Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: WEDNESDAY, May 18, 1994 TAG: 9405170076
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: 1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: By SETH WILLIAMSON STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
That'll be the situation Thursday night when Opera Roanoke premieres Craig Fields' new staging of "The Marriage of Figaro" in Roanoke College's Olin Hall Theatre.
Fields, whose innovative productions have previously included a "Magic Flute" set in a contemporary children's playground, will return to the same general place and era he used for Opera Roanoke's smash version of Rossini's "The Barber of Seville" in 1991.
The main characters of both operas are, in fact, the same, since both Mozart and Rossini drew upon stage works by the French playwright Beaumarchais. The Frenchman's plays featuring the irrepressible scamp Figaro were fertile ground for composers; at least 20 different operas have been based on the two plays that inspired Rossini and Mozart.
In this new "Figaro," we are again in the New York of the 1930s. Only now, it's the high-rent district on Long Island, where the rich and powerful Count Almaviva has moved after wooing and winning Rosina with the help of Figaro, who's now a member of Almaviva's domestic staff.
The action takes place on the wedding day of Figaro and Susannah, and the problem is that Almaviva has lost interest in Rosina and is instead forcing his attentions on Figaro's bride-to-be, who also works for him.
In Lorenzo da Ponte's libretto, Count Almaviva was intent on exercising his droit du seigneur (see accompanying story. In Craig Fields' new production, he'll be nothing more than a powerful male chauvinist pig who believes that his wealth and status entitle him to sexual favors from women who are dependent on him.
The setting in Depression-era America heightens Susannah's plight. "You didn't want to lose your job in 1933," said Fields. "That meant you were banished to poverty."
Fields says that this will be an atmosphere-intensive "Marriage of Figaro." Opera Roanoke's resident stage director says he was inspired by the Merchant-Ivory film "Remains of the Day," with its lush depiction of upper-class life in the '30s and its vivid contrast between the lives of the super-rich and those of their servants.
Set designer Frank Ludwig of Sweet Briar College has been given the job of bringing out the '30s American atmosphere, down to the then-popular Art Deco look.
"We're trying to make it look like one of those 1930s Greta Garbo farces in the beautiful Long Island mansions, kind of a Noel-Coward-meets-Mozart approach. It's the Countess's bedroom that'll have the Art Deco look to it. She's been depressed because she's been neglected by the Count, it's a midlife curve kind of thing, and she's redecorated her bedroom to make it look more romantic and sensual.
"The `Great Gatsby' look - that's it exactly," said Fields.
In case you're wondering, Opera Roanoke's "Figaro," for all its audacity, will not be as radical as some other recent stagings of the opera. The most notorious version in recent years has been that of Peter Sellars, which was set in the Trump Tower in the late '80s.
A production in Ulm, Germany, was set in the era of the Third Reich, with the Count portrayed as a Nazi and his servants as anti-Nazis.
Why go to the trouble of lifting the story out of its original locale and era? Why not play it straight?
One reason, said the director, is to emphasize the ageless elements of a story line by abstracting them from the accidents of place and time. Fields hopes that the class differences between Almaviva and his employees will be sharpened by placing them in the context of an America wracked by economic problems.
Another reason is sheer practicality. "By taking it out of the 18th century, you don't have to work so hard at getting those 18th-century mannerisms. Having been over in Europe and having seen that done well, I'm a little reluctant with only a two-week rehearsal period to try to get that down," said Fields.
"You've got to take into consideration that you've got a modern American audience out there, you don't have Europeans. I'm not putting them down, but it's a different cultural milieu. The droit du seigneur, for example, doesn't make much sense to a modern audience - but when you say `sexual abuse' or `sexual harassment,' people know exactly what that means," said Fields.
Baritone Rod Nelman (who sang Leporello in Opera Roanoke's "Don Giovanni" in 1992) will take the role of Figaro. Bass-baritone David Ward will again sing Dr. Bartolo, as he did in this company's production of the "Barber." Susannah will be sung by soprano Anna Vikre, and the count and countess will be sung by bass Brian Davis and soprano Jean Braham.
The traditionally drag role of the woman-crazy Cherubino will be sung by mezzo Amy Johnson, and bass Allen Huszti will sing the comic role of the gardener Antonio.
The opera will be sung in the original Italian with computer-generated English supertitles written by Paul Zweifel of Virginia Tech (see story below).
Curtain-time for the longer-than-usual opera is 7 p.m. Thursday, Saturday, Monday and May 25, with Victoria Bond conducting the orchestra. Tickets are $25 and $12 with seats still available for all performances.
by CNB