Fig.

So… I continue on my California trip.

After my audition in San Jose, I hauled it back to Berkeley to see my friend Bryan perform in Figaro at the Berkeley Rep Theater. It was a funny coincidence that he and I were both in California at the same time. I had heard so much about this multi-media play/opera that he was in. I was SO STOKED to go see it.

It was a FANTASTIC show. It’s essentially a two person play (Figaro and Il Conte,) with the operatic excerpts happening as flashback. It’s a sort of revamping of the three Figaro plays (Barber of Seville, Marriage of Figaro, and the Guilty Mother,) rolled into one story from the point of the French Revolution, all the while incorporating scenes from Mozart’s Le Nozze di Figaro. The set is very sparse and most of the scenery is done with projections, but is able to make some truly beautiful moments. The Countess is brought in laying on a small boat covered with dark red roses and sings Porgi Amor horizontal while being dragged around by the older version of her husband. The moment is STUNNING. It’s funny, it’s sad, and more so than anything else, it’s very poignant. Granted, Nozze is one of my favorite operas and I always tear up for no reason about half way through, it made me appreciate the opera so much more.

I also appreciated that they tied in ALL of the plays. Nine times out of ten, people never incorporate that the Countess is the saucy Rosina from Barber and that the Count fought like hell to get her… or that she gets knocked up by Cherubino sometime in this opera and has a son. Ooops. Makes for a thicker plot though, no?

Now, is the all of the singing Met quality? No.  In my opinion, the men were a lot stronger than the women. The singing overall is quite good, especially for doing 8 shows a week. Imagine that, opera singers… EIGHT SHOWS. My larynx jumped thinking about it. The show isn’t an opera though. It’s not about the singing. Its about the story and the interaction of these characters.

Which is what opera’s supposed to be about, too, right? Ain’t that food for thought?