The week in classical: The Marriage of Figaro; Proms 53, 54, 55 & 56 – review

In The Marriage of Figaro, Mozart sweeps a beam over all life, tears and laughter as one. David McVicar’s 2006 staging, which opened the Royal Opera’s new season last Monday in its 11th revival, handles these extremes, and the nuances in between, with precision and wit. Some of the tics – the perpetual floor sweeping, the leapfrogging antics of liveried extras in the household of Count Almaviva – succeed or tire, depending on the skills of a particular lineup: easy to ignore or to enjoy. Long may this handsome period production, designed by Tanya McCallin, last.

Even if you grasp, more or less, the complexities of Lorenzo da Ponte’s libretto, the mysteries of Mozart’s score, conducted with verve here by Julia Jones, are another matter. Take the unravelling of the plot towards the end of Act 2. Strings repeat a tiny motif more than two dozen times, sustaining the tension, almost to distraction, while all kinds of harmonic miracles and verbal jokes are twisted through. Did Mozart, lover of puzzles and games, create a set of rules for himself, chuckling as he stitched this insignificant, 10-note figure into one of the most ingenious stretches of music ever?

The key to the action at this moment is the baffled gardener, Antonio, Mozart’s most engaging cameo. In a cast whose star players, of whom more in a moment, change nearly every revival, the company bass Jeremy White has been a constant in this role, ever funnier and more grizzled with each appearance. To mention another cameo (why not start that way round for once), the great Welsh soprano Rebecca Evans, who has sung Susanna and the Countess in this opera in the past, was captivating as Marcellina, who drops ambitions to marry Figaro when she realises she is his mother. Similarly excellent in a tiny part, the tenor Adrian Thompson, a regular on the international stage since 1978, lit up the stage as the creepy Don Basilio. It’s amazing what a bouffant wig, some rouge and a bit of bling can do for the older man.

The main roles, if not yet vintage – there was a touch of first-night nerves – had striking elements. All eyes and ears were on the young British baritone Huw Montague Rendall as the Count. (His mother, Diana Montague, has sung Cherubino and Marcellina on the same stage. His father, David Rendall, sang Count Almaviva, but in Rossini’s version of the story. Having mentioned his parentage, I will try not to do so again: Montague Rendall is on the way to his own big career.) Huw, as his new debut solo album, out last week, styles him in big capital letters, has a powerful stage presence and a silken voice, full of exciting achievement and further promise.

The Italian baritone Luca Micheletti gave a standout performance as Figaro: a role he has sung at La Scala, Milan and elsewhere: subtle, wry, vocally assured. As Susanna, the Chinese soprano Ying Fang, in her Royal Opera debut, is as yet more modest than minx-like, but sang beautifully. The Swedish soprano Maria Bengtsson (replacing Jacquelyn Stucker) sounded tentative as the Countess, but will settle, as will, for the opposite reasons of slight overplay, the Italian American mezzo-soprano Ginger Costa-Jackson, making her house debut as Cherubino. Orchestra and chorus under Jones – with Antonio Pappano now gone to the London Symphony Orchestra and the company’s music director designate, Jakub Hrůša, not yet arrived – were on fine form, communicating a sense of pleasure at performing this always revelatory masterpiece.

This year’s BBC Proms season is in its last week. David Pickard, in his final year as director, has championed a strong series characterised by, at last, welcome post-lockdown confidence and, from anecdotal evidence, excellent audiences. The corporation, after various recent scandals, exudes a mood of nervousness and, perhaps understandably, excess control. Hannah Donat has been announced as director of artistic planning for the Proms. Let us hope she has true independence in her decisions, without veto from the multiple layers of administration above her. The intricate mechanism of an eight-week season, a collaborative BBC endeavour but requiring singular vision, can easily be toppled by interference.

The memory of a great British conductor, Andrew Davis (1944-2024), was honoured at last weekend’s Prom 53, where he should have conducted the orchestra he worked with for so many years, the BBC Symphony Orchestra. Martyn Brabbins did a sensitive job, stepping in and recalling his colleague with dignity and affection. Stravinsky’s Symphony in Three Movements needed more bite, and a new work by Steve Reich, Jacob’s Ladder, sounded distinctively his but too mellow to leave a lasting impact. Conversely, Michael Tippett’s Ritual Dances from his opera The Midsummer Marriage were superbly played, as was Edward Elgar’s “Enigma” Variations: beautifully shaded, and at once flamboyant yet intimate.

A special lighting scheme – rock concert-style or sky over London blitz 1940 depending on your vantage point – tried hard to enhance the atmosphere in Saturday afternoon’s chamber music Prom 54. The big-name trio of Greek violinist Leonidas Kavakos, American cellist Yo-Yo Ma and Ukraine-born American pianist Emanuel Ax would have shone in any light, including the usual. They had switched the programme from all Beethoven, opting to open with Brahms’s C major Trio . The second half, which communicated better, was Beethoven’s “Archduke” Trio, played with relaxed aplomb and geniality. No one could pretend this was an ideal place to hear music so intimate. If this Prom sends some of the attentive capacity audience rushing off to Wigmore Hall to get more of the same, it can be counted a triumph.

The rest of a bumper weekend was taken up with two mesmerising Proms (55 and 56) by the Berlin Philharmonic, under their chief conductor since 2019, Kirill Petrenko. Vikingur Ólafsson was the soloist in Robert Schumann’s Piano Concerto, inviting us into hushed inner layers and outer expanses of this work, riskily free with tempi but watched, hawk-like, by Petrenko and the orchestra. Smetana’s Má Vlast, six movements that can feel lengthy, surged and flashed, with notably spectacular, pulsating playing from the impeccable Berliner violins. The next night, Bruckner’s Symphony No 5, considered his most unmalleable, was glowing, transparent, every detail audible, never overbearing. Hearing first the BBC Singers, conducted by Owain Park, in three Bruckner motets, was a thoughtful addition to the programme.

Whether in the attack of the strings, the purity and blaze of the horns, the streamlined perfection of the brass, or the sensuous variety of woodwind colours – not to mention the contributions of others on stage, such as harp, timpani and other percussion – this is an orchestra that dazzles from first note to last. Petrenko, compact and athletic, brings a pliant physicality to all he does. Sometimes he stops conducting altogether; but there is a sense, too, that every note, every bar, every dynamic mark has been analysed, pored over, turned upside down, examined under a microscope and then, in performance, spontaneously put together again. It must be exhausting for these extraordinary players, who have played it all before, but never, surely, like this. The results were unforgettable.

Star ratings (out of five)
The Marriage of Figaro ★★★★
Prom 53 ★★★★
Prom 54 ★★★★
Prom 55 ★★★★★
Prom 56 ★★★★★

• The Marriage of Figaro is at the Royal Opera House, London, until 15 September

• Prom 54 is on BBC iPlayer. All Proms are on BBC Sounds. The Proms continue until 14 September