LE NOZZE DI FIGARO

Le nozze di Figaro is director Evgeny Titov’s first collaboration here. Titov was born in Kazakhstan, and most recently debuted at the Komische Oper Berlin and at Munich’s Residenztheater with the renowned Irish set and costume designer Annemarie Woods and the Canadian lighting designer D.M. Wood. Titov enjoys a long-standing working relationship in spoken theatre with the dramaturgist and musicologist Janine Ortiz, at the Salzburg Festival and the Düsseldorfer Schauspielhaus, among other institutions. Stefano Montanari, who conducts Handel’s Semele at the Bayerische Staatsoper during the Munich Opera Festival 2023, also conducts her.

Count Almaviva has himself abolished the iusprimae noctis, or "right of the lord". A fact, however, which does not prevent him from trying to seduce the Countess’s maid, Susanna, just before her marriage to Figaro. A clear case of sexual harassment. But, what happens when the culprit has plenty of money and power? Or, can even bend the law to suit their wishes? Le nozze di Figaro was more than just a comedy back in Mozart’s day. The world portrayed is brim full of criminal machinations and blatant fraud and chicanery by the powerful and almighty. Lorenzo Da Ponte’s libretto based on the scandalous play by the French revolutionary, Beaumarchais, leads the colourful characters of a comedy of the classes into situations so hopeless that emptiness and the desire to die spread to all quarters. And so the Count’s love for his new wife following their marriage suddenly goes ice-cold, although he has just recently spectacularly freed her from the clutches of her custodian. The resourceful Figaro of all people had helped him here, and in gratitude, the Count now employs him as his personal valet, perhaps as questionable compensation for Susanna’s harassment. Hardly conquered, the countess finds herself neglected and longs for either Almaviva's love or her own death. It takes a great deal of intrigue and counter-intrigue to disempower the encroaching count and allow Susanna's wedding to her beloved Figaro to take place after all.

With much love for tempo and situation comedy, the staging by Evgeny Titov examines the question as to why humanity proves time and again how fragile it is and where the weak points are. For this, the immense versatility of Mozart’s music unfurls its very own dynamic in the unleashing of jealousy and desire.