New Zealand Opera / Recenze

New Zealand Opera has unequivocally outdone themselves this season, chasing away the cold, damp tendrils of winter with their vivaciously kaleidoscopic production of Gioachino Rossinis’ comic opera The Barber of Seville. Co-produced with both Opera Queensland and Seattle Opera, and with the Auckland Philharmonia Orchestra once again under the charismatic conductorship of Wyn Davies, The Barber of Seville is a sumptuous feast, colourful morsels to tempt the senses awaiting around each and every corner of one of the most elaborate and sagacious sets that has ever been constructed in recent years. Designed by the rather talented Tracey Grant Lord – whose personality and style are also splashed across the costumes that dance across the stage – the set is a series of intricate doors, crawl spaces and windows through which the cast ebb and flow like fluid, allowing the story to progress swiftly. Small touches such as ornate wallpaper, mini lampshades and a somewhat magical main entrance through which all manner of surprises come and go, feed into this captivating tale of our Barber come match-maker Figaro. And what a Figaro Australian Morgan Pearse is! Dressed in a purple two piece that would have made even the iconic Prince envious, Pearse was both audacious and fleet of foot as he made his way to the stage in a completely unpredictable but hilarious way. Last year he played Belcore in Donizettis’ The Elixir of Love, this year, baritone Morgan Pearse is hands down an operatic rock star, his animated performance claiming both eye and ear.

New Zealand Opera’s production of Mozart and Da Ponte’s ebullient and enduring Marriage of Figaro opened in the Kiri Te Kanawa Theatre in the Aotea Centre, Auckland on Tuesday night. This masterpiece of perfect music describing imperfect humanity (as aptly described by director Lindy Hume), has as much to say now as it did when it was penned over 200 years ago. Mozart’s world was radically shaking off the ancien régime on the brink of the French Revolution, just as our world is changing before our eyes in the wake of the Pandemic. But it was the passionate storms of human temperament that occupied the Aotea Centre stage last night. The enduring themes of the disenfranchisement of love within marriage, the struggle with the domineering boss and, still so hotly relevant, the shady abuse of women at the hands of their ‘master’/‘husband’. Some of the manhandling of females on stage was truly shocking and this is the power of theatre to raise questions - at which point is it no longer a lighthearted flirtation, when is the abuse of privilege ever acceptable? How appropriate that this mainly female-led production explored these serious notes. Ravishingly full of fun, the production was thoroughly engaging in every sense. Not only excellent casting, but also the design, the dramatic shaping, not to mention the enlivened orchestral sounds from Auckland Philharmonia Orchestra led with lightness by conductor Zoe Zeniodi. Lindy Hume director and Zeniodi created clear co-ordination between pit and stage. And with the extraordinary sets and costumes of Tracey Lord Grant and the lighting vision of Matthew Marshall, it was striking teamwork.