The Montreal Opera has opted for a safe bet to inaugurate its new season. The Marriage of Figaro by Mozart, which marked the debut of conductor Nicolas Ellis at the Opéra de Montréal in a production imported from south of the border, were a success across the board.
It has been 12 years since this masterpiece of lyrical art inspired by Marriage of Figaro de Beaumarchais had not been the subject of professional production in Quebec. To do this, the organization used a turnkey production commissioned jointly by the opera houses of Kansas City, Philadelphia, San Diego and Palm Beach.
As soon as you enter the Wilfrid-Pelletier room, Leslie Travers’ stage set-up impresses. A large grayish wall decorated with an immense genealogical tree in relief, that of Count Almaviva obviously, would rotate for three hours in all directions, bend, split, reveal many openings through which intrigues were to be knotted and unraveled.
PHOTO JOSIE DESMARAIS, LA PRESSE ARCHIVES
A large grayish wall was decorated with the immense family tree of Count Almaviva.
The magnificent XVIII costumese century, also signed by Travers, also make it possible to single out each of the characters.
No less memorable is the work of veteran British opera director Stephen Lawless, who teems with wit without distorting the work. A certain sentence or stanza suddenly takes an unexpected turn, causing laughter to burst forth in the room. This is particularly the case in the air No more andrai when Figaro momentarily diverts towards the Count the accusations of an unrepentant seducer normally addressed to Cherubino.
PHOTO JOSIE DESMARAIS, THE PRESS
The Marriage of Figaro
Solid distribution
It was the Figaro by the young Croatian baritone Leon Košavić, a former member of the Queen Elisabeth Musical Chapel in Belgium, which won the first laurels. The voice, powerful, supple and rich, combines with a strong stage presence.
Soprano Andrea Núñez, a former member of the Atelier lyrique de Montréal who could be heard in the more modest role of the first lady of the Magic flute a year and a half ago, is also visibly having fun in the shoes of his fiancée Susanna. But is it his stage investment that makes the voice sometimes lack roundness?
PHOTO JOSIE DESMARAIS, THE PRESS
The Marriage of Figaro
Baritone Count Hugo Laporte, a regular on this stage, dazzles with his velvety voice, but his playing would benefit from more breadth, more panache.
Bravo for the bold ornamentation in the revival ofHai già vinta la causa.
Canadian soprano Kirsten MacKinnon initially scared us in her first aria (Porgi amor), the voice having difficulty finding its ease (strange vibrato and slight accuracy problems). She then found her feet, and her smooth voice as well as her stage dejection quickly disarmed us.
If bass-baritone Scott Brooks didn’t have so much Bartolo’s voice, his bass being covered by the orchestra in The vendettaKatie Fernandez’s Cherubino, Rachèle Tremblay’s Marcellina, Angelo Moretti’s Basilio and Don Curzio, Emma Fekete’s Barbarina and Matthew Li’s Antonio were all valuable contributions to this excellent show.
And there was obviously the Orchester Métropolitain conducted by Nicolas Ellis who, from the twirling Opening, played as quickly as possible, made the pit boil like a pot. The 32-year-old conductor, appointed first guest conductor of the Violons du Roy last year, has stripped down the orchestral sound, the musicians playing short and with little vibrato. The band got confused in the first duet, but the rest of the evening was a surge of inventiveness matched only by the staging.
A show to see, therefore, repeated on September 26 and 28 (7:30 p.m.) and on September 1er October (2 p.m.).