February 1999

Le Nozze di Figaro at the Metropolitan Opera House

Productions staged by Jonathan Miller seem to provoke discussion, if not always controversy. In the Met's new Le Nozze di Figaro, Miller has indulged his distaste for the outdoors, but otherwise his approach is less idiosyncratic than usual. Dissent has focused not so much on Miller's approach as on Cecilia Bartoli's Susanna -- punchy and unbuckled, both vocally and dramatically.

Here was a mezzo taking a role customarily played by a lyric, often semi-soubrette soprano, though Mozart, with an unerring sense of social rank, wrote the Countess' music higher, with more and finer ornamentation. In some performances, including the one seen November 11, the Italian mezzo replaced two of Susanna's arias with alternates that the composer supplied for Adriana Ferraresi del Bene, whose voice was better suited to roles like Constanze or Fiordiligi. The first of these ersatz ditties, "Un moto di gioia," is a bit of fluff that leaves a dramatic hole where "Venite, inginocchiatevi" is supposed to be; the second, "Al desio," is more expressive and substantial, but it's no substitute for the radiant "Deh vieni, non tardar." One couldn't fault Bartoli for her delivery, only for her choices. They showed her bravura technique, at the cost of making her seem to surpass the Countess in vocal filigree -- hardly an effect Mozart wanted, though he had to put up with it at the time. Fortunately, the Met's Countess, Renée Fleming, had elegance of her own. She sang her arias with sustained lyric purity and discreet sadness, acting the role with a restraint that played tellingly against the bumptiousness of her servants -- not only her maid, but the uppity Figaro of Bryn Terfel (whose assertiveness required no less a Susanna than Bartoli) and the overbearingly boorish Antonio of Thomas Hammons.

In other words, this cast kept up the tradition that has prevailed since the days of Salvatore Baccaloni, when non-Italian-speaking audiences in large theaters had to get comic points through broad acting. All the better to set off the restraint of Fleming and her willful, impatient Count, Dwayne Croft, struggling constantly to remind himself to keep up gentlemanly appearances. Some have found Susanne Mentzer's Cherubino understated, but Miller seems to have meant this character to reflect a poise and spoiled complacency consistent with the youth's privileged position. The shorter character parts too were in excellent hands: Paul Plishka's self-important Bartolo (a worthy pendant to his Falstaff), Wendy White's prim Marcellina, Heinz Zednik's intrusively nervy Basilio, Anthony Laciura's wheezing Curzio. As Barbarina (the role of her Met debut this season), Danielle de Niese showed an appropriately girlish timbre and demeanor.

James Levine's credentials as a Mozart conductor are second to none, but he has never shown much interest in "historically correct" ornamentation, of which this performance had little -- no appoggiaturas in "Voi che sapete," a few flourishes added just here and there, mainly by Terfel, whose resounding bass-baritone and meaningful diction made Figaro the man of the hour. The orchestra played with warmth, smoothness and sparkle, enlivening but never overwhelming the stage action.

Miller's ideas, and those of set designer Peter Davison, conveyed most of Figaro's madcap wisdom -- except in Act IV, where it's needed most. The transition between the wedding and garden scenes began expertly enough with Barbarina, left in limbo by librettist Lorenzo da Ponte, losing her pin while still in the Almaviva palace, having Figaro hand her a replacement. But as the palace turned onstage to place the action outside, there appeared at best the feeling of a courtyard, not of a garden where one could get lost and confused. Davison had created a palace of grand design, but this was the place to leave it behind; here nature plays a Shakespearean role, and transformation is required. A domestic, prosaic finale, with only partial escape from courtly restraint, takes us only partway to that place where Mozart and Da Ponte would have everyone breathe open air at last.

- JOHN W. FREEMAN