The Marriage of Figaro review – Opera North’s delightfully spoofy new version

Nicholas Hytner once said that you can set the Marriage of Figaro on the moon, as long as the doors are in the right place. Leslie Travers’s set for this Opera North production – their first new Figaro for almost 10 years – is well supplied with doors, though it initially appears to have been installed the wrong way round. Rather than revealing Figaro’s garret, the curtain rises on the rickety rear side – all wooden struts and canvas – that usually only stage managers and cleaners get to see. But as the overture is accompanied by singers scampering to and from their entrances through the darkness, the purpose of director Jo Davies’s concept becomes clear: if a farce looks funny from the front, it’s nothing compared to the chaos going on behind.

Davies scored notable successes with her Opera North productions of Ruddigore and Carousel, and her delightfully accessible Figaro is the operatic equivalent of Noises Off. Michael Frayn’s backstage spoof brilliantly boiled the workings of the genre to its essence: “Doors and sardines. Getting the sardines on, getting the sardines off. That’s all it’s about.” Davies astutely realises that Mozart’s opera hinges on a sequence of sardine moments, and yet, far from destroying the illusion, exposing the inner workings of the production seems to reveal more about the inner workings of the characters themselves.

This is no more true than for the Countess, whose grandiose displays of self-pity can sometimes seem stubbornly designed to hold up the fun. But here, Ana Maria Labin’s Countess becomes a vital cog in the theatrical machine, and though her heartbreak is plangently expressed with a deftly executed Dove sono, she is far from a lofty paragon of virtue. The intensity of the glances she steals with Helen Sherman’s sprightly Cherubino suggests that the hormonal infatuation of the adolescent page is not entirely one-way traffic.

The production presents a marvellous springboard for the lyric and comedic talents of Norwegian soprano Silvia Moi, whose Susanna is an infectious bundle of perpetual motion. It is hard to say which is funnier: her histrionic fainting fits at moments of crisis, or the tart observation (in Jeremy Sams’s peerless translation) that “women of my class don’t get headaches”.

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A combination of pinstripes and hair oil make Richard Burkhard’s Figaro seem a bit of a spiv. But he has a persuasively smooth tone, even if bringing up the house lights for his accusatory aria on the inconstancy of women is the one time when Davies’s direction appears to be over-egging it a bit. Quirijn de Lang’s performance as the Count seems to be led by his moustache – a waxed, handlebar appendage that could only belong to a cad – but his wiry delivery and stiff deportment speak volumes about the character’s discomfort.

The smaller roles are amply filled by Henry Waddington’s pompous Bartolo, Gaynor Keeble’s plummy Marcellina and Joseph Shovelton’s pernicious Basilio; with an ear-catching Ellie Laugharne making the most of Barbarina’s fleeting appearance. Alexander Shelley has led the Orchestra of Opera North several times in concert, including a prizewinning performance at the Leeds Conductors competition in 2005, but has yet to oversee a stage production. Though his tempos are fairly sedate, he supplies a grace and subtlety that, while the doors are flapping wildly on stage, open an expansive window on to Mozart’s remarkable score.

Until 27 February. Box office: 0844 848 2700. Details: operanorth.co.uk