down his career in style, you know that’s luxury casting…!

I thought Gerald Finley was marvellous; everytime I see him I like him even more. He has a gorgeous voice, and a wonderful stage presence. He played the Count as one could imagine Timothy West playing him, and was very funny. Quite frighteningly physical at times.

Miah Persson was outstanding as Susanna and she with the lovely Erwin Schrott as Figaro had me convinced that they were a couple in love, which doesn’t always come across in every production. I had read that Erwin took the recitative secco as spoken narrative, and, I have to say, reading about it, I was not sure. And indeed, in the first excerpt, I was still not sure. But then I began to realise, it really worked. And Erwin is most definitely a voice I would like to hear again, with an excellent stage presence (the internet says he’s due to play Don Giovanni at Covent Garden in the future).

I thought Dorothea Röschmann was good as the Countess, although I will say that I am not a great soprano fan and there were some parts of her voice, especially up at the top that were not especially to my liking. I think Rinat Shaham was a fine Cherubino.

I’m trying to work out which was my favourite bit musically. There are so many great arias, duets, and ensemble pieces, it’s impossible to single one out. And then, when you think you’ve had just too much in the way of beautiful singing, there comes these amazingly gorgeous strains from the orchestra.

Perhaps I will go along with Rob’s comment to Anna, about the last couple of minutes, as the Count seeks the Countess’s pardon, and the story ends happily*, with all singing and the house lights rising to include the audience in the general happiness.

One man on the end of myrow rose to leave as that final bit began. I cannot for the life of me begin to understand why anybody would do that. Yes, he was infirm and walking with a stick, but I could never contemplate leaving just before the grand final. Sure, leave as soon as the final note sounds. Jimmy commented “Remind me never to get old” (I said if he was serious, it could be arranged…)

Overall an excellent performance of a beautiful opera. It’s my first opera of the year but I’m already thinking that it will be a contender for my Top 10 of 2006. If it doesn’t make the final cut, it will be because 2006 will have turned out to be an amazingly good year…!

* although in Part 3 of the trilogy, the Countess ends up having a child outside of wedlock with Cherubino.»