After a potentially disastrous labor dispute, the Metropolitan Opera unveiled an easy-to-like new production of “Le Nozze di Figaro” (“The Marriage of Figaro”) on Monday filled with shining voices and visuals.
Considering all the rancor running up to this premiere, the Met needed good news. It got it. Another source of warmth: Conductor James Levine, following health issues, waved the baton for his first Met opening in four years.
As in any take on this Mozart masterwork, the vows between servants Figaro and Susanna don’t go off without hitches — there’s scheming and power plays and all sorts of hurdles.
That’s what drives the comedy in this classic, where love (and lust) fuels conspiracies, gender-bending, masquerading and daredevil leaps from balconies.
Sir Richard Eyre, who directed Broadway’s “Mary Poppins,” situates his vision in 1930s Seville. Period uniforms and gowns from designer Rob Howell (“Matilda”) are sleek and playful. His scenery — an intricate network of revolving Moorish-inflected bronze towers — reveals various rooms in the home of caddish Count Almaviva.
The set is beautiful, if somewhat heavy for this light, frisky frolic. But the spinning suggests churning machinations inside the mind of the Count, whose title gives him the right to any woman he wants. He’s got a thing for servants. The show begins with a topless maid scurrying from his bedroom. But the woman he wants is Figaro’s bride-to-be.
Ildar Abdrazakov is an appealing and huggable Figaro, whose happy dance en route to the altar is a sweet flourish. Peter Mattei brings flashes of nasty as the Count.
But the evening belonged to the women. Marlis Petersen’s bright, clear voice brought her sexy but subtle Susanna to life vividly. Her verbal catfight with rival Marcellina (Susanne Mentzer) jump-starts the show.
Isabel Leonard is perfectly ardent and amusing as the love-struck young man Cherubino, who ends up dressing like a girl — and takes to it like a duck in heels. Ying Fang impresses as the object of his affection.
In her Met debut, Amanda Majeski was captivating as long-suffering Countess Almaviva, whose arias throbbed with beauty and anguish. Majeski gets the last words, spoken to her husband: “All is forgiven.”
Opera is like that. Real life — and labor disputes — not so much.
jdziemianowicz@nydailynews.com
