Say It Ain't So, Susanna.
CD: Anna Netrebko and others with Nikolaus Harnoncourt and the Vienna Philharmonic: Mozart: Le Nozze di Figaro
Here she comes.
If Ado Annie in Oklahoma! was the girl who "cain't say no," Susanna, the heroine of The Marriage of Figaro, was always her chaste counterpart, the girl who could not only say no but punk the guy who was trying to persuade her to cheat on her fiance.
My boyfriend's back, and there's going to be trouble.
Okay, wrong era, but you get the idea.
But Susanna, it seems, has fallen into other hands since Beaumarchais and Mozart introduced her to us, and now there's the DVD and CD to prove it. Back in Salzburg the year before last, Nikolaus Harnoncourt and Claus Guth brought out a staging of Figaro that came near to turning the work on its ear. Apparently the idea was to slide Figaro closer to Bergman, Ibsen, or perhaps Strindberg. And so, in this version, Susanna is not just a cheeky little maid with a backbone of steel and a gift for turning the tables on the men. She's very much in the midst of power struggles, nebulous relationships, shifting attractions, and generally raging hormones that make this less of a Marriage and more Sex and the Almaviva Household, perhaps with a nod to The Devil's Eye or Smiles of a Summer Night.
I'd like to point out here, however, that when Ingmar Bergman himself actually decided to film a Mozart opera, he chose The Magic Flute, with unabashedly joyous results. But that's another blog entry.
For those of you who want to experience Harnoncourt and Guth's provocative Figaro, Deutsche Grammophon has just released both the three-CD set and a DVD, with a highlights disc to follow in February.
Anna Netrebko, the smoldering Russian soprano ideally suited to play tragic heroines, strikes me as a most unexpected choice for the role of Susanna. Her voice is dark, emotionally intense, with nothing of the pert, girlish soubrette. Still, it is a beautiful instrument for conveying passion, and of course who among us expected Netrebko to transform herself into Dawn Upshaw or Lucia Popp for this performance? Hers is a complicated Susanna, somewhat ambivalent and jaded, less demure, perhaps more aware of her power.
Speaking of power, this is my first acquaintance with any recording or DVD featuring the bass-baritone Ildebrando D'Arcangelo, who makes for an interesting partner for Netrebko. "Interesting" here is not polite but guarded praise; I enjoyed his dark, unabashedly masculine take on Figaro. You can enjoy his vocal intensity via the CD, and get a sense of his stage presence -- and perhaps more surprisingly for a character such as Figaro, his grace and agility -- on the DVD.
Like this staging of Figaro back in Salzburg, the recording and DVD are bound to get tongues wagging, from the very first notes of that usually frantic overture, played here at a slower tempo, to Christine Schaefer's androgynous Cherubino, singing "Voi che sapete" with extraordinary sweetness. Is it a call to embrace life's ambiguities, complications, gray areas, and also turn again to those we love?
Here she comes.
If Ado Annie in Oklahoma! was the girl who "cain't say no," Susanna, the heroine of The Marriage of Figaro, was always her chaste counterpart, the girl who could not only say no but punk the guy who was trying to persuade her to cheat on her fiance.
My boyfriend's back, and there's going to be trouble.
Okay, wrong era, but you get the idea.
But Susanna, it seems, has fallen into other hands since Beaumarchais and Mozart introduced her to us, and now there's the DVD and CD to prove it. Back in Salzburg the year before last, Nikolaus Harnoncourt and Claus Guth brought out a staging of Figaro that came near to turning the work on its ear. Apparently the idea was to slide Figaro closer to Bergman, Ibsen, or perhaps Strindberg. And so, in this version, Susanna is not just a cheeky little maid with a backbone of steel and a gift for turning the tables on the men. She's very much in the midst of power struggles, nebulous relationships, shifting attractions, and generally raging hormones that make this less of a Marriage and more Sex and the Almaviva Household, perhaps with a nod to The Devil's Eye or Smiles of a Summer Night.
I'd like to point out here, however, that when Ingmar Bergman himself actually decided to film a Mozart opera, he chose The Magic Flute, with unabashedly joyous results. But that's another blog entry.
For those of you who want to experience Harnoncourt and Guth's provocative Figaro, Deutsche Grammophon has just released both the three-CD set and a DVD, with a highlights disc to follow in February.Anna Netrebko, the smoldering Russian soprano ideally suited to play tragic heroines, strikes me as a most unexpected choice for the role of Susanna. Her voice is dark, emotionally intense, with nothing of the pert, girlish soubrette. Still, it is a beautiful instrument for conveying passion, and of course who among us expected Netrebko to transform herself into Dawn Upshaw or Lucia Popp for this performance? Hers is a complicated Susanna, somewhat ambivalent and jaded, less demure, perhaps more aware of her power.
Speaking of power, this is my first acquaintance with any recording or DVD featuring the bass-baritone Ildebrando D'Arcangelo, who makes for an interesting partner for Netrebko. "Interesting" here is not polite but guarded praise; I enjoyed his dark, unabashedly masculine take on Figaro. You can enjoy his vocal intensity via the CD, and get a sense of his stage presence -- and perhaps more surprisingly for a character such as Figaro, his grace and agility -- on the DVD.
Like this staging of Figaro back in Salzburg, the recording and DVD are bound to get tongues wagging, from the very first notes of that usually frantic overture, played here at a slower tempo, to Christine Schaefer's androgynous Cherubino, singing "Voi che sapete" with extraordinary sweetness. Is it a call to embrace life's ambiguities, complications, gray areas, and also turn again to those we love?
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