Figaro at the Berkeley Repertory Theater is THE GREATEST MODERN ADAPTATION of the opera. 5 stars. I loved all 2 and a half hours of the multimedia opera. I love it still. I will absolutely recommend it to everyone. I will see it a second time. There is a possibility of seeing it a third time.
As a first experience, this beats it all. Fantastic play. Fantastic music. The
cast was wonderful -- first rate group of actors with much experience behind their acting and their musical talents. Old Figaro played by Stephen Epp was phenomenal. The chemistry between him and Dominique Serrand, who plays Count Almaviva, had the audience in stitches in certain instances. The operatic talents of Jennifer Peden, who plays the Countess, and Momoko Tanno, who plays Susanna (Figaro's wife) will give you chills. Their voices are so skilled -- sweet, powerful, lilting, deep -- and when they duet together certain parts (such as when they wrote the letter to the Count inviting him to the garden), the music is astounding.
The live music from the ensemble in the pit was equally astounding. When the violins pick up the first few notes of a melody, you feel like everything is alive. The music just sweeps you away with all the energy and momentum, then it suddenly quiets down into soft tinklings of the piano... amazing score. I often find it difficult to stay awake during symphonies and concerts, but this opera kept me awake, alert, and interested the entire time.
And yes, you read it right.
Multimedia opera. There was strobe lighting, gunsmoke, and two huge white screens. On the smaller of the two, you can read the surtitles to the Italian opera. (The spoken parts were in English with a smattering of French being uttered by the Count; the singing parts were mostly in Italian, with a few bits of English scattered in.) The larger of the two screens provides part of the backdrop. Throughout the opera, the actors stand in certain positions that allow a cameraman to videotape them and project them onto the large white screen, and their images are often superimposed upon (I'm sorry that I don't have the vocab to describe this accurately!) background scenes.
For example, in the scene in which the Countessa and Susanna write a letter to trap the adulterous Count, the two women's images are projected onto the screen as they sing together the lines from the letter penned in Susanna's handwriting. See in the picture how their faces are enlarged onto the screen? Every expression, every emotion, thought, and movement was captured on that screen. In other scenes, such as the one with Figaro which I've included here, large still images provided beautiful, silent, unchanging backgrounds for a revolutionary, chaotic narrative unfolding inside the mansion.
Everyone who saw the play tonight admitted that the use of the camera and the visual images was a brilliant idea. It was very tastefully, artfully, and efficiently used. All the props were very well thought out. I marvel at how creative the adaptor and producers were in making this opera come alive. I marvel still at how well the multimedia was incorporated seamlessly into the play. It works even better thanks to how the play is written -- that is, Old Count and Old Figaro are hiding out in the gigantic mansion and as they reminisce, "ghosts" of their pasts and their past selves come to life. The video screen allowed scenes of past and present to merge and allowed actors playing Old and Young Figaro, with Old and Young Count, to coexist on one stage. Very artfully done. The music was mesmerizing, the humor was captivating, and the visuals were eyecatching.
And then, we get to the opera itself. The stories that unfold delve into the relationships between Count and Figaro with a lot of humor, and much pain, envy, anger. And love. We know Beaumarchais wrote his plays as social critiques of the aristocracy, and he was aiming at making biting commentaries on the society and culture of his time (but still so apropos today). But, in the end, it was and still is about human relationships. About love and forgiveness, and regret and guilt, that drives each human being.
As we were leaving the theater, I joked with my sister that we could put on our own production of an opera, or perhaps work our way into becoming understudies. My sister replied by humming her own rendition of
The Sound of Music. While I know we could never even hope to sing one note of this opera (except maybe in the showers), I believe we all recognize the Music that they are singing to, and are singing about.
Figaro ends with dancing around a blazing fire, with singing and crescendoing music. Every song that we heard in the theater -- each one is still swirling in my head toward a greater narrative about human devotion (servant to master, wife to husband, friend to lover). And every note is still ringing in my ear.
