April 4 & 6, 2025
Martin Marietta Center for the Performing Arts
Raleigh, North Carolina – USA
Wolfgang Amadeus MOZART: Le nozze di Figaro
Aaron Breid, conductor; Chas Rader-Shieber, stage director; Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, composer; Lorenzo DaPonte, librettist. Cast: Wm. Clay Thompson (Figaro); Cadie J. Bryan (Susanna); Theo Hoffman (Count Almaviva); Kathryn Henry (Countess Almaviva); Stephanie Foley Davis (Cherubino); Adam Lau (Dr. Bartolo); Lucia Bradford (Marcellina); Scott Wichael (Don Basilio/Don Curzio); Bailey Sutton (Barbarina); Donald Hartmann (Antonio).
Christopher Hill | 5 APR 2025
Having sailed with great distinction into unknown waters with their last production, Florencia en el Amazonas, North Carolina Opera returns this week to the welcoming harbor of core repertory in the form of Mozart’s Le nozze di Figaro. I saw this company’s production of Mozart’s subsequent opera, Don Giovanni, when it was mounted in January 2023, and that proved to be a fluent and enjoyable production, if (understandably) not quite as bold as the Met’s production of the same season. That’s no criticism.
Regional opera companies—that is, professional organizations with smaller budgets—are a vital part of what makes Europe such a great venue for opera. Among such international companies, Raleigh and the North Carolina Opera can hold their collective head high, especially after one of their productions of newer repertoire (Florencia) has surpassed the staging by America’s biggest opera house in quality and imagination.
From a glance at the participants in the current production, it’s clear that North Carolina Opera is eager to build on (rather than just duplicate) its past successes. Thus, the casting process for Le nozze appears similar to that for Florencia, namely, filling major roles with young artists on the brink of major careers, with a few smaller roles going to singers representative of the best associated with the home state or region. The result? Impressive.
Comparing this production of Le nozze di Figaro with ones experienced in Vienna, Frankfurt, Berlin, and New York, Raleigh’s North Carolina Opera comes out splendidly on the musical front and (to this reviewer’s taste) also splendidly on the directorial front. Here’s what this means: Regarding the music, tempos are well-judged and dramatically flexible, giving singers opportunities to linger where language, action, or drama requires lingering. Instrumental balances are insightful, not least in the overture. The use of the cembalo in recitatives is natural, not show-offy. The singers’ voices are well-matched and are allowed to carry clearly over Mozart’s pit orchestra (more on the voices below). Credit for all this accrues not only to the orchestra musicians but also to Los Angeles–based Aaron Breid, a frequent guest conductor with major regional opera companies, including the Washington National Opera and the Minnesota Opera. Breid has been appreciated elsewhere especially for his way with classical composers such as Mozart and Beethoven. Your reviewer can see why.
Conductor Aaron Breid leads Mozart’s ‘The Marriage of Figaro’ at NC Opera. (credit: Eric Waters)
Regarding the direction: We live in an age when particular prestige is granted to high-concept operatic productions, ones that, for instance, add a major character to a libretto (as did a recent staging of Strauss’s Die Frau ohne Schatten) or that transpose a bedroom farce into a seedy or steely milieu of rabid capitalists. Such is not Chas Rader-Shieber’s way with Le nozze. Last season, Rader-Shieber mounted a well-received production of Le nozze di Figaro with the New Orleans Opera, and he has brought with him to Raleigh several participants from that production.
Here’s what your reviewer likes about it: Characters are allowed to dress in ways Mozart might have recognized—and (with the exception of Cherubino) without intended insult. Further, these characters occupy plausible eighteenth-century stage spaces except on the occasion where Figaro breaks the fourth wall and descends, singing, into the audience. This fourth-wall exception does not, however, stick out in the production like the proverbial sore thumb simply because the staging as a whole has all along been using modern slapstick to point up the zaniness of DaPonte’s farce (much as Blake Edwards uses slapstick in his Pink Panther farces). During this staging of Le nozze, the packed house erupted into laughter many times during each of the four acts, particularly during the last two. Part of the general hilarity can be attributed to the wit of the supertitle translations.
‘The Marriage of Figaro’ set design by Steven C. Kemp. (credit: Eric Waters)
Regarding the singers: Figaro is sung by Wm. Clay Thompson, who earlier this season played the role at the UK Opera Theatre, where he is an artist in residence. With his handsome features and lean physique, Thompson makes a convincing heart-throb onstage. Vocally, he identifies as a bass, but his upper tessitura is that of a baritone. This broad range allows him to bring a robust and unstrained tonal richness to Figaro’s music (a baritone part), a sound consistent with his evident masculinity.
The role of Count Almaviva demands much vituperative fervor but also, on occasion, tender expression. Baritone Theo Hoffman proves up to the task of making both affects (plus others in between) believable. Hoffman has previously sung the Count in Rader-Shieber’s New Orleans production as well as in productions by Israeli Opera and Opera Theatre of Saint Louis. He certainly knows how to make this baritone role his own, both as a singer and an actor.
The two sopranos, Cadie J. Bryan (Susanna) and Kathryn Henry (Countess Almaviva), acquit themselves with distinction, and their canzonetta duet in Act 3 is a highlight of the production. Like Hoffman, Bryan has played the same role in the director’s New Orleans production of Le nozze. On the other hand, Henry comes to Raleigh from leading roles at the Lyric Opera in Chicago and the Santa Fe Opera. She made her Metropolitan Opera debut earlier this season in Strauss’s Die Frau ohne Schatten. Bryan’s vibrato is a bit more focused than Henry’s; in its slightly shaded quality, Henry’s timbre is a bit more dramatic than Bryan’s. Both ladies have an abundance of clear, sweet sounds and power throughout their ranges, and the combination of their voices is ravishing. So, too, is the way their voices mix with Thompson’s. (As an aside, when Mozart was writing Le nozze, he originally set the Countess’s part higher than Susanna’s; this was changed after he learned exactly who would be singing in the Vienna premiere.)
Cadie J. Bryan as Susanna and Wm. Clay Thompson as Figaro in ‘The Marriage of Figaro.’ (credit: Eric Waters)
Stephanie Foley Davis as Cherubino and Kathryn Henry as Countess Almaviva in ‘The Marriage of Figaro.’ (credit: Eric Waters)
No number from Le nozze is better known than the canzonetta “Non so più cosa son, cosa faccio” sung by Cherubino (a trouser role). As with so many Mozart numbers, the whole is so much more than the sum of its parts, yet still, this aria has stood out from the first time it reached audience ears, nearly a quarter of a millennium ago. Any soprano playing Cherubino must make peace with the sheer number of fine performances that have preceded hers. How shall she make it stand out? Stephanie Foley Davis did, your reviewer thinks, the sensible thing: to sing the aria simply, as though it were an entirely new work, letting it speak for itself — and for humanity. Since Mozart repeats his canzonetta in Act 2, she had to do this twice; her approach worked both times.
L-R: Lucia Bradford (Marcellina), Adam Lau (Dr. Bartolo), and Scott Wichael (Don Basilio/Don Curzio) in North Carolina Opera’s ‘The Marriage of Figaro).’ (credit: Eric Waters)
The production’s Dr. Bartolo, Adam Lau, has, this season alone, sung bass roles with Seattle Opera, Minnesota Opera, San Francisco Opera, Opera Philadelphia, Opera Theater of St. Louis, and similar houses. His “Aprite un po’ quegl’occhi” from a production of Mozart’s Figaro in Seattle was found to have an “appealing playfulness” that “brought appreciative guffaws from the house.” In Raleigh, he seems as well suited to this role as Hoffman is to Count Almaviva—high praise. Dr. Bartolo’s erstwhile paramour, Marcellina, is a dramatically difficult role for reasons that become clear during Act 3 (and which I won’t spoil here). Marcellina is sung by Brooklyn-based Lucia Bradford, who often solos in oratorios and the like and who was last heard locally as a soloist in Handel’s Messiah at Duke University in December 2024. On the operatic stage she proved to have presence and grace as well as great Mozart pipes.
In the smaller roles of Barberina, Antonio, and Don Curzio, the players never seemed out of place amongst their excellent peers in the principal roles. This Raleigh production is one I believe every participant will be glad to add to their professional resumé. The full house was very quiet during the performance but erupted loudly at the final curtain. ‘Twas a memorable event and evening, to be sure. ■
EXTERNAL LINKS:
- North Carolina Opera: ncopera.org
- Aaron Breid: aaronbreid.com
- Chas Rader-Shieber: fletcherartists.com/chas-rader-shieber
- W. Clay Thompson: https://www.wmclaythompson.com/
- Cadie J. Bryan: cadiejbryan.com
- Theo Hoffman: theo-hoffman.com
- Kathryn Henry: hkathrynhenrysoprano.com
- Stephanie Foley Davis: stephaniefoleymezzo.com
- Adam Lau: adampaullau.com
- Lucia Bradford: luciabradford.com
- Scott Wichael: scottwichael.com
Read more by Christopher Hill.
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