The cast of The Marriage of Figaro at Aotea Centre. Photo / David Rowland
The cast of The Marriage of Figaro at Aotea Centre. Photo / David Rowland
Lindy Hume's staging of Mozart's The Marriage of Figaro, her seventh engagement with New Zealand Opera, marks a glorious, life-affirming return to mainstage productions.
Once again, the Australian takes a feminist stance on a classic that English writer Virginia Woolf once hailed as the vindication of opera.
John Moore's Countis a dashing focal point for these politics, a louche lecher, running a gamut of emotions from childlike petulance to snarling rage.
Alongside him, Richard Ollarsaba's affable Figaro stands for the more conscientious male of 2021, both men catching their characters with exemplary Mozartian style.
Emma Pearson's Countess gives us her exquisitely nuanced "Porgi Amor", roaming, distracted, through mysterious pillars created by Tracy Grant Lord's ingenious set.
Yet she participates with verve in the frenetic comedy of mistaken identities and entrapment. Her accomplice, Joanna Foote's Susanna, is as fetching in the snap of recitative as in her heart-melting final aria.
Bianca Andrew's lovelorn Cherubino, a young man played by a woman, who eventually has to don a dress for further deception, was a highlight. Her first aria, was delivered with the hip-swivelling swagger of a drag king, with every elegant musical inflection in place.
Bianca Andrew as Cherubino in The Marriage of Figaro at Aotea Centre. Photo / David Rowland
Kristin Darragh's Marcellina deploys her rich mezzo with theatrical sass.
Smaller roles were astutely handled by Andrew Collis, Andrew Grenon and Imogen Thirlwall, with Joel Amosa in fine comedic form as Antonio.
This was, as it must be, an evening of superb arias, until Matthew Marshall's lighting illuminates the final of many memorable ensembles in a perhaps ironically golden glow.
Tonight's collective triumph owes much to the omnipresent and lusty-voiced chorus, also acting as silent sceneshifters. And this Figaro would have been much poorer without conductor Zoe Zeniodi setting off Auckland Philharmonia Orchestra with a whirlwind overture and never letting up.
With two more performances on Thursday and Sunday, this is not to be missed.
What: The Marriage of Figaro Where: Aotea Centre When: Tuesday
