Mozart: Le nozze di Figaro - Paris Opera (Opus Arte)

It shows Mozart at the peak of his abilities, and it contains much of the composer's most dramatic and inspired music.

When done well, Figaro can seem the funniest and possibly greatest opera in existence, and such is the quality of the music and libretto that even the most dire productions can find humour somewhere.

Christoph Marthaler's stage production for the Paris National Opera updates the setting to a contemporary wedding-dress shop, and the result is so catastrophically implausible that even a number of good singing performances cannot save this Figaro from failure. Marthaler has done the impossible and made it unfunny.

The reason is not so much that the opera has been updated (although this does create a number of dramatic inconsistencies that cannot be resolved – how and why would the store manager send his employee into the army?). Rather, the problem lies with Marthaler's complete inability to understand the music with which he is working.

A brief glance through Act Two provides ample evidence. The act is set in the bedroom of the Countess, yet this production sets it in the same shop room that housed Act One (the only set that there will be, even in the final act). Pathos may be lost for this reason, but more concerning is the direction of the act, which seems deliberately to undermine the drama's intentions. When Susanna hurries Cherubino to open the door in their breathless duet, the page has already left and is halfway across the room. At the duet's climax, the libretto demands that Cherubino jump from the window, but here he simply walks out of the door. Susanna's scream of concern seems misplaced, and when she herself should astound the Count by emerging from the closet, she walks on from the wings.

Mozart's ability to define character is at its most brilliant in Figaro, yet the director undermines even this. Marthaler seems sure that characterisation means giving each character a quirk and having them repeat it as much as possible. The excellent Burkhard Ulrich is particularly affected as Don Basilio, having to adjust his oversized glasses every 20 seconds. The Count is perfectly sung by Peter Mattei, yet he has to spend most of the opera swinging on pillars. (Perhaps Marthaler is a Gene Kelly enthusiast?) When he should be at his most threatening, the Count is forced to threaten his wife with a power drill in a sequence of laughable banality.

The singing is mixed, yet it is of a level that makes one wish for a better production to accommodate it. Lorenzo Regazzo is just as spontaneous as on the CD recording with René Jacobs, and his gruff bass is well suited to the role. His Susanna, Heidi Grant Murphy, disappoints, with a metallic ring in her voice. Christiane Oelze as the Countess soars beautifully in the Act Two trio, but why is she made to gyrate provocatively when she should be in mental anguish? Sadly, her Act Three aria is forced and her pitching does not convince. She also rarely varies her dynamic, and her secret conversation with Susanna at the start of Act Three is hardly secretive.

Peter Mattei, as mentioned, has a beautiful, silky baritone, and he uses it to great effect. Christine Schäfer demands attention for a cheeky Cherubino, though common sense dictates that, it an ideal world, she should not possess a fuller, more mature voice than her two female compatriots. Other roles are all taken adequately apart from that of Dr Bartolo, for Roland Bracht's bass is forced and ugly. The production must be commended for including the two arias normally omitted in Act Four, but Il capro e la capretta is spoiled by Helene Schneiderman's poor breath control, muddled coloratura and embarrassingly self conscious style of delivery.

So surely a few good singing performances at least make the production acceptable? They possibly would, but the direction conspires to limit enjoyment. Perhaps having the continuo accompanist onstage is supposed to demonstrate his importance in the music, but it is a distracting and dramatically irrelevant gesture. Jürg Kienberger is obviously skilled, but whatever we think of his presence, his interpolations of extra continuo numbers are inexcusable. The DVD booklet claims that “Mozart himself would surely have appreciated this”. This reviewer would disagree.

Add to that Sylvain Cambreling, whose stolid conducting lacks structure and whose attempts at acting (including taking photographs of the action) are best forgotten, and one is left with a lifeless Figaro. There are many versions of the opera on the market, and one can safely say that most are better than this.

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