Fossilised Figaro

Is there a more extraordinary, more heart-stilling moment in all opera than the finale of Mozart’s The Marriage of Figaro? The Count, suddenly understanding his wife’s fidelity, begs her forgiveness — ‘Contessa perdono!’ Her answer comes like a musical benediction, but not until after the very slightest pause — space to doubt, to hope. It’s a touchstone for any production, and it says everything about the current revival of David McVicar’s long-lived Figaro that, on press night, the audience laughed.

Since 2006, McVicar’s elegant period update — poised in the fragile political hinterland between France’s First and Second Republics — has done the business at the Royal Opera. But now on its fifth revival, the show is beginning to show its age. Tanya McCallin’s sun-bleached château sets are lovely as ever, and the Gallic Downton Abbey conceit, framing an intimate chamber drama with the silent goings-on of a whole household of domestics, still feels fresh, it’s just that the direction itself looks increasingly fossilised.