Glyndebourne. There is no single quintessential example of English scenery, but this is one of the finest. The landscape is old, and verdant. There has been tillage and pasturage here for millennia, and the outcome is harmony, as if tamed nature has embraced man’s gentle mastery. On a sunny summer evening, earth has not anything to show more fair
Figaro. Anyone reading the libretto might conclude that earth had not anything to show more absurd. What is this nonsense: a Feydeau farce mitigated by a bit of carpentry? There is a simple answer: the best of all comedies, apart from Shakespeare — and more easily, more continually laughter-worthy than even Love’s Labour’s Lost, A Midsummer Night’s Dream or Twelfth Night. In a proper production of Figaro, there should be an almost constant susurration of chuckling.
The current Glyndebourne production passes that test.
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