Review: 'The Marriage of Figaro'

With fine Mozart moments, Opera San Jose entertained a large crowd of its own on Super Bowl Sunday

By Staff (Feb 09, 2010 )

A LARGE and most welcome turnout attended the opening weekend of Opera San Jose’s new Marriage of Figaro—so enthused general director Irene Dalis, who has seen openings this season with slimmer crowds. General manager Larry Hancock, meanwhile, was oblivious of Sunday’s competing Super Bowl until one patron asked if he would be posting the score along with the opera’s supertitles.

Anyone without a nose for what goes on behind the scenes at the opera might miss the “play within a play” dynamics here (such as famously codified in I Pagliacci). If the Count Almaviva decides to invoke the odious aristocratic “privilege” of sleeping with Susanna, his wife’s serving girl, on her wedding night, her espoused Figaro is determined to thwart him through no end of masquerades, disguises and staged traps. To Lorenzo da Ponte’s brilliant libretto, cobbled from the Beaumarchais comedy, Mozart came up with music as quicksilver as all the affects implied by the words. These range from motorized patter ensembles—that would be reborn in Rossini and, later still, Gilbert and Sullivan—to the countess’ poignant angst over her husband’s philandering ways and her own further humiliation at seeking redress with the help of her servants.

To its credit, Opera San Jose’s artistic management and stage directors consistently exploit the comedy of the comedies they stage. In Act 1, Figaro fashions a puppet effigy of his master from a bed quilt, the better to focus his own jealousy. When the chorus sings the count’s praises they throw their bouquets onto his lap with unconcealed disdain. When he and the conniving Basilio seek to revive the fainting Susanna, they both wind up pawing her bosom. All of this shtick is calculated to arouse laughter in the galleries and does so without fail every time.

Isaiah Musik-Ayala’s Figaro (the roles are double cast) anchored the vocal complement with room-filling bass-baritone, refined stage presence and consistent character. In her second role with OSJ, Jennie Litster’s Susanna set high standards for nuanced vocal production and comedic timing—likewise Tori Grayum as the bumbling Cherubino. Seasoned baritone Daniel Cilli’s count strutted and posed like a rooster but acted a stiffer and less convincing case as seducer and, ultimately, apologetic husband. Rebecca Schuessler’s countess opened Act 2 with a dull “Porgi amor,” vocally covered and wanting consonants, then warmed up remarkably and, by “Dove sono,” left a lasting impression. (As with Don Ottavio in Don Giovanni, Mozart seeks to rescue such “peripheral” principal roles with gorgeous tunes.)

This Figaro recalls the production that opened OSJ’s first season at the California Theatre, back in 2004. Conductor David Rohrbaugh was on the podium then as now, as were many in the orchestra. In some of the patter ensembles, conductor and singers got out of sync, a condition that will no doubt correct in subsequent performances. Larry Hancock’s in-house set designs, spare but functional, and blocking by stage director Peter Kozma, clashed with David Lee Cuthbert’s lighting design, distracting attention by casting odd shadows and tinting one singer’s face blue while another appeared orange at the same time. A choreographic detail in Act 3 offered a rare reminder of the Spanish setting for this imperishable farce. Now, if only OSJ could stage its latter-day descendent, Der Rosenkavalier.

THE MARRIAGE OF FIGARO, an Opera San Jose production, plays Feb. 11, 13, 16 and 19 at 8pm and Feb. 14 and 21 at 3pm at the California Theatre, 345 S. First St., San Jose. Tickets are $51–$91. (408.437.4450)