It is remarkable how
the basic outline of the plot of The
Marriage of Figaro resembles, so
closely, some of the ground-breaking
operas written by Galuppi and Goldoni
in the 1750s. But that, of course, is
the sheer magic of Mozart’s and Da Ponte’s
collaboration; they have taken the form
created by their predecessors and populated
it with real people. The cast of The
Marriage of Figaro are still stock
figures but Mozart and Da Ponte know
that comedy is very close to tragedy
and by the end of the opera we have
seen the reality behind the figures.
For the latest version
of the opera, in their ‘Opera in English’
series, Chandos have come up with a
fine cast conducted by David Parry.
The version of the score used is very
traditional; this Chandos series is
rather patchy when it comes to using
up to date editions. The translation
is a very modern one by Jeremy Sams
which was, I believe, written for the
ENO.
The slogan of the Opera
in English series is Opera that speaks
your language. And for once it does
exactly what it says on the box. Whatever
else this performance is (and it is
many things), it is first and foremost
wonderfully credible and creditable
as drama. The entire cast deliver their
lines with clarity and conviction, the
result is incredibly involving. The
opera has a lot of plot and there is
a great deal of recitative. One of the
first professional operas that I saw
was ‘Le Nozze de Figaro’ and I found
the acres of recitative in Italian (no
surtitles) rather perplexing. As delivered
on this disc, the English dialogue draws
you into the opera.
The question is: should
we be judging the set purely as opera
in English, sui generis, or can
we compare it to other original language
performances. The answer is that we
must judge the musical performance but
that our strictures should necessarily
have less impact than they might on
yet another Italian language recording.
Some of the studio-produced
Chandos ‘Opera in English’ series have
been very good performances indeed;
strong enough to stand against the strongest
competition. But quite a few of them
have suffered from a tendency to be
just creditable middle-of-the-road performances.
And I think a little of this has rubbed
off here.
David Parry’s account
of the overture is perfectly acceptable.
But if you compare it with Charles Mackerras
and the Scottish Chamber Orchestra,
Mackerras’s version is far more urgent
and vital. On returning to Parry and
the Philharmonia Orchestra I just wanted
that little bit more.
I did wonder whether
delivering all that recitative in careful
English had had a slightly steadying
effect on the cast. Certainly the pace
of the recitatives is rather steadier
than in some of the Italian versions.
But they are accompanied by a piano
rather than a harpsichord, which is
a big plus point in my book.
William Dazely makes
a young-sounding, well modulated Count
Almaviva. It is easy to make the Count
seem just an overbearing bully, but
Dazely has gone a little too far in
the other direction. His Count Almaviva
is not imperious enough, just a little
too well modulated. When he says to
Susanna in Act 3, ‘With passion I am
dying’, you never really believe him.
He does have angry outbursts and by
the end he is suitably humbled, but
I’m not certain I could ever believe
that he would force his attentions on
anyone. He seems too modern.
That is another problem
with the performance, one that stems
directly from the performance in English.
We notice more, the nuances in the language
and here the Count and Countess seem
to run a very egalitarian operation;
the language and the dialogue convey
little sense of the sheer power that
someone like the Count had over his
staff. The Marriage of Figaro is about
the politics of power and how it can
be defeated by subservient beings. The
frisson of the Count’s humbling is far
less if he is more or less on a par
with his wife and servants, in the modern
manner. This is not helped by Jeremy
Sams’ very breezy translation. Sams
uses rather obtrusive rhymed verse and
seems determined to incorporate every
colloquial saying possible. Do we really
want the Count to say ‘let the cat out
of the bag’?
As his Countess, Yvonne
Kenny, is no downtrodden wife. Her Act
3 aria is impassioned rather than fragile;
you feel that this is only a phase and
that she will fight to get him back.
Her Act 3 recitative and aria are full
of power and passion and the moment
when she forgives him is matchless.
But I could not help feeling that her
Countess has been caught just a little
late in her career. Kenny still has
all the technical equipment to bring
off the Countess, but just occasionally
I felt that the mechanism was starting
to show rather. This applies a little
to Diana Montague’s charmingly feckless
Cherubino. But with neither artist would
I want to be without their performance,
so we must be grateful to Chandos for
giving them the opportunity to record
the opera.
As the servants, Christopher
Purves and Rebecca Evans make a very
personable pairing as Figaro and Susanna.
Purves has a fine lyric baritone, which
he uses rather well. But, he does seem
to lose sight of the fact that Figaro
starts out as a comic servant. We come
to know him rather well, and Purves
gives us real passion in Figaro’s outbursts
in Acts 3 and 4. But I would have liked
more of a smile in some of the lighter
sections. Rebecca Evans makes a delightfully
sparky, self-possessed Susanna; she
is certainly going to give Figaro as
good as she gets. Evans also contributes
some of the loveliest singing on the
disc in her Act 4 aria, supported by
the fine woodwind of the Philharmonia.
The rather egalitarian
nature of this performance rears its
head in the ensembles as well. Whilst
one would never really mistake the voices
of Rebecca Evans and Yvonne Kenny or
the voices of Christopher Purves and
William Dazely, in the ensembles where
people throw out odd lines it can sometimes
become a little confusing. Generally
I would have liked a greater sense of
vocal characterisation in the leading
roles.
The minor characters
are all cast from strength. Sarah Tynan
as Barberina sounds like a Susanna in
the making. Frances McCafferty and John
Graham-Hall are such good value as Marcellina
and Don Basilio that you regret the
cutting of their Act 4 arias. This is
ostensibly done so that it does not
hold up the action (surely all CD players
have a ‘Next Track’ button?). But I
could not help noticing that if they
added these arias to Act 4, the rather
careful layout of the acts on the CDs
would be disturbed; at the moment Acts
1 and 2 each have their own CD and Acts
3 and 4 fit onto 1 CD, but only just.
For those interested
in a version of the opera in English,
this is highly recommendable. But in
its own right it is a creditable performance
which gives us the opportunity to hear
a number of extremely fine artists who
might not otherwise get the chance to
record this opera.
Robert Hugill
Geoffrey Mitchell Choir