Le nozze di Figaro, Garsington Opera (the Arts Desk)

Written by Igor Toronyi-Lalic

John Cox's production: 'Its dogged wigs-'n'-breeches line did what many more daring productions fail to do, namely, elucidate the story'

The sun rode high, the gardens glowed green, my lemon berry pudding bulged proudly and, on stage, the familiar 24-carat farce that is Mozart's Le nozze di Figaro was working itself out to perfection. It was Garsington - and my baking - at its very finest, a fittingly triumphant opening to the final season at Garsington Manor (they move down the road to Wormsley Estate next year). Sets, direction, singing - two young standouts in particular - all had a part to play, as did the conducting of Douglas Boyd. The country house conductor (an unsung role) has the singular task of somehow warding off the inevitable, scientifically inescapable consequences of a beating sun and a vat of wine on an ageing audience - namely, the catnap. Boyd proved himself the catnap-vanquisher par excellence.

Musical excitement came not just in the exercise of dynamic muscle and speed - underpinned by strong beats and secure corners. It came also with the squeezing of every drop of dramatic colour and narrative interest from this extraordinary score. Boyd's attention to detail, inner voicing, tremolo colour and musical phrasing - that was at times so buxom in its peaks as to compete for attention with our curvaceous young Susanna, Sophie Bevan - meant the musical evening never flagged. All of which attention to instrumental finery had its impact on the orchestra, who played out of their skins.

On stage, there was far less re-inventive flash. John Cox's production could just as well have been a revival from 1805 as 2005, such was its dogged wigs-'n'-breeches line of thought. Not that any of this mattered to any of us in the audience; it did what many more daring productions fail to do, namely, elucidate the story. Le nozze is a Feydeau-like play, where assignations and accidents set off jack-in-the-box denouements in each act. The mechanics need to be oiled properly, set off efficiently and allowed to run their course unimpeded, with only the slightest and subtlest of guidance, and Cox knows it. With the help of Robert Perdziola's clever, efficient sets - whose angles and corridors and Lego-like action drew applause every time they changed their configuration - and the real gardens coming into play in the Act Two "who-fell-into-the-garden" japery, everything - comedy, tension, denouement- unfolded like clockwork.

The real rise in temperature, however, the two teaspoons of baking powder in this golden operatic sponge, let's say, came from two young singers: Bevan and Anna Grevelius (Cherubino). Grevelius made the first big impression by leaping head-first into her breathless opening aria. Her tone was sweet, windy, air-borne, full of a deliberate nervous energy; it's what one imagines a young Mary Garden might have sounded like in her day. Bevan was even more extraordinary as Susanna, filling this character's many roles (accomplice, wronged lover, mothering-figure, flirt) with exceptional ease. Her solo stints were as stunning as her ornamented contributions to ensemble.

Next to these two fresh daisies, Kishani Jayasinghe's thick, creamy voice, which always hung back from the beat for extra emotional attention, was less interesting. Her musical instinct and dynamic urge never quite made as much sense as the others. James Oldfield's cerebral, brooding Figaro was finely - perhaps too finely - drawn. Grant Doyle's hairy-chested Count was nicely poised between the greaseball and the cad. Conal Coad's Doctor Bartolo delivered some lovely low sounds, full and clean, through passages of pianissimo and forte. Daniel Norman (Don Basilio) was more engaging when in full flow than when attempting to wring comedic effect from the recitative. But the sun-kissed evening belonged to the two girls, Bevan and Grevelius, both of whom should hit the big time pretty damn soon.

Le nozze di Figaro, Garsington (Observer Review)

by Fiona Maddocks

Garsington Opera launched its final season in its Oxfordshire home, before moving next year to Wormsley, home of the Getty family, with the opera that launched the enterprise 21 years ago: Figaro. This was a revival of John Cox's enchanting 2005 staging, with a fine young cast and a small, accomplished orchestra, the sound brightened with imaginative and prominent fortepiano-led continuo.

Douglas Boyd, a top oboist as well as a conductor, brought a player's sensibility to instrumental detail and chose unrushed, sympathetic tempi in a fresh interpretation that will deepen. James Oldfield's quizzical and unshowy Figaro has promise in a cast headed by Sophie Bevan as a perky Susanna, Anna Grevelius touching and funny as Cherubino and Grant Doyle as a reliable, attractive Count.

It was fascinating to compare, 48 hours apart, the ROH's deluxe staging and larger-scale performance with Garsington's robust intimacy and divine garden setting. Yet the chief revelation was not differing aspects of interpretation but the inexhaustible treasures of Mozart's flickering, glittering score, which leave quite enough over for the next production, and the production after that.

Le nozze di Figaro at Garsington Manor (Times Review)

The production’s trump cards are old-fashioned honesty and good sense. Nothing is showily updated. No directorial concept grinds away to obscure the characters’ foibles

Geoff Brown

Twenty-one years of heaven. That’s how Garsington Opera’s general director, Anthony Whitworth-Jones, phrased it on this first night of the company’s final season at the late Leonard Ingrams’ Oxford manor, where the Bloomsbury set once disported under the patronage of Lady Ottoline Morrell. Heaven certainly gave us marvellous weather. Had Le nozze di Figaro opened the previous night, Mozart’s marvel would have been snivelling in the rain. As it was, John Cox’s 2005 production basked in the evening sun.
Whatever the future pleasures of the company’s next home at Mark Getty’s Wormsley estate, designers will be hard-pressed to duplicate Garsington’s special interplay between artifice and nature. No need to imagine Cherubino jumping from the balcony into a garden near the close of Act II: the garden is there at stage left, green and trim.

There have been funnier and flashier Figaros than Cox’s. Its trump cards are old-fashioned honesty and good sense. Nothing is showily updated. No directorial concept grinds away to obscure the characters’ foibles as they flitter, hide and disguise themselves among Robert Perdziola’s flexible sets. There is nothing overly fancy, either, in Douglas Boyd’s taut conducting, or the sprightly continuo of fortepiano and cello driving forward the recitatives.

It’s a production, too, that’s highly welcoming to the young talent on fizzing display. Susanna had already been in Sophie Bevan’s repertoire at the Royal College of Music; fresh as a daisy, she darts around as the Countess’s maid, all assets sparkling, vocal and physical. Note her younger sister Mary too, tenderly moving in Barbarina’s little aria. Anna Grevelius’s silver-gleam mezzo gets a good outing as Cherubino, nicely naughty. The ideal Figaro should probably have more impishness than James Oldfield, but this young professional grew more mobile with each act, and you can’t deny the promise of that robust bass-baritone voice. Up at the top of the Almaviva household, Grant Doyle shades the licentious Count with plenty of dark virility. As the long-suffering Countess, Kishani Jayasinghe wields a soprano voice with the constricted feel of a ship in a bottle; but there’s a big benefit in her dazzling smile, watchful eyes and general physical charisma.

Older hands in the ensemble easily slot into place. Stripped of her Act IV aria, Jean Rigby has relatively little to do as Marcellina, but she’s worth every look and twirl in her gaudy make-up and costume. Solid delights on offer too from Conal Coad’s Bartolo and Daniel Norman’s conniving Basilio.

The Marriage of Figaro - Garsington Opera

by Edward Bhesania

Garsington Opera’s 22nd and final season at Garsington Manor, prior to relocating to the Getty family’s Wormsley Estate in the Chiltern Hills, could hardly have got off to a more joyous start.

John Cox’s Marriage of Figaro from 1995, boasts elegant period costumes, with sets (ingeniously flexible in their modular, reversible design) to match. Portraits of Count Almaviva’s distinguished antecedents loom from the walls of his castle, as if frowning upon his desire for extramarital bliss. Taking full advantage of the terrace stage’s situation, when Cherubino (Anna Grevelius) jumps from the Countess’ window, he actually lands in the adjacent parterre garden - for once, visibly in view of the gardener Antonio. And just as dusk settles over the stage, the Act IV sets turn to reveal the foliage of the garden scene, magically blending the stage into its crepuscular surroundings.

This would count for less if Cox’s direction were less assured. The web of secret desires, deceits and mockery is cleanly spun. The comic tension in the scene where Cherubino and then the Count are forced to hide (unknown to each other) as Susanna (Sophie Bevan) receives her unexpected visitors is a model of ratcheting comic tension. And, while sending Cherubino off to his military commission, Figaro shaves him, picking up on his former self in Beaumarchais’ The Barber of Seville.

Kishani Jayansinghe needs a smoother vocal line to give expression to the role of the abandoned Countess, but James Oldfield is a confident Figaro and Grant Doyle is a rich-toned Count, while Jean Rigby and Conal Coad bring a whiff of (classy) pantomime to the roles of Marcellina and Dr Bartolo.
To round things off, Douglas Boyd extracts beguiling balances and stark colouring from the Garsington Opera Orchestra. This is a production as thoroughly distinguished, yet engaging, as you could expect to enjoy.