In Amsterdam, Mozart's Nozze di Figaro became an 'Upstairs Downstairs' setting… Above, a spacious, bright, minimally decorated modern space with walls of what appears to be expensive wood. It turns out to be an art gallery where an opening reception is taking place that day.
It is the space where the lives of Mozart and librettist Da Ponte's aristocratic characters unfold. The Marriage of Figaro Below is a sort of basement-cum-laundry-room-cum-storage space, where the staff's—i.e., the lower classes'—lives and work take place. The lower you stand on the social ladder, the less business you have upstairs. It is also here that the Count had arranged for the soon-to-be-wed couple, his barber Figaro and his fiancée the maid Susanna, to live. So that—and Susanna catches on immediately—Susanna is conveniently nearby when Figaro is away. All of this separated by a conspicuously thick floor, sometimes extra-lit. So thick that WiFi reception downstairs is poor and the unfortunates below constantly have to stand on chairs and tables to be able to text and message. And yes, Serebrennikov clearly moves the opera's plot to the present day with this. Again, you might say. But in this case it carries extra meaning.
The director himself remembers all too well the time in 2018 when he was under house arrest in Moscow while supposed to direct the first installment of a Mozart/Da Ponte trilogy in Zurich, Così fan tutte, and that from home via computer screen, if the connection was strong enough, and otherwise via text and instant messages. In The Marriage of Figaro the characters are constantly communicating with each other, so why wouldn't they do so via texts and messages in a modern production? Which we as an audience often see neatly projected onto the set.
Back then in Zurich there was an assistant of Serebrennikov on site, his long-time collaborator, choreographer and right hand Evgeny Kulagin (who oversaw the Dutch staging of this Figaro production previously performed in Berlin). During his house arrest back then, Serebrennikov communicated through him. Perhaps another directorial intervention in this Figaro staging alludes to that period. Such an 'avatar' also exists for the Count in this production, described in the program book as an accomplice (the phenomenally moving actor/dancer Nikita Kukushkin), also appearing as adoppelgänger, alter ego, the embodiment of his will, but when the Count needs to vent his rage on someone, frequently also as a whipping boy and general scapegoat.
Serebrennikov makes use of another important newly conceived acting role, namely for Cherubino, normally a male role sung by a female mezzo-soprano. I don't know if it's true that Serebrennikov wanted a man with a high voice to sing the role, but that the Komische Oper in Berlin, where this production was first performed, had already engaged a mezzo-soprano. The singing part is now assigned to an added character, 'Cherubina', a female companion of Cherubino. Cherubino is now played by Georgy Kudrenko, who plays Cherubino as a deaf-mute boy and expresses himself in sign language, while Cherubina (the excellent Cecilia Molinari) acts as a sign language interpreter singing Cherubino's text in the third person.This allowed Serebrennikov to have a Cherubino who looks convincingly like a young, hot-headed teenager, and regularly does partial or full striptease acts, only to then play the murdered innocence of an underage boy. Throughout all this, he is assisted by Cherubina. Thus it also becomes believable when Cherubino tries to turn the heads of almost all the women in the household, upstairs and downstairs. 'Almost all the women', because the plot has added another female character: an 'old woman' (Marieke Reuten), an elderly housekeeper who spends all day doing laundry in the basement,
taking out the garbage and cleaning up everyone's mess, the outcast of outcasts, whom no one deems worthy of a glance. Cherubino doesn't see her either. When in the second act he jumps out the window and subsequently comes limping and wailing down to the lower floor to have the women tend to his bruises, he doesn't even realize that she is the one trying most lovingly to catch him. Even when she offers him something to drink, he refuses, whereupon it eventually becomes too much for her and she pours the contents of the cup over him: a small close-up moment of silent protest that could have come straight from a film. Yes, Serebrennikov is a film director. the Downstairs there are indeed significant differences among the servants, and Serebrennikov expands on them thoroughly. Figaro and Susanna can allow themselves freedoms that the others shouldn't even think about. Perhaps this is Serebrennikov's own view on social systems that preach equality. Like the former Soviet Union, where he was born. Serebrennikov is indeed also an excellent film director, a film director most opera lovers don't know. Well, he's also an opera director who is foreign to most film enthusiasts. I'm wondering which of his films comes closest to this Nozze. Perhaps
{{NOTRANSLATE_1}} from 2018, about the alternative pop scene in Leningrad at a time when the thaw in the Soviet Union seemed to be continuing. {{NOTRANSLATE_2}} is essentially about the failure that followed. {{NOTRANSLATE_3}}
In {{NOTRANSLATE_1}}, there is always a mix of reality and illusion that are intertwined. Hoffmann the poet (tenor Arturo Chacón-Cruz) is the central player. His object of affection? The soprano Stella (soprano Jessica Pratt) in all her forms: Olympia, Antonia and Giulietta. Her opponent? Art in living form: La Muse (mezzo-soprano Julie Bulianne), disguised as Nicklausse. The antagonist is Lindorf (bass-baritone Erwin Schrott), translated into various figures (Spalanzani/Miracle/Dapertutto), but always in the same role. These four form the core that sets the game in motion and ultimately concludes it. the constricting norms of bourgeois society come into view through the cursed and indeed failed marriage of composer Tchaikovsky. Although Serebrennikov doesn't paint a very sympathetic picture of the wife, he particularly shows in that film an eye for the social straitjacket in which not only Tchaikovsky, but also his wife lived. But in that film, nobody wins. With his most recent film, {{NOTRANSLATE_4}} , about the attempts of Nazi criminal Mengele to hide anonymously in Paraguay and Brazil, this Nozze had less common ground.The 'count' supposedly has a large art gallery and artworks are constantly coming in and constantly going out again. Buying and selling. The count and his clientele's taste is not particularly original. We see half-abstract, shiny chrome torsos, paintings that seem to be based on an increasingly mutilated version of Ingres'
{{NOTRANSLATE_5}} (an iconic painting from the time when the successor to the French Revolution, namely the Napoleonic empire, was dying) and pop-art-like works with neon lettering displaying often rather pretentious and essentially rather meaningless texts. All run-of-the-mill art. Okay, one such text is {{NOTRANSLATE_6}} , the crazy day, and that refers to the original title of Beaumarchais' play,{{NOTRANSLATE_7}} which refers to the fact that the story indeed takes place within one morning, afternoon, evening and night. A slogan such as, {{NOTRANSLATE_8}} contains a kernel of truth, but there are few worlds less capitalistic than that of art galleries (and perhaps also the opera world). And yes, the phrase {{NOTRANSLATE_9}} comes from French philosopher {{NOTRANSLATE_10}} Veronique Gens is a perfect parody of an art-world manager type.
Downstairs they have to make do with "arte povera" (the name of a movement from the sixties and seventies), scaffolding made from discarded shopping carts, an old mattress (also the wedding gift from the count for Susanna), discarded washing machines (during the opening symphony we saw the elderly maid, exhausted, operating a large number of washing machines needed for the household, but these machines, like the society being depicted, don't last forever), beer crates (upstairs at the opening of a new exhibition they apparently drink good wine, at one point the count spills some on the floor while pointing out to Figaro where to sweep), broken chairs, and worn-out kitchen utensils.
It's well known that in Mozart and Da Ponte's operatic version, Figaro's tirade against class distinction from Beaumarchais' play was omitted. Perhaps because the opera would otherwise have been too political for Vienna? Yet the underlying class struggle that would lead to revolution in France is clearly present in Mozart and Da Ponte's opera as well. Incidentally, although Figaro and the rest of the upper echelon of the household staff engage in this class struggle, we see them in turn behaving just as authoritatively toward the 'lower' staff who rank beneath them on the social ladder. Something that Serebrennikov makes sure to emphasize.
Meanwhile, Figaro is indeed cast as a good-natured buffoon, in the person of the still boyish-looking Michael Nagl. He possesses a fine, agile bass voice. I also enjoyed watching how he worked out his role down to the smallest details with (from row 11, perfectly visible) facial expressions and gestures.
The other characters are all perfectly cast in their roles. Björn Bürger, as Il Conte di Almaviva, had already impressed audiences in Amsterdam as a charming Wolfram von Eschenbach in Tannhäuser and a delightful Gabriel von Eisenstein in The Bat. Olga Kulchynska's Countess Almaviva doesn't have that ripeness, that 'Marschallin-like' quality with which the role is often portrayed, but rather something uncertain, a bit Ivana Trump-ish, who never quite seems sure of her place. Kulchynska gives the character a character arc and in her arias toward the end, which Serebrennikov even adds an extra one for, Kulchynska captures the sovereign bearing of the , Così fan tutte sadder and wiser countess and expresses it flawlessly through the music. Susanna is Emily Pogorelc, for whom the role is perfectly tailored both vocally and dramatically, and while she's only just 29, she appears even younger on stage. One should remember that the characters in 'reality' were most likely all around 20 years old, Susanna younger still and Figaro perhaps just slightly older, as was the count. The countess is, as mentioned, younger than usually portrayed. She is older than Susanna, which perhaps explains why the count was already a bit tired of his wife.
I had to check whether we were dealing with an orchestra playing on period instruments. It turned out to be 'just' the Dutch Chamber Orchestra. In any case, they did play 'historically informed,' undoubtedly thanks to conductor and harpsichordist Francesco Corti, a harpsichordist and organist by training, regular guest conductor of the period ensemble Il Pomo d'Oro and having worked with Les Musiciens du Louvre, the Dutch Bach Society, and as musical director of the opera theater in Drottningholm, an authentic rococo building.
The score has been tinkered with. Corti himself improvises freely in some of the recitatives, even mimicking ringtones when characters are calling and texting on stage. A joke: when Cherubino jumps out the window, the clarinet hears the opening notes of 'E lucevan le stelle' and Peter Franken figured out why: "Cherubina takes a running start and dives after her Cherubino like an accomplished Tosca."
Besides that extra opera aria for the Countess, several other musical pieces have been inserted. For instance, in
the third act, Susanna, the countess and the count sing on the dirty mattress (a 'wedding gift' from the count) the trio "Soave sia il vento" from Così fan tutte . Furthermorea wonderfully beautiful, sustained arrangement of a lament from Mozart's Dissonance Quartet as an introduction to the count's plea to the countess: "Contessa, perdono!" Moreover, unlike is customary, Marcellina's aria Il capro e la capretta" “has not been omitted. Not only to give star soprano Veronique Gens an extra beautiful moment, but also because, as David Cairns is quoted in the program notes, its message – a plea for more respect for women (if not equal rights) – aligns beautifully with the heart of the opera's finale: it is the women in the opera who are needed to set things right. Musical direction Francesco Corti -
