The Marriage of Figaro

A Blinder

The Marriage of Figaro

by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, libretto by Lorenzo da Ponte

English National Opera at the London Coliseum until 22^nd February

Review by Mark Aspen

If you were hoping to see a traditional Mozart offering, or indeed the spectacle of the opera, you might feel short-changed by director Joe Hill-Gibbins’ “Figaro for today”.   But if you are looking for a less superficial Mozart, then in the simplicity and analytical approach of his stripped-back Marriage of Figaro,it will be enriching. 

The London opening of Hill-Gibbins’ The Marriage of Figaro was suddenly truncated after one day in March 2020 by the sudden severity of the Covid lock-downs.  It had had a brief pre-run at the Oper Wuppertal the previous year, but now returns to the Coliseum with some of the original cast. 

The set, by Johannes Schütz, is at first quite startling, a blindingly brilliant white box suspended in the proscenium arch, with four almost invisibly white doors.   During the overture pre-set, there is much activity as all the cast open and close the doors, revealing, hiding and moving between them.   What does this inform?  Well, clearly it establishes The Marriage of Figaro as a farce.  More importantly it introduces the style and conventions of the piece.  The physicality of the piece is evident and the movement choreography becomes another language, telling the story alongside the language of the music and of the libretto.  Jenny Ogilvie has proved herself to be an eminent movement specialist, and here has worked intensively in association with the director.  Characters may move or freeze; they may flatten themselves against the wall; they may dance or collapse.  It certainly ascertains that a character’s presence on stage may be reality or may be in our imagination, or more likely in the (febrile) imagination of another protagonist.   

The plain white surfaces of the set act as a blank canvas for Matthew Richardson to indulge his art of theatrical lighting.  Colour coding feelings: red light for passion, green light for jealousy, blue light for melancholy, adds yet another language, the language of emotions.  Bring in the almost Hitchcock-ian use of shadow and there is a deeper psychological layer.

The story, originally told by Pierre Beaumarchais in his novel La folle journée of the philandering Count Almaviva and his retinue and household, was initially seen as being very subversive, the aristocratic count being outwitted by the guile of his servant Figaro and the women in the court.  However, Hill-Gibbins’ Marriage of Figaro steers away from the political and sociological aspects of class warfare, to home in on the emotional aspects of human feelings. 

The Marriage of Figaro is motored by the full range of meanings of love, from devotion and romance to flirtation and lust.  Mozart knew that sex causes great joy, yet great anguish.  Its outcomes may be fun (epitomised by Cherubino) or distress (epitomised by Rosina), and Mozart’s mastery is in juxtaposing opera buffo against opera seria.  We can laugh or we can cry.  Hill-Gibbins and Ogilvie certainly have fun, but do not lose the pain in the piece.  However, occasionally it seems like these two aspects bifurcate the opera into separate styles.

Within this range of charged emotional attachments, eventually four pairs of characters become four couples, each exhibiting the effect of experience on their perception of love.  The youngest are the randy Cherubino and the not-quite-so-innocent Barbarina, and the oldest, the reconciled Dr Bartolo and the matronly Marcellina.    Figaro and Count Almaviva are about the same age, but Almaviva’s marriage to Rosina has in his eyes become jaded, whereas as Figaro and his fiancée Susanna sparkle with the joy of a couple due to marry that day.

Lyric mezzo Hanna Hipp plays Cherubino with a cheeky insouciance.   Cherubino is a teenager all fired up with fresh overbrimming testosterone, who’s gagging to have it off with any female.  It is fortunate that the older ladies all think it funny and tease him rotten.  He wears an Hawaiian shirt to impress and Hipp plays his cockiness convincingly.  Sadly though she gets rather crowded out of her iconic Voi che sapete (probably the best know aria of the opera).  The teasing here though is a bit overdone as the piece becomes lost in the joshing of Susanna and Rosina, who becoming a backing group disco-dancing along and putting a heavy beat on this aria that should focus on Cherubino’s adolescent yearnings.   

There is, in contrast to Cherubino’s openness, a dark side to Quattlebaum’s sexually predatory Count, seeking to assert his droit du seigneur, in spite of his public renouncement of his supposed feudal right to deflower any female subject on her wedding night.  American bass-baritone Cody Quattlebaum, however, makes him more than merely two-dimensional.  In his introspective aria at the top of Act Three, he becomes almost a subject of empathy before shattering it with his lascivious intentions.  He is quite a hipster with his jaunty top-knot, but when he releases his hair the wild man emerges.

It is the count who makes the most of all these opening and closing doors.  Implausibly, he never notices his quarry “hidden” behind an open door, or it seems even spread-eagled against a wall, but one suspends disbelieve in the knock-about of farce.  And when his imagination opens a door, behind it he sees couples (at least) practising more sexual positions than in the Karma Sutra.     

Our Figaro, David Ireland has a more sanguine approach than most, although Figaro’s frustration is patently obvious.    Ireland’s gymnastic bass-baritone is not as tested as it could be in this production.  Figaro’s well-known cavatina se vuol ballare, where he plans to outwit the Count, “if you want to dance …” doesn’t have the same patter quality in Jeremy Sams’ English translation.  Sams’ version, however, does have a witty sparkle with its modern idioms.  It seems to stray away from the Da Ponte original, but irons out a lot of the plot on the way.

Soprano Mary Bevan’s spirited Suzanna brings a bright and lively presence as Figaro’s fiancée and the prime target of the Count’s lust.  She is by no means a push-over and Beavan’s sweet tone gives the role a springy resilience. 

Dr Bartolo and Marcellina are in very secure hands with acclaimed Welsh singers, bass baritone Neal Davies and Grammy winner soprano Rebecca Evans, who played the same role at Covent Garden in the autumn.  They have great fun as the mature couple who transmogrify from conspiratorial schemers to doting proprietorial parents over the short course of the opera.

Also having great fun as a sleazy and slightly camp Don Basillo is Australian tenor Hubert Francis, who doubles as a stuttering Don Curzio, the lawyer.   His lavender shirt has a whiff of dodgy dandyism.  Indeed, all costume designer Astrid Klein’s colourful creations say something about their characters, Cherubino’s adolescent primary colours, Figaro’s correctly buttoned suit, Suzanna’s business-like maid’s uniform.

And then there is the gorgeous silk gown of Rosina, Countess Almaviva.  Elegantly statuesque, Nardus Williams’ Countess is the standout performance in this opera.  Her lament for the loss of her husband’s love, porgi amor, is transfixing and touching, and later in Act Three, when all alone she reflects on the loss of her happiness and those beautiful moments, dove sono, the poignant beauty of her sustained splendid soprano rings out. 

It is in these reflective moments that there is a respite from the madcap whirligig of this highly physical production.  They give chance for Mozart’s music to speak; and conductor Ainārs Rubiķis, whose award-recognised skills are largely heard in a Tyrolean setting, here makes his ENO debut.  He does have the ENO Orchestra talking Mozart, in a positive and supportive soundscape.  It also manages to take in the opening and closing of all those doors, which thankfully are largely in time with the music, additional percussion that Mozart didn’t envision.

A part that often gets overlooked is that of Antonio, the Count’s Gardener.  Trevor Eliot Bowes, whose rich bass never fails to impress, gives a sensible interpretation of the affronted gardener.  It a production where it could be a slapstick part, he gives a measured performance, instead of the usual overdone drunkenness, which could anyway just be a slur as an excuse for Figaro and co’s  shenanigans.

In the last two acts, the overwhelming dazzling box in which hitherto most of action has been contained is raised, to reveal a lot of busy-ness in the semi-darkness underneath.  It gives an upstairs-downstairs effect, of others skivvying for the Count, but the trucked staircase is often moved, seemingly trapping the protagonists in the room(s) above.  The big but is that it pulls the focus at crucial moments in the plot. 

In the later scenes the set is also flown upstage.  But not enough.  When the peasants come in the sing the Count’s praises, and singing their hearts out, from the dress circle we see the incomparable ENO chorus beheaded!  Why, oh why, can’t directors walk around the auditorium when rehearsing?   Poor sightlines seem to be a recurring fault with ENO productions. 

It is in these concluding scenes that the role of Barbarina, Antoio’s daughter and Suzanna’s young cousin, comes to the fore.  It is Barbarina who is the most gutsy character in standing up to the Count, shaming him into giving his permission for her to marry Cherubino.  However, in the garden scene her aria, l’ho perduta, hints at the cost for this permission.  Soprano Ava Dodd excels in the role of Barbarina, portraying all her sweetness and vulnerability against her native deviousness.  In this production it is quite clear what Barbarina has lost.  Dodd’s wonderful clear bell-like rendition of Barbarina’s plaintive regret is a gem.

Hill-Gibbins’ stylised Marriage of Figaro certainly achieves what it sets out to do, turn the focus onto the human strengths and failings, the emotions of the characters, rather than a polemic about class, power or Enlightenment ideals.  It brings out the farce, the humour, the sexiness of the piece.  But it does feel over-tricksy and it feels denuded.  If you have seen many other productions of The Marriage of Figaro, and only if, do go to see this one.  It is fun, fast … and frustrating.

Mark Aspen, February 2025

Photography by Zoe Martin