The Marriage of Figaro (an opera review post)

I know I usually have some kind of image to go along with these posts, usually the program book, but I'm not feeling like going to the trouble at this point. It's already been, like, a month (way more, now, actually) since we saw this, so I'm going to be doing good just to get some words out. Speaking of getting some words out, this is actually the second production we've seen of The Marriage of Figaro so, theoretically, I should have another post reviewing the previous production we saw... but, well, I can't find it. Not that I went back through my posts one by one or anything, but I did do several searches for it, including on google, and came up with nothing. Maybe I didn't review it when we saw it a few years ago? That doesn't seem right. At least, I was pretty sure I'd reviewed each opera we saw, but maybe I didn't start doing that right away. Except it wouldn't have been right away, because it wasn't one of our first operas.

Oh, well, a mystery probably not worth solving, but it does make me wonder.

I'm also wondering how I'm even going to review this considering how long it's been since we saw it, which was back in October. Look, things have been busy.

I suppose the most important thing to say is that this is a great opera. It's Mozart, one of his comedies (Mozart at his best), and one of the top 10 most performed operas each year. It has a famous scene in it where there are seven (or eight?) people on stage singing at once, all singing something different -- nothing like this had ever been done before -- and, yet, it works and blends perfectly. But, then, it's Mozart, so of course it does.

The Marriage of Figaro is the middle opera of a trilogy which begins with The Barber of Seville. The most famous version of Barber is not by Mozart, though I think he has his own version of that one, too. I haven't seen the third of this trilogy, yet (and can't remember the name of it, right off hand), but I really want to. See, each of this first two operas are quite outstanding as individual operas but, when you roll the plots together, they become so much more.

Let me explain:

In The Barber of Seville, there's this guy who wants to marry this girl, but she's promised to someone else, someone she doesn't want to marry, of course, but he has money, so her father wants her to go with old-money-guy rather than the guy she's in love with. In steps Figaro, the barber of Seville and quite famous, to help the love birds get together. Which he does through quite a few hi-jinks.

Which brings us to Marriage. Well, you know, the love birds get married, but I was speaking of the opera. The young woman in Barber is titled, so the couple is now Count and Countess, and Figaro works for them. Marriage is set about a year after Barber, and Figaro is, himself, about to get married to the Countess' handmaid. Except...

Except that the Count is hot for Figaro's bride-to-be and doing all he can to bed her, including gifting Figaro and Susanna with the best room in the mansion (aside from his, I suppose) as a wedding present because... yeah, it's very close to his room, so, you know, he'll have easy access to the new bride after the wedding. Yeah, this is the same guy whom Figaro just helped to marry his "soulmate." Or whatever. Real stand-up guy.

At any rate, it's a comedy and full hi-jinks, including mistaken identities and people falling out of windows. The production at SFO was wonderful. But I'm probably biased.

Don Pasquale (an opera review post)

Don Pasquale marks the second opera by Donizetti that I've seen, the first being Lucia di Lammermoor, which was actually the first opera I saw. [Okay, not the first opera I've ever seen, but the first one since my wife and I started going to the opera.] So, if you look back at my review of Lammermoor (click the link), you will see that I was not blown away by it; however, Lammermoor is generally considered Donizetti's best opera, or, at least, it is his most performed. This is just going to highlight the difference the production can make, because Don Pasquale was incredible. Of course, Pasquale is a comedy, and I think I'm probably partial to them. So far, I have not seen one that I didn't like.

So, yes, I laughed a lot. So did my wife. I have to say, even with subtitles, it speaks a lot to the quality of the presentation that I can spend so much time laughing at something being performed in Italian. But, then, the story is just funny, about an elderly man who decides to take a very young bride in order to teach his nephew a lesson. And I'm going to mostly leave it at that other than to say that there is a reversal of the plot as there is an endeavor to teach Don Pasquale, the elderly man, a lesson in return.

As with most of the productions at SFO (San Francisco Opera), the set was amazing. They made it part of the representation of the story, a metaphor, if you will, of a portion of what was happening, and it was pretty brilliant. Mostly, it was brilliant because it allowed for a lot of physical comedy, which brings us to the actors.

Ernesto, the layabout nephew, was played by Lawrence Brownlee, who made his SFO debut in Don Pasquale. Not only was he a fantastic singer, but he provided some great physical comedy as well, everything from trying to carry too many suitcases when his uncle kicked him out of the house to trying to get through an upside down doorway (no, I'm not explaining that). He wore his expressiveness in his whole body, not just his face, and he was rarely still when he was on stage, meaning he did none of that standing and singing that can really drag an opera down.

Lucas Meachem, who played Figaro in the presentation of The Barber of Seville we saw last year, returned to SFO as Dr. Malatesta. He was just as good in this one as he was in Barber. I'm going to go out on a limb, here, and say that I would happily see anything that Meachem is in. Wait, does this mean I'm developing favorite opera performers, kind of like saying "I'll watch anything with Harrison Ford in it." I think that's what it means!

Wow... That's kind of weird.

Not to be left out, the other two primary performers, Maurizio Muraro as Pasquale and Heidi Stober as Norina, were also really great. Stober had just the right amount and kind of attitude to pull off her role realistically, and it was difficult not to watch Muraro throughout the entire performance, because he was always doing something, even when he wasn't the one singing. If you weren't watching him, you were missing something funny going on.

My first thought about Pasquale when it was over was to think that my younger son (the one who recently finished high school at 15) would have really loved it. He's never seen an opera, but I think he would have appreciated the humor of the story, and he's a facile enough reader that I don't think the subtitles would have hindered him. I tell you that because I would like to be able to recommend a DVD performance for anyone who is interested but, alas, upon a bit of research, unless you want to buy it, it doesn't seem as if there are any you can rent or stream. At least not from the normal places. Oh, well. I can only speak for the SFO presentation, anyway, and that one isn't available unless you came to see it. Which you certainly should have!

The Barber of Seville (an opera review post)

The Barber of Seville is a title you've probably, at least, heard of. It's one of the most famous and popular of all operas, and, after seeing it, I can understand why. If nothing else, you probably recognize this piece of music:


The opera is by Gioachino Rossini, based on a play by Pierre Beaumarchais. You might remember that I mentioned that name back in my post about The Magic Flute. The Barber of Seville is the first play in the trilogy that continues with The Marriage of Figaro, which Mozart composed as an opera 30 years earlier. No, Mozart didn't just decide to start in the middle. In actuality, Barber had several operatic interpretations before Mozart did Marriage, so Rossini wasn't doing something that hadn't already been done. He just did it better than all of the earlier versions, and his opera has become the operatic interpretation of The Barber of Seville just like Mozart's version of The Marriage of Figaro is the version of that play.

All of that to say that the recent production of The Barber of Seville by the San Francisco Opera was amazing. Brilliant, even. Look, let me put it like this: This opera was not sung in English and, yet, I found myself getting so lost in the action and music of the play that I would forget to keep up with the translations. I would have these, "Oh, wait!" moments where I would have to look back to the screen with the English on it. This is what opera was and is meant to be.

All of the performers were extraordinary. There was no just standing around and singing in this one. Lucas Meachem, as Figaro, was commanding. He brought all of the necessary flair to the performance of a character who is larger-than-life. Rene Barbera and Daniela Mack were great as the lovesick couple. Allessandro Corbelli was spectacular as Rosina's father. And Efrain Solis (who played Papageno in The Magic Flute) was amazing in his non-speaking (singing) role.

There was great comedy, great singing, and great acting. It was so good, in fact, that, if it hadn't already been 10:30 pm, I would have walked right back in to see it again. Unfortunately, it was already at the end of its run when we went to see it or I would have tried to go again. Seriously, this was a great performance. If you're going to try out opera, this is the kind of production you want to start with.

This is us just before going to see Barber: