In 2015, director Barbara Gaines’ Lyric Opera production of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s “The Marriage of Figaro” became the first production of Anthony Freud’s formal tenure as Lyric’s general director. On Saturday that same staging, now starring Peter Kellner, Ying Fang, Federica Lombardi, Gordon Bintner and Kayleigh Decker and conducted by Erina Yashima, coincided with the arrival of John Mangum in that same role.
I expected Mangum to come out on stage Saturday night and introduce himself to what was a packed house at Lyric, though he didn’t. “The Marriage of Figaro” (the libretto is by Lorenzo da Ponte) is one of the most enduring and popular titles in the repertoire, perhaps partly on the basis of some folks expecting to hear “Largo al Factotum,” which actually is from Gioachino Rossini’s “Barber of Seville,” a separate opera that shares as its source the 18th century French playwright Pierre Beaumarchais.
Beaumarchais’ dramas (two-thirds of his Figaro trilogy) are striking for how much “Barber” diverts from “Marriage.” In the former, the Spanish Count Almaviva is a sympathetic posh guy who humbles himself to gain a commoner’s love, aided by the feisty coiffeur Figaro. In the latter, set three years later and on a single day, that same count has become bored with his marriage, has droit du seigneur designs on Figaro’s finance Susanna, and has become what we might now call a sexual predator, at least were his antics not so chronologically removed and subject to reform by the opera’s denouement.
One sees the issue, then, with this particular title and Gaines’ cheery strategy, then and now, even though 2024 is not 2015, was and is to play down the opera’s more serious and class-oriented complaints, emphasize the bawdy, the farcical and the outré, and generally land the production far more in a commedia dell’arte landscape than, say, that of Noel Coward or even that of Beaumarchais, a savvy writer with an intense revolutionary spirit as well as populist zeal. Gaines’ intent, I think, was to avoid difficulties by creating an explicitly egalitarian world of sexual foibles and intentions, all motivated far more by uniform physical impulses than by power. And all resolvable by bedtime.
When added to Susan Mickey’s surreal costumes, replete with John Metzner’s Oompa-Loompa-like wigs for the chorus, James Noone’s set creates a decidedly strange remove, combining as he does wooden swoops with inlayed Rococo curves. The design is like a combination of Molière and hygge. Or a commedia production staged inside a Norwegian ski resort.
It has its moments and some will find the staging laudably intimate (the limited choreography is by Harrison McEldowney), but the combined aesthetic, wherein the director often breaks the proscenium and singers jump off the show’s deck, is not for all tastes. It’s also not as unified with the orchestra under Yashima’s baton as one might wish.
The overall result is a wacky (and long) evening, where you spend much of it staring at physical cavorting, buttock pinching and naked statues only for all of that, not much of which struck me as especially funny, to be counterbalanced by moments of sublime singing, emanating especially from the effervescent Chinese soprano Fang as Susanna and, as the Countess Almaviva, Lombardi.
At Lyric, the entire opera house leaned into such moments as Lombardi’s exquisite (mournful, even) renditions of “Porgi amor” and “Dove sono,” both of which seemed to hang in the air forever as fluid expressions of the difficulty of fighting male infidelity while still trying to love, but still not long enough given that which to we were returning. The feisty Fang, is a delight, too, especially in her duets with Lombardi (both Fang and Lombardi sang these same roles together at the Metropolitan Opera in 2022 under Richard Eyre’s direction, and that existing relationship no doubt enhanced their palpable vocal connection).
Susanna is the smart, normative character in these proceedings and the diminutive star, who has the best handle on how to marry this concept with Mozart’s musical truth-telling, embraces both narrative and vocal forcefulness, counterbalancing nicely with Decker’s perennially nervous yet passionate Cherubino. Bintner has to navigate a tricky landscape here as Almaviva, given that the production defangs him, to some degree, and, for all the many pleasures to be had from his instrument, you hear that difficulty in his singing. The genial Slovakian bass-baritone Peter Kellner is on more secure ground as Figaro, embracing the audience’s sympathies and clearly enjoying himself.
Simply put, though, Mozart took Beaumarchais’ comedy, which mostly was about how sex interplays with power, and added pathos. Achingly so, at times. But one feels those dynamics here only sporadically, as the production doesn’t spend enough time with such vital concerns of the opera house as pain, regret, oppression and the sheer determination of true love.
Chris Jones is a Tribune critic.
cjones5@chicagotribune.com
Review: “The Marriage of Figaro” (2.5 stars)
When: Through Nov. 30
Where: Lyric Opera House, 20 N. Wacker Drive
Running time: 3 hours, 30 minutes
Tickets: $59-349 at 312-827-5600 and www.lyricopera.org