The Marriage of Figaro

06 Feb-24 Mar ,

Theatre reviews

Opera Australia brings on Benno with astounding results

First published on 1 Sep 2011. Updated on 25 Mar 2012.

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The fear of change, as well as change itself, is one of the most powerful motivators in humanity. And this is what Benedict Andrews’s production of The Marriage of Figaro concerns itself with, as the characters scored by Mozart constantly reposition themselves to ensure their primacy when the frantic storm is subdued.

Ralph Myers’s set, in keeping with this theme, is in itself a marvel of perpetual reinvention. A minimalist white room barricaded by clothes racks stuffed with maid’s uniforms is revealed during the overture, as the staff of the Count’s household trickle into the room to start their working day. Then, as the plot chugs along faster than the few disgruntled patrons leaving the theatre during the interval (there were boos to be heard), the set refreshes itself, the wall on the right sliding across to the left as the new room is dragged into focus like film in a camera. This effect is dispensed with after the interval, with the room instead being drawn backwards and extended in depth, as the chorus dismantles the reception-room tables of Act III, leaving behind haphazard chairs ready to be transformed into an arena for the opera’s climax.

Andrews, with an English translation by Jeremy Sams, has ensured that there is as much physical comedy as verbal. Greedy Bartolo (Conal Coad) needs a walker to move around and an oxygen tank nearby; the lascivious Count (Michael Lewis) comes home from the hunt to confront his wife, dragging the bloodied corpse of a stag on stage; the hump-everything-that-moves Cherubino (Dominica Matthews) hides himself behind a white sheet backed against the wall; and when the drunk gardener, Antonio, barges in to complain about the man who jumped from a window to ruin his geraniums, maids follow with mop and bucket, brushing his footprints before his feet have even left the ground.

Yet for all its comedy this is a production that is throbbing with love, as Figaro (played and sung superbly by Joshua Bloom) tries to stay one step ahead of the Count as he manoeuvres towards his wedding with Susanna (Taryn Fiebig). The singing is all top-notch, with Bloom coming into his own in the fourth act, and the Countess (Elvira Fatykhova) particularly beguiling throughout, while Simon Hewett conducts with great assuredness. This is opera at its most modern, relevant, humorous, and touching.

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Words by Tomas Boot