This season’s “The Marriage of Figaro,” one of Wolfgang Mozart’s most beloved operas and a masterpiece of music and the joy of life and love, surpasses all of Lyric Opera’s past incarnations of the last several decades.
In this production, Barbara Gaines, the now-retired founder and longtime director of Chicago Shakespeare Theatre, once more brings to Lyric her inimitable ability to imbue centuries-old characters with believable humanity and vibrancy – and make them feel like real people, despite the opera’s purposely contrived plot and the characters’ absurd hijinks.
Let us remember that the original story, a novel written in 1778 by Pierre Beaumarchais, and adapted brilliantly by librettist Lorenzo Da Ponte, was controversial for its time with its theme of servants, Figaro the barber and his inamorata Susanna, the Countess’ maid, challenging and making fun of their betters, namely their boss and overlord, the vain, egotistical and entitled Count Almaviva, and being portrayed as clever and sharp-witted, and deserving of the chance to be masters of their own fate rather than submit to the sometimes cruel orders and whims of their capricious master. Take, for instance, Figaro’s aria, “Non piu andrai,” which pokes fun at the Count for his military pretentions. Such a stance made publicly in an opera by a servant about a nobleman was downright rebellious.
In fact, some of the original lines highlighting the opera’s radical social and political views and actions were so scandalous that the Emperor Joseph II made Mozart take them out before approving the final version -- though even the final version was still titillating to audiences with its blatant suggestiveness and outright sexual themes – including Figaro and Susanna’s plan to thwart the Count’s intention, per the harsh patriarchal custom at the time, to sleep with Susanna before her husband is allowed to.
Even Count Almaviva’s long-suffering wife, Countess Rosina, is portrayed as a strong woman bent on challenging her husband’s undignified and cavalier treatment of her with his constant brush-offs and infidelity, though she does it in a series of oblique end-runs and schemes both to win him back -- and put him in his place.
Befitting Mozart’s gorgeous, fast-flowing music that is the hallmark of this opera, right from the fast-paced overture through the final scene of Act IV where all plot-points are resolved to satisfaction, all the couples are paired up where they “belong,” and a buoyant sense of bonhomie prevails, Gaines has a female character dart onto the stage from the audience during the overture, and has others also flitting about, clearly planning naughty amorous activities, deliciously presaging the amorous and sexually suggestive mischief to come.
In fact, the second act takes place in the Countess’ boudoir and features a giant upraised bed that also serves as a platform for singing and action; it’s such an obvious symbol of sexual shenanigans – one of the opera’s key thematic subjects – it comes across as hilarious in its own right, as well as supporting the humor of the scenes that take place there.
Peter Kellner and Ying Fang in the starring roles as Figaro and Susanna have a charm and a frisson as a couple that is sometimes missing from operatic onstage lovers, and both capture the irrepressible ardor of young love. Gordon Bintner as the strutting, self-important and foolish Almaviva, and Federica Lombardi as his sympathetic wife who is still in love with him are a delight.
The character of the Countess has long struck this reviewer as one of the more intriguing and yet overlooked characters in the opera, and Lombardi deftly portrays both Rosina’s vulnerability and her mature determination to win back the Count with appealing subtlety.
And Kayleigh Decker (an alumna of the Patrick G. and Shirley W. Ryan Opera Center) as the young, romance- and sex-crazed Cherubino, is convincing and comical in rendering the young man’s mercurial attractions for the young Barbarina, Susanna and the Countess. Some female singers just can’t pull off these so-called “trouser roles,” for whatever reason, but Decker strikes that elusive presence perfectly.
To recount the plot and subplots of Figaro would sound ridiculous in a review, and really must be experienced to be appreciated, but here is the thumbnail: Figaro and Susanna are set to marry and are conniving not to have Susanna first have to sleep with Count Almaviva, who is bored with the wife whom he once adored and (in “The Barber of Seville”) plotted to marry and make his Countess, who is still in love with her husband and wants to win him back and is frustrated by his indifference, and is flattered by the attentions of Cherubino, a young lad Count Almaviva wants to send to the military to get away from Susanna, whom Cherubino purports to be in love with – though his attractions change at whim. Marcellina, an older lady, wants to marry Figaro and has enlisted the help of a lawyer to enforce an old contract to that effect, but it turns out she cannot, for reasons that are revealed in the third act. And so on and so on. This reviewer doesn’t want to give away too much if one hasn’t seen Figaro, but suffice it to say: the plots, subplots and resolutions are befitting a soap opera.
The first three acts seemed to fly by delightfully – especially with the updated, colloquial, sometimes-blunt but always comical translations that appear above the Lyric stage. But the fourth act felt draggy. Though the final act is crucial in setting up the final humorous strokes and bringing everything – and everyone -- together, it seemed the action was unnecessarily drawn out at moments, when, by now, things should be wrapping up with as much alacrity as they were laid out in the first three acts. Nonetheless, this sometimes slower pace in parts was more than compensated for by the rest of this masterful effort.
And so, Gaines’ fresh direction, along with James Noone’s sets that look and feel modern yet 18th-century-lush at the same time, and Susan Mickey’s innovative, colorful costumes -- a “Bridgerton”-like mishmash of bright hues and creatively rendered quasi-18th century gowns and dressing robes for the women, and vests and breeches for the men – all befit Figaro’s myriad absurd subplots and racy, funny action in a refreshingly accessible manner, which should appeal to veteran “Figaro” acolytes as well novices.
Fun addendum: If you’re an opera novice, be sure to catch Gioachino Rossini’s “The Barber of Seville,” which Rossini wrote three decades after “Figaro,” but as a novel was a prequel to “The Marriage of Figaro.” The third novel of the trilogy was called “The Guilty Mother.” All three novels were written by Beaumarchais as part of a trilogy in the late 18th century.
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“The Marriage of Figaro” continues until November 30th.
Lyric Opera is located at 20 North Wacker Drive, Chicago, IL
Remaining performances are
Sunday, November 24th at 2:00 pm
Wednesday, November 27th at 200 pm
Saturday, November 30th at 7:30 pm.
Running time for is three hours, 30 minutes, with an intermission.
For more information and tickets, visit www.lyricopera.org/figaro