By crisscrossing the Palais Garnier stage with a network of stage curtains, light poles and balustrades, the new production of Marriage of Figaro, given at the Paris Opera until Friday February 18, clearly sets out its intention to play the theater card in the theatre. On a technical level, with the representation of two mobile legs (drapes intended to hide access to the wings), garden side and courtyard side. But, above all, at the level of a staging which aspires to put into perspective the original theater of Beaumarchais and that, in the lyrical genre, which resulted from it following the reworking of the play (The Marriage of Figaro) by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and Lorenzo da Ponte, his librettist.
A gigantic chronometer (a nod to Beaumarchais’ watchmaking profession?) is started as the opera’s overture begins. 04’03”22”’ later, the orchestral curtain raiser ends. In the meantime, props (bouquet of flowers, wig) have been brought in under the gaze of a stage manager, and the main protagonists of the Wedding took place in their personal space. Lodge of the artist called to play a role in the show or domestic setting assigned to the character he is going to embody? The question will arise many times during the evening.
Each protagonist of these “Wedding of Figaro” has their functional and symbolic “box”
For the time being, everyone is in their functional (piano, TV screen, radiator) and symbolic (sewing machine for Suzanne, the chambermaid who transplants her bride-to-be hat) “box”. On the left, dressed in a modern suit, the Countess comes and goes tapping her mobile phone. On the right, in a black suit and an open-necked white shirt, the Count “eyes” a young dancer in a white tutu seated opposite him. In the center, Figaro is immersed in his laptop and Suzanne, busy at her desk. “Five…ten…twenty…thirty” (more figures, but this time sung in Italian), Figaro thinks regarding the layout of the nuptial chamber to come. The opera then began. Unless it is the repetition of the first scene by the performers concerned?
During the following solo sung by Figaro (If he wants to dance), the simultaneous view of the three dressing rooms (or bedrooms) will contribute to the first success of Netia Jones’ staging. Having understood why his master wishes to keep access to the apartment of his wife’s servant, the valet promises himself to “make the little Count dance”. This is exactly what happens in the next room, between the almighty man and the young ballerina. Well prepared and efficiently exploited, the idea (which fits perfectly with the mechanics of the orchestra) brings smiles right down to the details. Thus, the moderation advice (” very quietly “) addressed vocally by Figaro to his master is it relayed, with a gesture, by the latter to the address of the young girl, supposedly to curb his ardor… In fact, with her as with Suzanne, the Count understands use sound “droit de seigneur”.
You have 45.26% of this article left to read. The following is for subscribers only.
