The Marriage of Figaro... or almost

 

 

The Marriage of Figaro is an amazing  fusion of the precision of Beaumarchais and the imagination of Mozart, a classic opera which is incredibly modern, thrilling action accompanied by arias of the utmost tenderness , a demonstration of desire and  wonderful forgiveness.  It lies somewhere between “the only way to get rid of temptation is to yield to it” and “Go, and sin no more”.

The Marriage of Figaro ... or almost is an adaptation for six vocalists and a pianist of the famous opera Le Nozze di Figaro.

Deliberately light in spirit and form, The Marriage of Figaro ... or almost deploys intimism to highlight one of the great features of this opera – the scenes featuring all of the characters.

At a time when opera was suffering from an over-cautious distribution of arias, duets and recitatives, Mozart dared to make his music serve the action, rendering Beaumarchais’ comical to-ings and fro-ings even more lively, with three, four then five characters finding themselves in situations the modern spectator can compare to the best of vaudeville or indeed some American TV series.

With a format that is much more accessible to a young or less specialised audience than the original (two hours instead of four), this performance fulfils its educational responsibilities through voice-overs during certain recitatives in order to ensure that everyone, connoisseur or not of the original text, might easily follow the action.

We have assembled for this project a team of professionals who are as young as the Viennese artists of 1786: this ensures a modern stage setting (the adaptation is, moreover, contemporary) and an overall enthusiasm emanating from the individual roles.

So now you know everything …… or almost !

Emmanuel Gardeil
(Translation Alison Mugford