The battle of the sexes ended in an upset the other night in “Le Nozze di Figaro.”
No, nobody rewrote the libretto of Mozart’s 1786 opera, about a countess and her maid joining forces to teach a randy count a lesson. But the casting of the Met’s revival was so lopsided that the golden-voiced men easily won sympathy over a gaggle of screechy sopranos.
As the servant Figaro, whose marriage is the subject of Beaumarchais’ comedy, the hunky Russian bass-baritone Ildar Abdrazakov boasted big, rich tone and nimble Italian diction for his patter numbers. He’s a natural stage animal too, achieving easy rapport with the audience when he called for them to “open their eyes” in his last act aria “Aprite un po’ quegli occhi.”
Opposite him, Gerald Finley parlayed his medium-size baritone into a fully rounded characterization of the predatory count. His weary plea for forgiveness “Contessa, perdono,” for once sounded sincerely repentant.
But why would he want to reconcile with the likes of Maija Kovalevska, with her grainy soprano and crass, unladylike behavior?
Bad enough she scampered through her two lyrical arias as if she were afraid of missing the last train out of Penn Station, but her acting suggested the countess moonlighted in a strip club.
She flashed her legs, wiggled her breasts and then, during the delicate “letter duet,” even grabbed her crotch.
Her partner in this number, Mojca Erdmann, sounded dull and charmless as Susanna, Figaro’s bride. Even delivering most of the part front and center, the soprano’s clumsy diction reduced one of opera’s wittiest librettos to a mush of vague vowel sounds.
No better was Christine Schäfer, who sleepwalked through the part of the lovesick pageboy Cherubino. Only an occasional glimmer of authentic Mozartian style emerged from her wan soprano.
So much frankly lousy singing didn’t seem to discourage conductor David Robertson, who led a firm performance with a lush, romantic sound big enough to fill the Met’s massive hall.
Of Jonathan Miller’s 1998 production, all that remains are artfully distressed sets by Peter J. Davidson and muted period costumes by James Acheson.
Any sense of sophisticated comedy is long gone in the slapstick restaging by Gregory Keller, all exaggerated double takes and butt-grabbing.
At a $320 top, isn’t the Met audience entitled to a touch of class with its Mozart?