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.
