La Nozze di Figaro
|
The Company
Photo by Robert Millard
|
By Michael Van Duzer
Over the past 30 years, stage directors have often looked to the roots of Le Nozze di Figaro for conceptual inspiration. Not to the roots of Mozart and da Ponte’s sublimely human and humane masterpiece, but to the source material—Beaumarchais’ “Le Marriage de Figaro.” The play’s fame and its quite probably overstated effect on an audience that would soon be engulfed in the French Revolution ushered in a series of overtly political interpretations of the opera.
For Opera Pacific’s new production, director Harry Silverstein has focused on the fact that both Beaumarchais and da Ponte chose to make their points with humor. By trusting in this, Silverstein has reclaimed Nozze as a delightfully nimble comedy that makes the libretto’s trenchant observations about class struggle with a guffaw rather than a grimace. In truth, this production elicits more true laughter than any in my experience.
Orange County favorite Kyle Ketelson returns as an exuberantly full-voiced Figaro. Possessed of a smoothly insinuating tone, he deftly manages to thwart his master’s schemes with his fiancée, Susanna. While Sari Gruber’s attractively sung Susanna allows him to think he’s doing it all on his own, there is a believable chemistry between the two that makes their incipient wedding as important to the audience as it is to them.
As the Count and Countess, the “upstairs” members of this household, Joshua Hopkins and last minute replacement Ellie Dehn sang with spirit and style. Although cast younger than usual, both made virtues out of their youth. Ms Dehn emphasized her musical agility and sense of fun, while Hopkins transformed the Count’s usual bluster into a very funny boyish petulance. Marie Lenormand was a charming, if not convincingly masculine Cherubino, who made the most of her stage time. As the de facto villains of the piece, Katherine Ciesinski, Jamie Offenbach and Scott Scully tore into their roles with an irresistible gusto that took their characters to the brink of caricature without ever going over.
The set, by Constantinos Kritikos, has seen better days. But I doubt it has hosted a stronger production of talented young singers. John DeMain conducted with the controlled grace that is the hallmark of Mozart.
Orange County Performing Arts Center January 18-23, 2005. Orange County Performing Arts Center, 600 Town Center Drive, Costa Mesa. 1-800-34 OPERA www.operapacific.org
|
