Shawna Lucey Revives Mozart Opera for SFO

Last night the War Memorial Opera House saw the return of San Francisco Opera (SFO) for the first of ten performances of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s K. 492 comic opera The Marriage of Figaro. This was the first of three operas Mozart composed for librettos by Lorenzo da Ponte, the other two being the K. 527 Don Giovanni and the K. 588 Così fan tutte (thus do all women). Less than a decade ago, Michael Cavanagh had conceived of a “trilogy production,” situating all three operas in a common setting, which Cavanagh called “the Great American House of Mozart and Da Ponte.” The Revival Director for the current performance of K. 492 is Shawna Lucey.

The conductor for this production is Sebastian Weigle, who made his SFO debut last night. His account of the overture made any serious opera lover sit up and take notice. For my own part, I was delighted to encounter the prominent role that the bassoon played in that performance, almost as if the sounds of the ensemble would prepare the audience for the elaborate and witty narrative that would unfold over the course of four acts.

Susanna (Slávka Zámečníková) and Figaro (Peter Kellner) preparing for their wedding (photograph by Cory Weaver, courtesy of SFO)

In that same context, it is worth noting that the first voice we hear after the overture is the title character. Bass Peter Kellner delivered his opening duet with Slávka Zámečníková singing the role of his bride-to-be Susanna. The freshness of their coming wedding is a sharp contrast against the married noble couple that they serve. Those familiar with The Barber of Seville know that the countess (soprano Olivia Smith) is now the wife of the Count Almaviva (baritone Thomas Mole). In Rossini’s opera, the Count was hopelessly smitten with Rosina before she became his wife; but it is clear from the outset of Mozart’s opera that the Count’s passion has been dulled by marriage.

As a result, he is less interested in celebrating the coming wedding of Susanna and Figaro and more in regret that he had willingly rejected droit de seigneur (right of the lord), described on its Wikipedia page as “a supposed legal right in medieval Europe, allowing feudal lords to have sexual relations with any female subject, particularly on her wedding night.” At the conclusion of The Barber of Seville, Almaviva is clearly indebted to Figaro; and that rejection of droit de seigneur was a way of honoring that debt. Nevertheless, Almaviva is more fixated on Susanna than he is with his wife.

What I have always found interesting about K. 492 is the way in which Mozart’s music leads the attentive listener through the complexities that these characters must endure. As a result, Weigle’s skills as a conductor were just as critical in accounting for the narrative as Cavanagh’s staging was. Without trying to sound too technical, I feel that there are ways in which opera is the genre that requires the most intricate “machinery;” and Mozart had just the right partnership with Da Ponte to make that “machinery” run smoothly. Last night’s performance of a complicated narrative could not have been smoother in its unfolding through the combined efforts of conductor and director.