Glyndebourne Festival Opera founder Sir John Christie had his eyes on Wagner, but his practical and more experienced German-born staff knew that Mozart was a better fit for his new home-grown opera house in 1934. Le Nozze di Figaro, Glyndebourne’s original and now signature piece, gets a new production this season, the first since Michael Grandage’s Sixties-set adventure in 2012, complete with little red two-seater.
Stepping out elegantly from the long shadow cast by that spirited interpretation, director Mariame Clément offers a joined-up but dysfunctional 18th-century household. The sexual prowess of Huw Montague Rendall’s alpha male Count Almaviva is genuinely threatened by Adèle Charvet’s sleek and coltish Cherubino, a far cry from the flailing adolescents that often fizz and fuss around the Countess and her maid, Susanna.
Johanna Wallroth (Susanna), Ru Charlesworth (Don Basilio), Huw Montague Rendall (Count Almaviva) and Adèle Charvet (Cherubino). Photo: Richard Hubert Smith
At the same time, both the Count and Louise Alder’s Countess are within the first decade or so of their marriage, making his infidelities even nastier. They have a little girl, an imaginative addition by Clément, who has really thought about how and why Mozart’s characters sing their arias, and who might be listening in. Servants are behind each of the many doors, seeing and hearing everything. And when the Count plots against his manservant Figaro, he does so in the bath, two flunkeys on hand with towels.
Charvet’s agilely sung and acted Cherubino, Alder’s strong-willed Countess, and Montague Rendall’s stylish but ultimately slighted Count are supported by Johanna Wallroth’s nimble Susanna and Michael Nagi’s solid Figaro. Born by chance into privilege or service, pretty as Dresden china in their 18th century court dress or trussed up in workwear, the main protagonists could so easily swop roles. Indeed, Nagi’s Figaro can outsing Montague Rendall in the lower register, and Wallroth soars over the ensemble numbers.
Mozart’s overture opens with a teasing filigree flourish, albeit a very quiet one here, but Le Nozze di Figaro is in essence one long coiled spring, turning and turning before it propels the Count into the outer limits of humiliation. Matthew Fletcher’s spry harpsichord continue understands this, as do the singers and the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, but Riccardo Minasi’s tempi are more pink elastic than tempered steel, and from time to time on opening night the tension sagged.
Johanna Wallroth’s Susanna consoles Michael Nagi as Figaro. Photo: Richard Hubert Smith
Clément’s humanity does not extend, curiously, to Ru Charlesworth’s Don Basilio, a bent caricature of older age, while as Dr Bartolo, Alessandro Corbelli’s dull early aria could do with some of the enlivening context that other soliloquising characters enjoy.
Paule Constable’s warm lighting and Julia Hansen’s handsome revolving set and costume designs are enough to give the production a long shelf life. Delectably and evenly sung on its first outing, its success depends on voices that highlight the random nature of breeding. During this first run, Glyndebourne will stage its 600th Nozze. That’s 600 leaps from the window, 600 smashed carnations, 600 lost pins. Glyndebourne’s first artistic director, Carl Ebert, and first music director, Fritz Busch, knew their onions.
Le Nozze di Figaro is sung in Italian with English surtitles and runs until 21 August 2025