Watching Scottish Opera’s Marriage of Figaro was a lot of fun - just as it should be. It is a light-hearted comedy centered on a philandering Count and Figaro, his valet, who is about to marry the Countess’s maid. We watched the goings on of their court both inside and in the garden of the castle.
The tall windows with views beyond and high doors of the scenery with walls of cultured authentic colours went a long way to create the atmosphere. The very large sheaves of wheat we saw the peasants carting off in the opening moments reappeared in the garden of the castle at the end. Meanwhile the cart had been used to deliver Figaro and Susanna’s bed to the room allocated to them by the Count deliberately positioned between his room and the Countess’s - much to Susanna’s disgust.
Under Sir Thomas Allen’s direction the production was in its traditional form with no modern novelties and it was all the better for it. Just one or two of the supertitles - the brief translation above the stage - used colloquialisms of a more recent age.
No doubt it was Kate Valentine as a determined Rosina who adeptly kept it all together with a less dominant but effective Roderick Williams as the very buffoon of a Count, a suitably organising Thomas Oliemans as Figaro and the sweet voice of Nadine Livingston, his Susanna. The delicious pantomime moments from Ulrike Mayer as Cherubino, a page, were great fun.
The curtains stayed down at the outset so we could soak up the very familiar overture. From then on the orchestra in its pit was playing jauntily and only very occasionally slightly too loudly. Francesco Corto, the conductor, deserved his applause on stage at the end.
Well done, Scottish Opera.
The Marriage of Figaro plays at the Edinburgh Festival Theatre tonight and then at the Glasgow Theatre Royal on 30 Nov, 2 & 4 Dec.