Le nozze di Figaro

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Composer: Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Librettist: Lorenzo da Ponte
Venue and Dates: Bayerische Staatsoper, Munich
19 and 23 July 2007
Conductor: Lothar Zagrosek
Director: Dieter Dorn
Sets and costumes: Jürgen Rose
Lighting: Max Keller
Dramaturgy: Hans-Joachim Ruckhäberle
Performers:

Il Conte di Almaviva: Simon Keenlyside
La Contessa di Almaviva: Anja Harteros
Cherubino: Maite Beaumont
Figaro: Hanno Müller-Brachmann
Susanna: Heidi Grant Murphy
Bartolo: Maurizio Muraro
Marcellina: Cynthia Jansen
Basilio: Ulrich Reß
Don Curzio: Kevin Conners
Antonio: Alfred Kuhn
Barbarina: Lana Kos
Two maidens: Eveline Ertl and Irene Meyer
Bayerisches Staatsorchester
Choir of the Bayerischen Staatsoper (Andrés Máspero, Choirmaster)

Notes:

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What the critics say

Merkur, 22 July 2007 (Gabriele Luster)

Translated by Ursula Turecek

Lucky Munich that “accommodates” an Anja Harteros within its opera’s walls – and not only during festival time. After her cheering „Alcina“ she moved into the centre of the events in Mozart’s “Le nozze di Figaro” at the Nationaltheater. With her warmly timbred, elegantly employed soprano full of nuances, she illuminated all the emotional corners of the cheated Contessa without applying even a hint of sentimentality. Infected by insubordinate Figaro’s (dark, meaty: Hanno Müller-Brachmann) and Susanna’s (silvery, but very lightweight: Heidi Grant-Murphy) little intrigues she played along: She allowed herself to be moved by Cherubino’s tender courtship and proved her courting husband’s guilt. Simon Keenlyside is in his element as Conte, vocally as well as in his narcissistic acting seasoned with comic effects. That the direction of the characters in Dieter Dorn’s staging is still working down to the detail, despite a completely new cast, provided for disport. Lothar Zagrosek at the rostrum met Mozart in an extremely spirited way but stage and pit drifted apart repeatedly.

Süddeutsche Zeitung, 21 July 2007 (Andreas Pernpeintner)

Translated by Ursula Turecek

This “Figaro” at the Nationaltheater really is a show. Of course this is mainly due to Dieter Dorn’s brilliant production that spotlights the actors emphatically and with technical minimalism. But from the outset you have to be able to deal with such focussing on the acting as charmingly as the ensemble here manages to do, with ironic and deliberate overdrawing of their parts. Thus this well known, but once politically explosive, bustle of “seducers, those who are jealous and those who are striving to get married” gains anew a captivating, humorous emotion that conductor Lothar Zagrosek and the State Orchestra take up with brisk tempi and in which da Ponte’s libretto and Peter Turrini’s comedy adaptation of Beaumarchais, “Der tollste Tag”, are reflected in equal measure.

The way Simon Keenlyside characterises the Conte – as a vain ninny who comes on strong with his voice in a domineering way, rapturously purring and wooing many a lady, but who is at the same time doltish – is brilliant and exquisitely entertaining. As is the notoriously late pubertal Cherubino, performed by Maite Beaumont with beautiul vocal elegance. Contrasting this powdered accuracy, Heidi Grant Murphy as Susanna with saucy, girlish grace and Hanno Müller-Brachmann as an absolutely ribald and harsh Figaro despite of all his shrewd brain, celebrate down-to-earth behaviour as well befits their rank. Thus a certain seriousness is preserved: Figaro’s “Se vuol ballare, signor Contino” absolutely has to be understood as a menace in this meaty interpretation. But once again it is Anja Harteros, on a large scale festival mission at the moment, who as a Contessa melting in melancholy unites touching gloom and glamorously crowing expressiveness into this performance’s sung masterpiece.