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by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, directed by Marshall Pynkoski

Opera Atelier, Elgin Theatre, Toronto

May 1-10, 2003

Toronto's Opera Atelier has a solid reputation for breathing new life into unjustly neglected Baroque masterpieces.  With The Marriage of Figaro the company shows what it can do with one of the world's most popular operas.  Mozart's opera, like the Beaumarchais play it is based on, was a revolutionary work in 1786 by depicting servants rebelling against a master who wants to reinstate the feudal right permitting him to sleep with the wives of his servants. 

Under Marshall Pynkoski's direction the work shines like new.  Using Jeremy Sams's witty translation, he directs the work as living drama, not just a collection of famous arias.  Rarely have the intricate plot lines seemed so clear.  Dora Rust-D'Eye's elaborate, colour-coded costumes highlight both the commedia dell'arte background of the characters and their relationships to each other.  David Fallis conducts the Tafelmusik Baroque Orchestra crisply and always with an eye towards the music's inherent drama.        

 

The cast, equally adept as singers and as actors, has made OA's trademark stylization second nature.  Daniel Belcher is a genial Figaro, agile of voice, limb and expression, and a superb comic actor.  Nathalie Paulin dazzles as Figaro's fiancée Susanna.  Her rich clear soprano captures infinite shadings of mock-hauteur, pertness and good humour.  Jennie Such is a delight as Cherubino.  Not only is she blessed with a bright beautiful voice, but she plays a boy playing a woman with jaw-dropping aplomb.  Curtis Sullivan swaggers as the lecherous Count Almaviva, whose macho aggressiveness also blinds him, while Monica Whicher makes the Countess's desire to win back her philandering husband completely convincing.  Gerald Isaac, however, as the music teacher and worse as a stuttering notary irritates more than pleases. 

The Atelier Ballet's brilliant dance to castanets sums up the show's excitement.  Seldom has Mozart's Figaro seemed so fresh and its comedy so sublime.

Christopher Hoile

Note: A version of this review appeared in Eye Weekly 2003-05-08.

Photo: Nathalie Paulin and Daniel Belcher. ©2003 Bruce Zinger.