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Figaro is back. So is Leroy, the dog. But Figaro's zany, madcap world created in Hawaii Opera Theatre's production of Rossini's "Barber of Seville" last year has changed. HOT director shows
who’s boss in ‘Marriage’By Ruth Bingham
Special to the Star-Bulletin"In 'Barber,' the comedy really is in the music itself," explained Matthew Lata, director of last year's "Barber" and this year's "Marriage of Figaro" by Mozart. "Rossini writes musical jokes all the time. Mozart writes them, but his comedy is more gentle because it's an emotional comedy, it's a comedy of manners, and a comedy of errors. If you play it as a slapstick, you really lose its soul so you have to be very careful."
Lata's two Figaro productions for HOT is a rarity: although the stories are sequential, the operas are almost never linked through performances directed by the same person, partly because of their different styles.
ON STAGE
What: "The Marriage of Figaro"
Now pay attention. The stories originated in a trilogy by Pierre-Augustin Caron de Beaumarchais -- "The Barber of Seville," "The Marriage of Figaro" and "The Guilty Mother -- in which the characters return, aging from play to play, an original technique in the late 18th century.
Mozart set the second story to music first, in 1786; 30 years later, Rossini set the first story. (The third story, which HOT has not scheduled, was set much later and is rarely performed.)
"I originally planned to do more doubling of bits, of recognizable things," Lata said, "but the question had to be, if somebody didn't see 'The Barber,' (the staging) still has to make sense, because the plot (of 'Figaro') is confusing enough without throwing things at the audience that don't have anything to do with it. The more I direct, the less I schtick it up; each time I do an opera, the prop list gets shorter."
One of the most difficult challenges in "Figaro" lies in the fact that it is so often performed. "I find there is nothing as boring as undetailed and uncommitted Mozart," Lata said.
"People (hear Mozart) in schools a lot because it's approachable by young voices and it tends to be done in a very superficial way. If you're playing something louder or flashier, you learn all the notes and you're three-quarters of the way there. With Mozart, you learn the notes, you've only made 10 percent.
Where "Barber" was more slapstick comedy, "Figaro" is more about the intricacy of realistic characters and interpersonal relationships. Details count and small gestures are significant.
Dean Elzinga, who plays the Count, said, "There's so much text, and you want to fill it with something real, emotionally ... thousands of words that you want to really inhabit. That's hard about this one."
One fundamental difference between the operas is that the male characters' voices have changed. As Lata noted, "Don Basilio is rather different. First of all, he's had an operation and he's now a tenor." Figaro was a baritone last year, but "he's a bass-baritone in the Mozart, so it's a lower role. You feel he's lost his clever edge because, while in 'Barber,' everything he does works, in 'Figaro,' almost nothing does.
"You get the feeling he's maybe gotten a little fat and happy, because the Count's whole plan to get Susanna (Figaro's fiancee) has gone right by him, and that would never have happened in 'Barber.' "
Mark McCrory, who sings Figaro this year, finds the role fascinating: "This is my third time to do Figaro," he said. "I feel I'm fairly experienced at the role, however, each time I've done the show, Figaro's been a little bit different. ... There are some things that have to be the same, that are just inherent in the character, (but) delivering lines can be any myriad of ways.
"It's a long role, it's a great role, it's a fun role ... and I'm dead by the end of the evening, I really am, I'm dripping with sweat."
Figaro's employer Count Almaviva, idealistic and romantic in 'Barber,' has also changed. Lata explained, "It makes sense that the Count goes from tenor to bass-baritone, simply because he's older, he's more mature; the fun ... has been really drained out of him." (They say marriage does that to a man.)
"The Count is a little bit dissipated; he's been through all the women in the castle, he's looking at the one he hasn't had."
Although Elzinga has performed the Figaro role some 17 times, this will be his first as the Count. "The reason I felt drawn to the role, for one thing, is the Count can be sympathetic by parts; he doesn't have to be our hero all night long. I like playing a man who is at core very at home in elegance and style, and yet who is a victim of his own drives and lust.
"You can think of the Count as the villain in this show, but I think that would be an oversimplification. I think that the humanity of the Count is what I want to portray, and what I want people to come away with."
The relationship between the Count and Figaro, cohorts in "Barber" but master and servant fighting over the same woman in "Figaro," drives a plot of intrigue. From the men's points of view, the women are just pawns. The other axis, of course, is the women. Says Lata, the women "set traps for the men; they are very, very clever and stay well ahead of the men.
"It's ultimately all about power games, and about how people use whatever they have, to try and dominate the other."
Elzinga said, "This is a comedy of manners, like an Edith Wharton novel. These are characters that are bound by intricate sets of rules of etiquette and position.
"The whole thing is, how can the lower classes, with their limited actual power, do enough machination that the social laws force the Count's hand, in spite of his great actual executive power.
"Essentially, this is very similar to sexual harassment and issues of sexual power in the workplace, especially as they get complicated by our personal relationships, marriages and friendships.
"I think that's why, for such an early opera, this still maintains such a central role in the main repertory."
These issues and complications, created more than 200 years ago, remain surprisingly current, as Lata pointed out: " 'Figaro' is about how people make themselves ridiculous, because, after all, what is it that people truly obsess about? By Act IV, we're obsessing about a pin, something that's so small, we can't even see it from the audience.
"The real global issues of emotion and heartbreak are reduced to little pieces of paper and pins and veils, little everyday objects. ... Look at the whole impeachment of President Clinton: what did it come right down to? A dress, a letter, a word here, a word there."
Mozart's characters also remain familiar, as Lata noted, 'Like many men, Figaro has to be convinced that he really is making the decisions, so Susanna will cast little hints for him and wait for him to pick them up. In reality, she's the one who's thinking it up."
And what of Leroy, who played Dr. Bartolo's dog?
"We'll have to wait and see if the dog appears in 'Figaro,' Lata hedged, then finally confessed, "I just hope he'll stay on the leash this time. We're working on whether or not Leroy ends up ..."
Wait. Sorry, that's classified.
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