“A Crazy Day” — that’s the subtitle of “Le Nozze di Figaro,” and at times Sunday, the Budapest Festival Orchestra tried a little too hard to live up to it.
But that’s forgivable, because their Mozart can only be described as crazy good.
Iván Fischer conducted and directed this staged concert of the opera, a highlight of the Mostly Mozart Festival, with an international cast of singers, who — on ramps and platforms dotted among the onstage orchestra — acted out the comic tale in modern evening dress studded with bits of 1700s finery like brocade vests and lacy nightcaps.
It wasn’t fancy, but it was funny and touching. Only a gaggle of hyperactive extras distracted with pointless stage business like waving flags and clapping white wigs on singers at random. The opera’s plot — all about the complications surrounding the wedding day of wily servant Figaro — is intricate enough without any extra mugging.
Happily, the singers kept it simple and straightforward. In the title role, Hanno Müller-Brachmann combined a rich, nut-brown bass-baritone with a laid-back approach: This Figaro wasn’t so much a comedian as a normal dude to whom funny stuff happens.
Opposite him, Laura Tatulescu parlayed a small soprano and a knowing smile into a classy portrayal of his bride, Susanna.
The opera’s aristocratic couple was less well-matched, with soprano Miah Persson’s silvery-voiced and poised Countess easily outclassing baritone Roman Trekel’s chronically out-of-tune Count.
Making their US debuts, Rachel Frenkel sent her honeyed mezzo sailing through the music of the pageboy Cherubino, and soprano Norma Nahoun sparkled in the tiny role of his crush Barbarina.
But the undisputed star of the show was Fischer. Leaning back in his chair among the orchestra, the smiling maestro coaxed fleet, supple music-making from the entire company.
He may not be a vocalist, but he sure knows how to make Mozart sing.