The name of Jonathan
Miller as director has often meant breakneck
transportations in time and setting.
His Rigoletto production at ENO
back in the early 1980s, set in gangster
circles in 1920s Chicago was famous.
More recently there was Stockholm’s
L’Elisir d’amore set in the roaring
1950s in a bar and gas station somewhere
in the Mid-West. The present production
of Le nozze di Figaro on the
other hand, is, true to the libretto,
set in Mozart’s own time and the interior
of Count Almaviva’s castle, where the
first three acts are set, is indeed
a late 18th century castle
with all the traditional props. In the
last act, though, we move out into the
nightly garden. Here all the former
realism is gone and the action takes
place on a bare stage with some mighty
stone walls or pillars, behind and around
which the characters play their hide-and-seek
game. Maybe Miller wants to point out
that while the first three acts deal
with a series of social games firmly
set before the French revolution, the
fourth act complications are so unlikely
in Mozart’s or any other time, that
they are to be seen as a theoretical
or ideological game that can only take
place in people’s imagination and so
needs to be set in a milieu with no
references to real life. So Miller is
Miller after all: he lulls the audience
into security during the first three
acts and then breaks the illusion in
the fourth.
When it comes to the
action we recognize Miller’s hand time
and again through the extremely detailed
direction. Every movement, every gesture,
every facial expression is so thought
through, creating real characters of
flesh and blood. At the end of the drama,
this is a comedy but under the surface,
conflicts, desires and lusts rage. Miller
lays them all bare. At the end of the
performance we know the characters and
realize that they are no cardboard figures
but complicated individuals. And, contrary
to the practice of some directors, Miller
is a listener. He knows that Mozart
was a penetrating psychologist and that
most of the emotions are built-in to
the music, which means that one rarely
gets the feeling that a character does
anything against the music. One could
object that there is too strong a sex
fixation, even of a fairly rough kind,
which would have been unlikely on the
stage in Mozart’s time, but of course
we know from Mozart’s letters and otherwise
that he could be quite rough in his
vocabulary, so there is a point here,
too. But the music doesn’t speak
this rough language. Even if Cherubino
simmers with sex fixation, and the music
illustrates it, he never goes over the
top. Today’s audiences are of course
not easily shocked and probably expects
such over-explicitness and probably
Mozart himself, if present at the Teatro
Communale, would have enjoyed himself
heartily.
Good and meaningful
instruction is one thing but it also
needs good actors, and whoever was responsible
for the casting, he or she made a splendid
job. All the actors look their parts
and act utterly convincingly, but Marina
Comparato as Cherubino and Patrizia
Ciofi as Susanna grab every opportunity
to make their characters live. With
the exception of Russian-born Eteri
Gvazava’s Contessa, all the singers
are native Italians which gives an added
fluency, especially to the long stretches
of recitativo secco. I also must express
my admiration for Maria Paola Longobardo’s
video direction, which is extremely
alert and catches all the many fine
details in clarifying close-ups.
Musically Zubin Mehta
leads the excellent Maggio Musicale
orchestra in a well-paced performance.
The singing is on a high level, especially
on the female side. Pride of place must
be given to Marina Comparato, who is
an enchanting Cherubino, delivering
an ecstatic Non so più
in the first act and singing even better
in the second act’s Voi che sapete.
Patrizia Ciofi is a suitably lively
Susanna, making the most of the second
act aria Venite, inginocchiatevi
when she dresses Cherubino in girls’
clothes and singing a lovely Deh,
vieni, non tardar with Figaro eavesdropping
in the fourth act. She also embellishes
the aria discreetly and elegantly. The
beautiful Eteri Gvazava is well suited
to the mournful Contessa, finding the
right melancholy tone in her two arias.
Giovanna Donadini plays Marcellina with
a bold heart but is denied her aria,
a fate that also falls upon Basilio.
Dramatically neither of the omissions
is a great loss. Barbarina’s miniature
aria is retained however, prettily sung
by Eleonora Contucci, even though both
the box cover and the booklet state
that Carlo Bosi takes the part when,
as far as I can understand, he in reality
is the severely stuttering Don Curzio.
Both Lucio Gallo, a magnificent Conte,
and Giorgio Surian as an uproarious
and jolly boisterous Figaro, are a bit
dry-sounding and would probably not
be so attractive on a sound-only recording.
Here they give excellent portrayals
of their respective characters, parts
that I suppose they have been singing
for ages. Eduardo Chama’s rubber-face
is an asset in his portrayal of Bartolo
and he sings his Vendetta aria
with suitable venom.
I have never quite
understood why the considerably longer
Don Carlo, that I reviewed recently,
could be squeezed onto one DVD while
this Figaro fills two. Anyway,
for those who want to enjoy isolated
arias and even recitatives, there is
a generous amount of cue points: 40
on DVD 1 and 35 on DVD 2. The quality
of sound and pictures are all one can
wish for and there is an interesting
essay by Dietmar Polaczek in the booklet.
As readers must already
have concluded I didn’t dislike this
Figaro at all, on the contrary
I give it a hearty recommendation. All
the opera lovers that I know of prefer
a stylish performance with period costumes
and sets and that’s what you get here.
Göran Forsling
Coro e Orchestra del Maggio Musicale Fiorentino/Zubin
Mehta 
TDK
DVWW-OPNDFF [2 DVDs: 181:00] 
