Countertenor sings all 7 roles in Marriage of Figaro
OperaA report from slippedisc.com by Susan Hall:
The major event at New York’s Little Island this summer is an abbreviated version of Mozart’s Marriage of Figaro with all seven roles sung by premier countertenor Anthony Roth Costanzo. It is being performed through September 22. The Little Island ampitheater was packed with
people of all ages and colors.
The Little Island Figaro breaks out of the opera to perform parts of Beaumarchais’s play on which it is based. Costanzo’s range is remarkable. While the beauty of his voice is best heard in the female solos, he growls and crackles a bit three and a half octaves below as Figaro and the Count. Cherubino’s mezzo fits perfectly. What is striking is the illusion of the displaced voice. All the characters are miming on stage as Costanzo sings their roles. They are actors not singers. Great opera singers often can’t act. It helps if they do.
Voila. The problem is solved by the team of Costanzo joined by director Dustin Wills and music director Dan Schlosberg. We, the audience, place the voice in the actors’ mouths even when it’s coming from Costanzo.
Recently playwright Lucas Hnath staged a solo production by Tony-winning actress Deirdre Connell. The effect of a real voice of a real human being inhabiting an actress, body to the voice, makes compelling theater. You can imagine Marni Nixon singing for Audrey Hepburn in
My Fair Lady. Hepburn sings on film. Nixon stands in the studio recording the song to Hepburn’s lip movements and gestures. Final adjustments are made by recording technicians. That process is off-screen.
The delicate matching process in Hnath’s play takes place live before our eyes. Connell takes the ventriloquist’s dummy to a new level. No matter how much you love a taped voice, it is enhanced enormously when the voice is embodied.
Costanzo talks about singing ‘duet’ as disconcerting. He is singing one role on stage and drops a needle down on a recording of his own voice now displaced and singing with him. Schlosberg’s arrangement of the score is brisk and full of rhythm. He adds a saxophone solo.
The setting in which the amphitheater, usually enclosed in Greece, opened up to the Hudson River and the setting sun beyond is like an expansive Santa Fe opera where the back of the stage reveals the Jemez mountains. A universe is created, perfect for operatic performance.
When Beaumarchais contributed to the financing of the American Revolution, he must have anticipated this thoroughly engaging performance of his play turned into opera. Frankly, Mozart would have composed for movies if he were alive today.
This show was thoroughly panned by the New York Times.
Zach Woolfe took the production way too seriously. He reviewed it as if it were a real opera rather than the Ridiculous Theatrical Company-style zany romp it is. And Woolfe seems to be the only person who expected Anthony Roth Costanzo’s baritone singing to be as polished as his falsetto singing is.
How bizarre that the critic has to point out that the audience consisted of all colours.
How bizarre that it did.
A manifestation of whole and total self-suffiency!
High camp even if not high art.
Next, Rosenkavalier?
I saw it. High camp is part of what ARC was going for, and he had a grand old time doing it. So did the audience (myself included).
Hard to see how one voice can cover all the parts in an ensemble like the Act 2 finale. In a studio, yes. On stage, in front of a live audience.
It sounds interesting, but I think I’ll stay with the real thing.
I attended a “Carmen Intime” this summer with four singers and one cello! Okay, it’s difficult to execute a quintet with four voices or a “chanson bohème” with only two female singers, but in this abridged version there were certainly moments to enjoy and view differently. Both girls were vocally and physically superb which didn’t spoil anything! If these exceptional “events” are brilliantly execuote, i see no reason to complain.
Over-rated singer to begin. American silliness at its worst: I was embarrassed for all onstage. But of course his audience of friends, with zero operatic / vocal knowledge, all cheer for their friend’s tiny talent. And now he’s “running” Opera Philly. Thus the quality of opera continues to decline and people wonder why we lose core audiences. Because mediocrity and show business distractions abound in American opera. Kelly O’hara at the Met, another horrid example.
The Washington Post’s Michael Andor Brodeur got what this show was all about:
https://www.msn.com/en-us/music/news/the-marriage-of-figaro-review-little-island-s-one-man-mozart/ar-AA1qhjyR
So did Heidi Waleson for The Wall Street Journal:
https://www.msn.com/en-us/music/news/the-marriage-of-figaro-review-little-island-s-one-man-mozart/ar-AA1qhjyR
I did not attend, but a relative who has deep pockets and attends a ton of opera in NYC did and said it was the most fun she has had at the opera in years. While she is not a musician, she is an intellectual with really good taste. As far as the charlatan Woolfe goes, his opines are typically amateurish and worthless. It was a sad day when he was hired and sadder when he became the head critic there. How the Times has fallen in art criticism. Remember, this is the guy who thought it was a good idea to go after Nelsons and the BSO and the Times felt they had to run a puff piece to defend his slovenly review. If he were to leave it would not be too soon.