Prom 60 (27.8.12): Mozart – The Marriage of Figaro

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

Tuesday 28 August at 6.30 p.m.
Royal Albert Hall

Mozart: The Marriage of Figaro (190 mins)
semi-staged; sung in Italian

Vito Priante bass (Figaro)
Lydia Teuscher soprano (Susanna)
Sally Matthews soprano (Countess Almaviva)
Audun Iversen baritone (Count Almaviva)
Andrew Shore baritone (Bartolo)
Ann Murray mezzo-soprano (Marcellina)
Isabel Leonard mezzo-soprano (Cherubino)
Alan Oke tenor (Don Basilio)
Nicholas Folwell baritone (Antonio)
Colin Judson tenor (Don Curzio)
Sarah Shafer soprano (Barbarina)
Glyndebourne Festival Opera
Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment
Robin Ticciati conductor

Glyndebourne Festival Opera comes to the Proms with its new production of Mozart's The Marriage of Figaro, with Vito Priante as Figaro, Lydia Teuscher as Susanna, Sally Matthews as the Countess, and Audun Iversen as the Count. When Count Almaviva takes an over-eager interest in his cunning manservant's wife-to-be, he sets off an elaborate train of events and finds himself thwarted many times. But after a day of madness and a night of confusion, everything ends more or less happily.

Since its inception, opera at Glyndebourne has been almost synonymous with Mozart: The Marriage of Figaro was the first work to be performed there, in May 1934. Servants outwit their master again in this latest production, new for 2012, which confirms a recent preference for period instruments.

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

I saw this production on Friday evening on a live relay from Glyndebourne, at Fellini's cinema/restaurant in Ambleside. Quite superb. There was a touch of quirkiness at the beginning, when the Count arrived in an Austin Healey, but there was nothing bizarre about the production, apart from disco-dancing to Mozart's music at the wedding - actually very funny.
The Proms production is semi-staged, so I'll be interested to hear comments from those experiencing it live in the hall.

[Ferretfancy]

Eine Alpensinfonie

Ah! Fellini's and Zeffirelli's ! One of the Lake District's gems, and the Meal and Movie deal in the excellent veggie restaurant is very good too!

There was an earlier complete Figaro at the Proms back in the sixties with Heinz Blankenberg as Figaro, which I remember attending. It was very stylish but I've forgotten the details. Could some of our opera buffs remind me about it?

[PhilipT]

The Glyndebourne Prom in 2000 was also Figaro - the last Glyndebourne Prom conducted by Andrew Davis before he fled to Chicago.

[Bert Coules]

I have to confess that I'm only half-listening to tonight's relay, but even so the audience reaction is striking me as just a little... muted (even allowing for the fact that all the verbal wit of the piece has been bleached away). But I hope I'm wrong.

Edited to add:

Well, I just half-heard a big laugh, so perhaps I am wrong.

Bert

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

Well I'm really enjoying it. As I said earlier, I watched the live relay from Glyndbourne, which was great. The sound balance is different, and the vibratoless strings are more wearing tonight.
But if the audience is quiet, it shows how considerate they are. Who am I to complain?

[Flosshilde]

I hope Ariosto's enjoying it, with his favourite orchestra playing

Re. the muted audience reaction - will it have surtitles, & if not (& with reduced action or stage business) perhaps a large part of the audience won't understand the 'jokes' (or perhaps humour would be a better word)

[Bert Coules]

But if the audience is quiet, it shows how considerate they are.

In a comedy?

Bert

[LeMartinPecheur]

In a comedy?

Bert

But it's a comedy which makes clear the very thin divide between happy ending and real tragedy. Doesn't Mozart's genius lie in the way the music makes this very clear?

Some comic operas allow one to sit back from the start and never doubt that all will turn out (implausibly?) happily (Rossini comes to mind). Mozart, like Shakespeare, never allows that in his mature comedies. Cf the profound unease that (I believe) the ending of Cosi is intended to create.

[Bert Coules]

But it's a comedy which makes clear the very thin divide between happy ending and real tragedy.

Absolutely, but that doesn't alter the fact that it's also a very funny piece: in fact, if it wasn't so funny it couldn't also be so serious and so dramatic in quite the same way. And an audience which doesn't respond to the humour is not, I'd say, reacting to the drama in the way its creators intended them to. I simply cannot believe that da Ponte and Mozart would have been anything other than appalled by "considerate quietness".

Bert

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

I could just be a question of directional microphones muting the audience to a large extent. Perhaps someone who was in the hall could comment?

[David Underdown]

There weren't huge gales of laughter, but definitely some reaction

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

There weren't huge gales of laughter, but definitely some reaction

Thank you. It confirms what I suspected.