Le Nozze di Figaro from Munich

👍🏻
Conductor: Constantinos Carydis
Production: Christof Loy

Il Conte di Almaviva: Christian Gerhaher
La Contessa di Almaviva: Federica Lombardi
Cherubino: Solenn' Lavanant-Linke
Figaro: Alex Esposito
Susanna: Olga Kulchynska
Bartolo: Paolo Bordogna
Marcellina: Anne Sofie von Otter
Basilio: Manuel Günther
Don Curzio: Dean Power
Antonio: Milan Siljanov
Barbarina: Anna El-Khashem

Haven't I seen this set before, or does every set look like a theater now?  Some costumes are modern, others are period.  Uniforms?  This is the live stream of Mozart's Le Nozze di Figaro from the Bayerische Staatsoper.  I'm hearing a piano in the secco recitative, maybe a first for me.  Mozart played pianos, not harpsichords.

This is of course an opera about sexual harassment, in case you were imagining this was a new thing.  Perhaps that's why it is ever green in every generation.  The women get their revenge.  I wonder how many modern women think of that. 

The comedy is very much enhanced by the fairly brisk tempos.  Munich is one of the best opera companies in the world, and this is a very high quality performance.  This is a gorgeous "Dove sono" from our Contessa.  And our conductor is a winner of the Kleiber prize. Musically it is gorgeous.  How to conduct Strauss may be falling from memory, but Mozart was never better than today.  This is a lesson, especially the recitative.

The production is simple and does not interfere with the story.  Either the people shrink or the doors get bigger.  You decide.  I choose the people are shrinking.

One does not think to ask, also for the first time, why one is hearing Marcellina's aria.  Except one isn't.  This is a song interpolation of Mozart's "Abendempfindung.“  It fits beautifully and is for the biggest star of this cast, Anne Sofie von Otter.  This is lovely.

I cannot explain how much I love it.  Everyone should see this. The ending is cute.