Hopefully, there are at least a few readers aware that, in a little less than a week’s time, the next full-length San Francisco Opera (SFO) production will begin at the War Memorial Opera House. This will be the revival of Vincent Boussard’s staging of Jules Massenet’s Manon, which was last performed at the Opera House in 2017. As a result, this will probably be a good time to prepare readers for the opera that will follow Manon.
That opera will be Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s The Marriage of Figaro. By way of disclaimer, I should note that this may be the first “full-length” opera I ever saw. This was back in the Fifties when NBC would televise opera; and I used scare quotes because, while the performance accounted for all all four of the acts, the production would be abridged to make room for commercials (and was usually sung in English)! Many of those cuts probably involved recitative passages; so, for the most part, Mozart’s music suffered little damage!
The “Americanization” of Cavanagh’s staging of Mozart’s Figaro (photograph of Cory Weaver, courtesy of SFO)
SFO will present a revival of the production created by Canadian director Michael Cavanagh in 2019. The opera was composed in 1786, which aligns with Cavanagh setting the performance at a time after the American Revolutionary War, with the venue being a somewhat sumptuous manor house. In other words, the country had won its independence from the British; but “class distinction” was about the same in the “new world” as it had been on the other side of the Atlantic Ocean!
In this production the “upper class” is personified by the Count Almaviva, who will be sung by baritone Thomas Mole, making his role debut. Having won the hand of Rosina (soprano Olivia Smith) in The Barber of Seville, the count’s attention has been drawn to the countess’ maid Susanna (soprano Slávka Zámečníková). The problem is that the Count has given permission to his personal valet, Figaro (bass Peter Kellner, making his SFO debut), to marry Suzanna! The overall narrative comes across as one complication after another; but, in spite of the difficulties between Almaviva and his wife, the opera concludes with Figaro’s wedding to Susanna.
This production will be given ten performances in the Opera House. The first of these will take place at 7:30 p.m. on Saturday, October 31; and the other evening performances will take place at the same time on Tuesday, November 3, Saturday, November 7, Tuesday, November 10, Friday, November 13, Wednesday, November 18, and Friday, November 27. There will also be two Sunday matinees at 2 p.m. on November 18 and 29 (the final performance). A single Web page has been created for purchasing tickets for all ten of these events.
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