English National Opera's new production of The Marriage of Figaro is directed by Fiona Shaw. Her previous works for the company – Vaughan Williams's Riders to the Sea, Hans Werner Henze's Elegy for Young Lovers – were widely admired for giving credence to unexplored areas of the repertory. Mozart's great comedy brings her, however, into the operatic mainstream for the first time, and the results are less assured.
Feeling a necessity to mediate between the 18th century and the present day, she pitches us into confusion rather than clarification from the outset. Peter McKintosh's set is a whirling maze of white walls topped with steer skulls, all very pristine and Georgia O'Keeffe. The costumes initially suggest 18th-century Spain, but by the end we have moved forward in time and the cast are in modern dress.
Shaw is insightful on the relationship between Iain Paterson's Figaro and Roland Wood's Count. Their mutual antagonism is undercut by shared sexual insecurities that lead them to gang up on Kathryn Rudge's Cherubino, whom both Susanna (Devon Guthrie) and the Countess (Elizabeth Llewellyn, replacing the indisposed Kate Valentine) clearly find attractive. Yet Shaw overstates her case against masculine aggression by deploying too much imagery about man-as-animal and man-versus-animal. Figaro keeps a bear trap in his bedroom to catch intruders and gets married in a matador's jacket. The Count, a hunter, violates the sanctity of his wife's bathroom by having his gamekeepers deposit a trussed-up hog on the floor.
But the real problem is the production's intrusive busy-ness. The revolving set swirls ceaselessly from room to room, where countless extras flap and fuss and everything is overseen or overheard. The idea is that this is a world in which privacy is impossible and a crowd can be the loneliest of places. But when the Countess's great act three aria is maddeningly accompanied by dancers rehearsing a fandango to perform at Figaro's wedding, you're left wondering whether Shaw distrusts the power of music to carry emotional weight unaided.
It does sound good. As can sometimes happen with a late cast change, Llewellyn's performance was show-stealing. Paterson's gritty tone works well against Wood's unctuous smoothness. Guthrie is classy and beautiful, Rudge sensually refined. There is fine, careful conducting from Paul Daniel, too. But it is not one of the great productions of Figaro, and is all a bit of a disappointment.
