A few weeks ago I was speculating anxiously on the possibility that even the greatest masterpieces, in opera or other art forms, might be exhaustible, or that anyway I might not be able to find anything fresh in them, and therefore might succumb either to a state of mild boredom, or else, like some critics, irritably demand that every production ‘break new ground’, as if it is the job of directors and performers to cater primarily to jaded palates. Any production of an opera which bewilders an audience that knows, at least in moderate outline, what the plot is, who the characters are, is a betrayal of the work: even the most demanding of operatic composers can’t have expected that people would have as many opportunities to see their works as have been rendered possible by technological achievements, whether electronic in the form of CDs, DVDs, and so forth, or aeronautical. On the other hand, now that such opportunities are available, how could one resist seeing or listening to the masterworks of the repertoire quite often?
There is no opera which there are more chances of seeing than Le Nozze di Figaro. Fortunately, it turns out to be a sturdier specimen than almost any other piece apart from La bohème, and the lassitude which I found was threatening in the Royal Opera’s revival of Don Giovanni and Così fan tutte never seemed a danger in Figaro, admittedly the least irritating of the three productions. David McVicar’s 2006 production is re-directed, not for the first time, by Leah Hausman, who has some new ideas each time round. Nothing alters drastically, there is still an enormous amount of superfluous movement; characters express their deepest and most private feelings with hordes of extras standing round.
The Almaviva household may be one where privacy is hard to come by, but if it’s non-existent this story of intrigues and secrets becomes no more than, as described in the current number of the Independent’s guide to current events, ‘a comic farce’.
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