Scurrying from the start, but allowing the melodies to float effortlessly through, conductor Francesco Corti announces that the light of Scottish Opera’s new production of the Marriage of Figaro will be tempered with shade.
Following on from his 2007 production of Barber of Seville, Director Sir Thomas Allen ensures that the light is bright and clear in a bucolic harvest scene during the overture and into the opening act, where he has the protagonists flirting with their roles. Scottish Opera emerging artist Nadine Livingston immediately excerpts her authority as Susanna while Thomas Oliemans, returning to the role of Figaro, gives his lilting voice free reign to glide through the music.
It is flash stuff, with Ulrike Mayer getting the horny teenage lust of Cherabino down pat as he thrusts himself upon anything in a skirt and Roderick Williams displaying the older-man’s version of such attitudes as the irrepressibly randy Count Almaviva.
The shade comes with Act II and Kate Valentine’s exquisitely melancholy opening aria of regret - sung to a child standing statue-like, their back to the audience in the centre of Simon Higlett’s tall, unfussy design. As the comedy of the Act in the Countess’s bedroom plays out, Allen picks out the chinks of depth to the characters, while reminding that it is the Countess who is the real victim here.
It is a production which nods knowingly to the unlikely plot devises, and finds strength right down the cast. Francesco Facini is particularly notable in the tongue-twisting role of Dr Bartolo.
Production information can change over the run of the show.
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