Review: Opera Carolina's 'The Marriage of Figaro'

Thalia, the muse of comedy, and the Angel of Mercy were in rare accord as they stood over the genesis of The Marriage of Figaro. They allowed Lorenzo Da Ponte, Mozart's librettist, to persuade the Emperor Joseph to permit a play banned as subversive to be staged as an opera. And to Mozart, who had already achieved miracles in Idomeneo and Die Entfuhrung Aus Dem Serail, an opera seria and a German comedy respectively, they gave a librettist who understood the depth and range of his ambitions. These were to create a psychological verisimilitude previously unknown in opera, and to have the action unfold almost seamlessly rather than halting in a succession of tableaux. In this, he succeeded. He also managed the greatest ensembles in opera, in which the divergent views of a septet and a sextet of people, the latter cunningly interrupted by choruses of secondary figures, confide their conflicting views to the audience, as if we have briefly entered the mind of an all-knowing Deity who listens with us. 

Add to this Mozart's uncanny gifts at characterization. He knows how to convey jealousy, envy, spite, malice, the barbed exchange of two rivals for the affection of a third, the woes of a loving heart with unparalleled insight, and with music as beautiful as ever has been written. In its management of simultaneous events, it surpasses everything written before it and anything after (excepting of course the two operas Mozart subsequently wrote with Da Ponte, Don Giovanni and Cosi Fan Tutti) until Verdi's late operas. Paradoxically, it recalls the great feats of timing in silent comedy, in Buster Keaton or Charlie Chaplin. Is it clear by now that I am talking of one of the very greatest works of art? 

I am always eager to hear it, because it can not be exhausted. 

Opera Carolinas' production turned out to be a feat of ingenuity of a sort. The sets were leased out and there were no funds available to rent others, so they put the orchestra onstage behind the proscenium, projected a few windows and later some fireworks on the scrims, and put the action up close, in costume. This might have been a staged oratorio, but was not thanks to the lively direction, the fleet conducting of James Meena, and a cast who could act as well as sing. 

Kristopher Irmiter and Anne-Carolyn Bird, Figaro and Susanna, surprised and delighted me with the quality of their performances. Irmiter has the right twinkle of malice for Figaro; he is good at conveying the shifts of mood without telegraphing them. Bird kept getting better and better until she became adorable. Ailyn Perez, the Countess-- who is the moral center of the opera--started uncertainly; her “Porgi Amor” seemed at once matronly and vocally insecure, but she warmed into the part, and her "Dove Sono” was beautifully sung--she is certainly someone to keep an eye on, potentially a great Countess given the opportunity. It is certainly not her fault that she is too young and beautiful to imagine being jilted. 

Kyle Pfortmiller has a nicely placed voice but lacked, except for a few fugitive instances, the menace of Count Almaviva. He seemed a lamb in wolf's clothing. Diane McEwen-Martin, who I am sure would be worth hearing in other contexts - she has a lovely voice and uses it well - was a ham-fisted Cherubino, misdirected and miscast. Cherubino is sexy role, an Amorino not a clown, but she was told to be a gawk. And the peruke she was made to wear had her looking like a Federalist. Both Bartolo and Marcellina - William Roberts and Stephanie Foley Davis - were convincing. 

Alas, there was about 25% too much mugging, telegraphing the punch lines, and occasional verismo touches, which, for example, suddenly made the first act encounter between the Count and Countess seem that of Scarpia and Tosca momentarily. This hamminess, in which Mozart's fine points are underlined in fluorescent marker with an occasional marginal comment such as "how true!" beside them, seriously undermined the merits of the production. The Marriage of Figaro is a comedy, not a farce, for all its Feydeau-like properties. And the consequence of this was that the moment when the Countess forgives the Count at the end, which lifts the whole work to a new sphere, was mistaken by audience members as more low humor. Thus at the very finish line was the race lost. Hoomis is obviously a talented director but he ought to have trusted Mozart, not to mention the intelligence of the audience.