[Met Performance] CID:315170



Le Nozze di Figaro
Metropolitan Opera House, Mon, January 24, 1994




Le Nozze di Figaro (337)
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart | Lorenzo Da Ponte
Figaro
James Morris

Susanna
Ruth Ann Swenson

Count Almaviva
Dwayne Croft

Countess Almaviva
Helen Donath

Cherubino
Jane Bunnell

Dr. Bartolo
Fran?ois Loup

Marcellina
Judith Christin

Don Basilio
Michel S?n?chal

Antonio
James Courtney

Barbarina
Korliss Uecker

Don Curzio
Andrea Velis


Conductor
Julius Rudel


Production
Jean-Pierre Ponnelle

Lighting Designer
Gil Wechsler

Stage Director
Lesley Koenig





Le Nozze di Figaro received ten performances this season.

FUNDING:
Revival a gift of Mercedes-Benz of North America

Review 1:

Review of Allan Kozinn in The New York Times
Figaro Returns With His Bag of Tricks

Mozart and Da Ponte gave ?Nozz di Figaro" a bit of everything: comic antics and deeply moving soliloquies, conspiracies that backfire and others that succeed, if only by accident; sexual tensions and passions that do their best to run wild, yet that eventually give way to the graceful veneer of classical decorum. There is even subversive social comment in the uneasily causal relationship between the Count and his retainers. Add to that some top-drawer Mozart, with hardly a wasted gesture in either the vocal or the orchestral writing, and you have a work that should be a high point of the opera season.


Those considerable joys are tempered at the Metropolitan Opera, where Figaro and his friends enact their drama in the resolutely ugly sets that Jean-Pierre Ponnelle designed in 1985. When the production returned to the house on Monday evening, an interestingly balanced cast and astute conducting by Julius Rudel afforded ample musical pleasures. But it was difficult to avoid either the distractions of the production or, on a cheerier note, the thought that each season carries its crumbling pillars and archways, its unrealistically placed portals and its drab costumes closer to the trash heap.


In recent years, the production has been restaged by Lesley Koenig, who retained some of Ponnelle's peculiar notions and added new ones of her own. Some are not so troubling: the rioting servants occasionally revealed when doors open are harmless enough. And raising the house lights to allow Figaro to take his grievances in "Aprite un pia" directly to the audience is a nice touch, reminiscent of Papageno's address to listeners in"Die Zauberfl?te.? But having the peasants contemptuously throw flowers and shredded musical manuscripts at the Count after the first-act chorus is taking the work's rebellious undercurrent too far, and letting Antonio belch in the Count's face is a cheap gag, one of several.


The most pointless of these touches is the second-act scene in which Cherubino undresses behind a screen. Susanna and the Countess are supposed to dress him as a girl at this point, but at the Met they merely ogle Cherubino for a moment and he gets back into his own clothing.


At least the musical values are preserved. James Morris, who in recent years has been a stunning Wotan, also proves to be an amusing, vocally fresh Figaro. His Susanna, Ruth Ann Swenson, seemed oddly taciturn at first, but she warmed to the role's comic aspects and gave a splendid account of its most introspective moment, "Deh vieni non tardar." She produces a lovely sound: clear-textured, velvety and well projected.


Jane Bunnell's Cherubino was suitably mischievous, and sung with assurance. Helen Donath, who has sung Susanna in the house, was an unusually temperamental, flirtatious Countess, in some ways more akin to the Rosina of Rossini's "Barbiere di Siviglia" than to Mozart's Countess as she is normally portrayed. Still, she sang her two soulful arias with dignity, and was a commanding presence in the final scene. Dwayne Croft was a vocally solid Almaviva, but he played the Count Almaviva as likable and at times frustrated, skimping on the character's darker and more impetuous side.


There were also generally worthy contributions from Judith Christin (Marcellina), Francois Loup (Bartolo), James Courtney (Antonio) and Korliss Uecker, who brought a bigger and more colorful voice to Barberina's last-act aria than one often hears. Mr. Rudel's conducting was magical: he shaped even the most innocuous accompanimental and punctuating figures with great care, making the orchestra into one of the players in the drama. Steven Eldredge's colorful harpsichord playing with its thematic reprises, was similarly effective.



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