[Met Performance] CID:243390

New Production

Le Nozze di Figaro
Metropolitan Opera House, Thu, November 20, 1975

Debut : Wolfgang Brendel, Barbara Bystrom




Le Nozze di Figaro (249)
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart | Lorenzo Da Ponte
Figaro
Justino Díaz

Susanna
Judith Blegen

Count Almaviva
Wolfgang Brendel [Debut]

Countess Almaviva
Evelyn Lear

Cherubino
Frederica von Stade

Dr. Bartolo
Andrew Foldi

Marcellina
Jean Kraft

Don Basilio
Andrea Velis

Antonio
Richard Best

Barbarina
Betsy Norden

Don Curzio
Robert Schmorr

Peasant
Elyssa Lindner

Peasant
Barbara Bystrom [Debut]


Conductor
Steuart Bedford


Production
Günther Rennert

Designer
Robert O'Hearn





Le Nozze di Figaro received twenty performances this season.

Review 1:

Review of Andrew Porter in the Financial Times

The Metropolitan Opera's new "Figaro" - the first brand new production of the season - is not much of a performance. Steuart Bedford conducts swiftly, unyieldingly, unfeelingly. Robert O'Hearn's scenery is unattractive but serviceable. Like several other recent "Figaro" designers, he has aimed to show more of the palace than just the immediate rooms of the action: a corridor in Act I, a terrace in Act II. It gives a sense of intrigue scuttling throughout the place but blurs the sharp focus of the scenes and spoils, by anticipation, what should be some sudden entrances. In Act IV "Figaro" designers often come unstuck, though "a dense garden with two corresponding niches, usable" should be easy enough to achieve. Mr. O'Hearn settles for an arrangement of oversized fireguards, which catch the follow spots - the Met's basic system of lighting - when characters duck behind them.

Gunther Rennert's production is firmly laid out on conventional lines but lacks any sharp definition. Its main innovation - in Act II the Countess sets out to seduce Cheruhino - is tasteless and untrue to the character of the woman who has just sung "Porgi amor." Social distinctions are blurred, because the Count and Figaro, Wolfgang Brendel and Justino Diaz, seem curiously interchangeable. In his wooing, the former is like a young Ochs. (A grown-up Octavian would be more appropriate.) The best singing comes from Frederica von Stade as Cherubino. though she is less well accompanied here than by John Pritchard at Glyndebourne or Karajan at Salzburg. Judith Blegen's tones are too small and narrow for Susanna, but otherwise she is altogether delightful, a complete actress and musician in all her inflexions, in every alert gesture and glance. Evelyn Lear essayed a Countess in the grand manner, but her voice would not do what she asked of it.



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