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.
