VFCO / TAKÁCS-NAGY – LES NOCES DE FIGARO
Mozart / Mattei – Schultz – Barea – El-Khashem – Wallroth
Gábor Takács-Nagy conducts the VFCO and Academy members in Mozart’s greatest opera, with a cast headed by Peter Mattei, Golda Schultz, Tommaso Barea and Anna El-Khashem.
Programme
WOLFGANG AMADEUS MOZART (1756-1791)
Le Nozze di Figaro
Surtitles in English and French
Distribution
- Verbier Festival Chamber Orchestra
- Gábor Takács-Nagy conductor
- Peter Mattei Conte
- Golda Schultz La contessa
- Tommaso Barea Figaro
- Anna El-Khashem Susanna
- Rebecka Wallroth Cherubino
- Kitty Whately Marcellina
- Meigui Zhang Barbarina
- Michael Bell Basilio
- Mark Kurmanbayev Bartolo
- Redmond Sanders Antonio
- Adam Catangui Don Curzio
- VF Academy Atelier Lyrique Chorus
- John Fisher Continuo and Staging
Mozart’s four-act opera, Le Nozze di Figaro, was an instant hit when it premiered in Vienna in 1786. While on the one hand it’s a classic opera buffa with the usual love triangles, deceptions and mistaken identities, in other ways it stood out. First, because it was based on a 1784 French play by Beaumarchais that was banned in Austria due to its negative portrayal of the nobility (Mozart and his librettist Da Ponte needed special permission from the Emperor for their version), with two ordinary servants as its main lovers. It also featured opera’s first major crossdressing role, Cherubino – to be performed by ‘a young and very pretty woman’ – and a constant stream of memorable arias, all preceded by one of Mozart’s greatest overtures. Set across a single mad day, its action joins Figaro three years after helping his master Count Almaviva to marry his love, Rosina. Now Figaro is to marry the Countess’s lady’s maid, Susanna, but the Count’s eyes are straying, and he wishes to reinstate the abolished tradition whereby, on a servant girl’s wedding night, her lord gets to bed her before her husband. The ensuing human tapestry follows Figaro thwarting the Count, the Countess and Susanna teaching their men lessons, a teenage boy’s multiple crushes, and a cruel debt transformed into a second chance at love and parenthood.
