Opera review: The Marriage of Figaro, Glyndebourne Festival Opera

I WAS slightly anxious when travelling to Glyndebourne for the Marriage of Figaro this year.

Adam Plachetka as Figaro and Laura Tatulescu as Susanna PIC ROBERT WORKMAN Adam Plachetka as Figaro and Laura Tatulescu as Susanna (PIC: ROBERT WORKMAN)

When I saw Michael Grandage's production of this opera when it was new in 2012, I thought it was utterly perfect and a pure joy bringing great humour, superb singing and magnificent music together in a glorious setting that only Glyndebourne can offer.

Surely, I felt, any revival cannot match that production.

At the start, I felt that this year's production, just fell short of the original, if only by a very small notch, but as it went on, I began to appreciate some small improvements and additions to the comedy, delicious quirks of the singers and by the end, I was just as enthralled as I had been last year.

The singing is excellent, the playing of the London Philharmonic Orchestra is crisp and delightful, but above all, Michael Grandage's production brings out the humour in the opera magnificently.

The plot is, after all, pure farce, but it is all too easy to take it too seriously. Grandage plays it for laughs and the result is outstanding.

Figaro, a barber and servant at the court of Count Almaviva, is about to marry Susannah, whom the lascivious count also lusts after.

The count has recently abolished the right of the lord of the manor to have his evil way with the girls in his employ before they marry, but he is seriously thinking of bringing it back to satisfy his lust for Susannah.

Joshua Hopkins is delightfully smooth and lecherous as the count, and Amanda Majeski is quite magnificent as his much-abused wife

The whole plot is dominated by the various schemes of Figaro and Susannah to frustrate the count, with everything gloriously complicated by sub-plots involving the outrageously randy young manservant Cherubino, the devious lawyer Dr Bartolo, and a ghastly old bat, Marcellina, who claims Figaro's hand in marriage in payment of an old debt.

As Figaro and Susannah, Adam Plachetka and Laura Tatulescu play off each other perfectly; their voices, humour and timing seem to fit together  in a way that seems totally natural.

Joshua Hopkins is delightfully smooth and lecherous as the count, and Amanda Majeski is quite magnificent as his much-abused wife, the countess, but the best performance, by a short head, is Lydia Teuscher as Cherubino.

Last year, when I saw Isabel Leonard in the role, I doubted that she would ever be matched, but Teuscher (who played Susannah last year) brings the same air of pure mischief to the part and is a pure delight.

Curiously, the moment when everything comes together best of all is in the crowd scene when everyone is on stage dancing at the joint wedding towards the end. I can confidently say I have never seen such outrageously funny choreography, to which all contribute.

We come to the opera for the music, the singing and the acting, but it was this parody of terrible dancing that really had the audience in stitches.

I still don't quite understand why the count arrives on stage at the beginning of the opera in a sports car, or indeed why the whole action is moved to around 1970, when the sexual implications of master-serf relationships are rather anachronistic, but in a production as hilarious and well-sung as this one, all such nonsense is easily forgiven.

Tickets: glyndebourne.com or 01273 813813 (until August 2)
Verdict: 5/5

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