Male order | 4 July 2019

Another turn around the block for David McVicar’s handsome 1830s Figaro at the Royal Opera — the sixth since the production’s 2006 premiere — scarcely raises an eyebrow, let alone a pulse. But a quick glance down the cast list of the current revival reveals some curiosities.

First to catch the eye is Kangmin Justin Kim — the first countertenor in the company’s 250-year history to play sexually rampant page Cherubino, traditionally a trouser role for a woman. Read on and you’ll see starry German baritone Christian Gerhaher making an unexpected mid-career role debut as Figaro, as well as a main-stage house debut for his Susanna — young American soprano Joelle Harvey, who bewitched last summer as Glyndebourne’s Cleopatra. Oh, and the whole lot is conducted by John Eliot Gardiner.

So does it live up to its promise? Yes and no, and neither in quite the ways you’d expect. Kim is the quietest, most unobtrusive of revelations.