![]() ![]() This succeeds best in the opera’s two famous finales – one at the end of Act II and later at the end of Act IV. The production team’s direction, costumes and sets provide a sense of place, manage the coming and going of characters, and tease out each convoluted plot thread. Together, these elements are a cozy blanket for a seasoned audience, allowing everything Mozart does so well to be at the center of the performance. So do Myung Hee Cho’s costumes with their stiff silhouettes, bright colors and whimsical updates that help the audience keep track of who’s who. The sets with their opulent rooms, imposing columns and tended gardens give the opera a traditional aesthetic. Peter Kazaras’s intimate stage direction doesn’t overdo the slapstick comedy. The team behind Seattle Opera’s current production of Figaro understands this elemental truth. Yes, Da Ponte’s taut libretto is important, but it is Mozart’s music which makes the opera so special. But this telling diminishes Mozart’s genius. Da Ponte’s contribution is often presented as almost equally important to Mozart’s music: were it not for da Ponte’s libretti skills, this work and two other great operas by Mozart may not have happened. Together they created an operatic masterpiece, or so the story goes. Elevated (literally) above the humor, class clashes and sexual deviousness, forgiveness works in this production by putting our focus on the characters’ relationships.įigaro came about as the first partnership between Mozart and Lorenzo Da Ponte, the work’s librettist. ![]() This idea – essentially that those who do not forgive others deserve no forgiveness – is even stamped at the top of the set. ![]() But the Seattle Opera’s current production of Figaro offers an unexpected and unusual theme for a work overflowing with deception, resentment and jealousy: that there is meaning and value in reconciliation. The opera is subversive in its overt sexuality and class struggle yet, at the same time, ordinary because of the relatable characters. In some ways, The Marriage of Figaro is a study in contrasts. (ZC) Michael Sumuel and Anya Matanovic in Le nozze di Figaro © Philip Newton United States Mozart, Le nozze di Figaro: Soloists and Chorus of the Seattle Opera, Seattle Symphony / Alevtina Ioffe (conductor). ![]()
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