Review: Le nozze di Figaro – Glyndebourne Festival

A sultry summer evening, an antique palacio in Seville, Mozart’s overture and colourful preparations for a festival – what better way to warm up an audience? Then the Count and Countess entered in a bright red sports-car. We almost cheered!

This production delights from the start, gathering genuinely funny business from its aristocratic Andalucían sets and stylish late 1960s’ costumes. Setting the story in Franco’s Spain subtly added poignancy to the upstairs/downstairs conflict. The brisk pace and excellent stagecraft serve Da Ponte’s witty libretto well and the very modern supertitles allow everyone to share in the jokes. To all this add the excellent Mozart performances of the singers, continuo and orchestra.

This is naturally where Glyndebourne excels, each number being lovingly delivered under the baton of Robin Ticciati, who kept the action going and occasionally drove the music through breaking applause. He actually began the second half abruptly before the audience had settled. This made the few moments of calm even more precious. The Countess’s plaints, the Count’s blustering, Cherubino’s chirruping were exactly right, but even more exciting was the busy chatter led by Susanna and Figaro. A fully cohesive ensemble is the joy of this opera and any unexpected events (a key that just would not remain in its lock, or a bridal veil that seemed to get knotted) were worked into the business flawlessly. Throughout, there were spontaneous guffaws rather than the polite laughter of folk who understand the Italian, and that is just as it should be.

Glyndebourne, 5 July 2012
Rating:
Andrew Connal