The voices were in tune in this production of Rossini's "Marriage of Figaro." However, with a few exceptions, the voices failed to project.The acting was quite good and quite obviously much attention was devoted to this aspect of the production. Overall, there were too many distractions on stage to make this an enjoyable performance.
The role of Count Almaviva managed to have some good moments in terms of projecting his voice. The role of Don Basilio was the best in this regard. In all of the roles, the lack of projection was most glaringly noticeable during the quick passages for which Rossini is famous.
The power of Rossini resides to a great extent in the ability of the roles to move through the quick passages while articulating and powerfully supporting the notes. The singers were not successful in being able to do this. In this production, the singers were reduced to murmuring the lines in what sounded like an ongoing whisper or mumble.
Most of the time, Rosina did not support her voice. The sound seemed to barely emerge from her throat rather than being the product of her entire body. As a result of all of the singing, the production failed to carry the dramatic tension of the opera. By the end, the ensemble singing did not appear crisp and was more like a hodge-podge of voices.
The production appeared to compensate for the limitations in the singers and the lack of dramatic tension in the voices by overwhelming the opera with lots of moving parts.
The opera was set in contemporary Tel Aviv. There were typical Tel Aviv houses along the sea as well as a beach that remained as the set throughout the opera. At the beginning, there was a tractor and a real life donkey appeared at the beginning and the end.
Credit should be given for the effort to make the opera reflect Israel as well as be modern. The risks taken and innovation in the production might be outside the reach of more established companies like the Met though the Met has updated some productions - some more successfully than others. It should however, be noted that while the rest of the world tends to modernize through minimalism, this production endeavored to modernize by stuffing the stage with myriad examples of contemporary Israeli life.
Ultimately, the plethora of moving parts in this opera was not successful because it failed to move the drama of the opera forward.
At best, all of the moving parts provided a context that was uniquely Israeli kitch and did provide a humorous and even delightful aspect to the opera. However, the effort of having many moving parts was severely overdone to the extent that every image in the libretto needed to be illustrated with some on-stage activity. This became at first a distraction and then led to bewilderment and finally to confusion.
Librettos are terse documents and do require on-stage action to fill out the intent and move the plot forward. The ongoing incidental activities of incidental actors moving to and fro often obfuscated the central action of the plot in this production. Rather than illuminating the action, this created fragmentation and distraction.
The finale of the opera in which the lead actors sing in ensemble was a fitting capstone to the opera. The stage was filled with additional supernumeraries who along with the lead actors gesticulated with abandon. One lost track of both the voices and the culmination of the plot.
Comments