Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart's "The Marriage of Figaro" is a very funny, very bawdy romp that premièred in 1786. Yet the manner in which the characters throw on and toss off schemes and identities, even genders, like changes of clothes, leading to plenty of hiding in odd places, creative explanations and improbably escalating chaos, calls to mind television sitcoms like "I Love Lucy" or "Friends." As my companion observed last Saturday night after watching the Seattle Opera Young Artists Program's version of Mozart's masterpiece, "If you like modern television, you can't help but like this opera."
That accessibility makes "The Marriage of Figaro" a stellar choice for introducing young people to opera. Adding to its approachability, performers in the Young Artists Program are themselves in their 20s and 30s, more or less the ages of their characters. The Meydenbauer Center's snug 410-seat theater, with every seat in close proximity to the stage, also delivers a closeup of nuances of expression that is far nearer the television experience than Marion Oliver McCaw Hall's 2,900-seat house typically offers. And the price - $15 for students and $30 for adults - is right.
Peter Kazaras, who directed Bellini's "Norma" for Seattle Opera, understands that, for all of its farcical elements, "The Marriage of Figaro" packs an emotional punch to which sitcoms can seldom, if ever, lay claim. This is Mozart, after all. Mozart uses the humor, the opera buffa structure, to underscore the poignancy of his characters' dilemmas and epiphanies as they discover the power of love and forgiveness. Kazaras sustains the opera's dual nature, encouraging liberal helpings of ribald stage business, sexual tension and intensely emotional moments.
The story - an adaptation of a play by French writer Pierre-Augustin Caron de Beaumarchais - that provides the framework for these revelations begins in 18th-century Spain as the wedding of Count Almaviva's valet Figaro and the Countess' maid Susanna approaches. Even though the Count recently banned his customary right to bed the bride before the nuptials, he is now seeking a way around this proscription. Several complications later, the plotting of Figaro, Susanna and the Countess brings the marriage to fruition, the Count back to his Countess and the opera to a happy ending.
Two casts of singers from the Young Artists Program perform the five central roles. The 10 singers are the cream of the crop selected from hundreds of applicants nationwide. "The Marriage of Figaro" is the culmination of the six-month Young Artists Program, which focuses on just about every aspect of becoming an opera singer, from classes in voice, acting and languages to agent recruiting and filling out tax forms.
On Saturday night, the singers' characterizations were on target, but I can't say the same for all of the performers' voices. Jeremy Alan Kelly was pitch perfect, including his lovely baritone, as the easily aggravated Figaro. Not only was Maureen McKay properly feisty, courageous and manipulative as Susanna, but she also has one of the warmest, most lyrical sopranos I've heard.
As the Count, Andrew Garland was the epitome of a vain, dissatisfied nobleman accustomed to getting his way; and he has an imposing baritone to match. While Robyn Driedger-Klassen did a terrific job of portraying the Countess, her soprano seemed thin at times, notably so in the upper end of her range.
Mezzo-soprano Carolyn Kahl was as convincingly a young man in the role of Cherubino as she was in her mainstage performance last season as the Composer in Seattle Opera's "Ariadne auf Naxos," a role she filled in the eleventh hour. Her voice on Saturday, however, lacked its usual clarity, seeming pushed.
One standout among the five guest artists ably filling the remaining roles was tenor Ted Schmitz, a Young Artists performer in 2003-04. Although as Ferrando in the Young Artists Program's "Cosi fan tutte" Schmitz was awkward and his voice constricted, on Saturday he was a delight in both of his roles, particularly that of the dandified Don Basilio. Archie Drake, who has sung with Seattle Opera since 1968 was aptly dotty as Antonio, an old gardener who enjoys tipping the bottle.
Under the baton of Dean Williams, slated to conduct Offenbach's "Tales of Hoffmann" for Seattle Opera in May, members of the Auburn Symphony seamlessly bolstered the singers with their high-spirited rendition of Mozart's score.
However, having the performers move Curtis Wallin's cleverly shifting set to change scenes, singing as they went, sometimes felt ungainly. The set's aging walls, deteriorating so foliage threatens to invade the house, fittingly presages the nobility's impending downfall in the French Revolution, which took place just three years after the opera premièred.
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