✕ ✕
Turning tips into memories
Login
Signup

You have reached the limit of free articles.


To enjoy unlimited access to Culture Whisper sign up for FREE.
Find out more about Culture Whisper

Please fix the following input errors:

  • dummy

Each week, we send newsletters and communication featuring articles, our latest tickets invitations, and exclusive offers.

Occasional information about discounts, special offers and promotions.


OR
LOG IN

OR
  • LOG IN WITH FACEBOOK

Thanks for signing up to Culture Whisper.
Please check your inbox for a confirmation email and click the link to verify your account.



EXPLORE CULTURE WHISPER
✕ ✕
Turning tips into memories
Login
Signup

Please fix the following input errors:

  • dummy
Forgot your username or password?
Don't have an account? Sign Up

OR
  • LOG IN WITH FACEBOOK

If you click «Log in with Facebook» and are not a Culture Whisper user, you agree to our Terms & Conditions and to our Privacy Policy, which includes our Cookie Use

Support Us Login
  • Home
  • Going Out
    • Things to do
    • Food & Drink
    • Theatre
    • Visual Arts
    • Cinema
    • Kids
    • Festival
    • Gigs
    • Dance
    • Classical Music
    • Opera
    • Immersive
    • Talks
  • Staying In
    • TV
    • Books
    • Cook
    • Podcast
    • Design
    • Netflix
  • Life & Style
    • Beauty
    • Fashion
    • Gifting
    • Wellbeing
    • Lifestyle
    • Shopping
    • Jewellery
  • Explore
  • Shopping
  • CW SHOPS
  • Support Us
  • Get Started
  • Tickets
  • CW SHOPS
Get the Best of London Life, Culture and Style
By entering my email I agree to the CultureWhisper Privacy Policy (we won`t share data & you can unsubscribe anytime).
Classical Music

The Marriage of Figaro, Opera Holland Park review ★★★★★

01 Jun 21 – 28 Jun 21, 13 performances, times vary. Running time c.3hr 15min including interval

Mozart's comic opera opens a new summer season at the capital's own country house opera

By Claudia Pritchard on 2/6/2021

The Count (Julien Van Mallaerts) and Countess (Nardus Williams) fall out in Opera Holland Park's The Marriage of Figaro. Photo: Ali Wright
The Count (Julien Van Mallaerts) and Countess (Nardus Williams) fall out in Opera Holland Park's The Marriage of Figaro. Photo: Ali Wright
The Marriage of Figaro, Opera Holland Park review 4 The Marriage of Figaro, Opera Holland Park review Claudia Pritchard
Was it the sumptuous purples and greens of Holland Park's resident peacocks that inspired the luxurious costumes of designer takis, who not only created the look of The Marriage of Figaro, opening production of the new Opera Holland Park season, but also the auditorium?


The peacocks certainly made their presence felt on opening night, with raucous calls from the summery gardens outside the seasonal opera house, newly configured for this year's demands for audience space. After a long grey winter, this burst of brilliant colour was treat indeed.


Not that the show ends at lights. Rather, it starts as soon as the audience steps up from the park and sees, in place of traditionally tiered seating, clusters of elegant little chairs, from which the audience can join in the gossip, scandal and plots.



Susanna (Elizabeth Karani) and Figaro (Ross Ramgobin) find a way. Photo: Ali Wright

Wigs, breeches, buckles and bows are the order of the day, but director Oliver Platt sews pleasing anachronisms into Mozart's comedy of manners and marriages. Maid servant Susanna on her wedding Eve studies Brides magazine; sex-crazed adolescent Cherubino serenades the glamorous Countess like a glam rock pop idol, complete with improvised mic. No one on stage can resist a little boogie when the beat is at its boppiest.


In the pit, in charge of the bopping beat, is George Jackson, conducting a City of London Sinfonia pared down for this Covid-safe production. And the pit is itself wrapped inside an apron stage that at times brings the audience in its drawing room to the heart of the action. Takis has admirably recycled elements of Cordelia Chisholm’s set for La Traviata. (La Traviata returns to OHP from 5 to 27 June).


So flukey are the laws of acoustics, that this proximity did not always make guarantee a big sound from the singers on opening night, projecting as they are into thin air this year, without the soundbox of tiers. But there is intimacy and comedy to be enjoyed.



Susanna (Elizabeth Karani) dresses up Cherubino (Samantha Price). Photo: Ali Wright

The impending marriage is beset with hurdles, including the lust for Susanna of man servant Figaro's master, the Count. He neglects his Countess, who joins in a plot to trip up the Count, hatched by the servants. Meanwhile, Figaro is being chased for a debt, and threatened with marriage to creditor Marcellina if it goes unpaid.


Add in Cherubino, chasing everything in a skirt and finally disguised in one himself, to avoid an army posting, plus one aggrieved gardener, and the comic misunderstandings mount up merrily, and the musical pile-up at the end of Act 2 is a wondrous as ever.


In the title role, Ross Ramgobin is nimble in voice and action, and ever one step ahead of Julien Van Mallaerts' entitled Count. Elizabeth Karani's capable Susanna pulls off her musical marathon with energy to spare, her relationship with the Countess one of female mutual understanding, as if they share a silent coded language.



The neglected Countess is movingly sung by Nardus Williams. Photo: Ali Wright


Nardus Williams as the Countess is both stately and fragile, her heartbroken arias most affecting. Samantha Price's nifty Cherubino is very warmly done, even if her leap into the flowerbed is more run than jump.


Snooping Bartolo is sung with genuine threat and danger by James Cleverton, while a reduced Opera Holland Park Chorus witnesses the shenanigans.


OHP has a reputation for spotting singers on the way up, and two performances (14 and 16 June) will showcase rising young artists, whose names are sure to become as familiar as those of the much-loved artists in this good-hearted production.


The Marriage of Figaro is sung in Italian with English surtitles. The production is sold out, but click here for returns. For the full Opera Holland Park season click here
by Claudia Pritchard

What The Marriage of Figaro, Opera Holland Park review
Where Opera Holland Park, Stable Yard, Holland Park, London , W8 6LU | MAP
Nearest tube High Street Kensington (underground)
When 01 Jun 21 – 28 Jun 21, 13 performances, times vary. Running time c.3hr 15min including interval
Price £Returns only
Website Click here for more information and booking



Most popular

Things to do in London this weekend: 3–5 February
Things to do in London this weekend: 3–5 February
Zadie Smith new novel, The Fraud, to be released in 2023, photo Justin Holler
An A to Z of trends for 2023
Helena Bonham Carter in Nolly, ITVX (Photo: ITV)
What to watch on TV this week

Editor's Picks

Ross Ramgobin is in demand with many opera companies. Photo: Billy Goodworth
Ross Ramgobin interview: 'I'm a storyteller, first and foremost'
The newly spaced auditorium at Opera Holland Park
Opera Holland Park 2021
Soprano Natalya Romaniw sings the title role in ENO's Tosca. Photo: Patrick Allen/Omnia
Tosca, English National Opera live, Crystal Palace
Erwin Schrott is a marked man in Don Giovanni at Covent Garden. Photo: Mark Douet
Don Giovanni, Royal Opera House
Puccini's La Bohème is staged by Grange Park Opera in 2021
Grange Park Opera 2021
An excellent production of Tchaikovsky's Eugene Onegin returns in 2021. Photo: Mark Douet
Garsington Opera 2021
Sign up to CW’s newsletter
By entering my email I agree to the CultureWhisper Privacy Policy (we won`t share data & you can unsubscribe anytime).

Opera Holland Park

Mozart

Ross Ramgobin



  • The Culture Whisper team
  • Support Us
  • Tickets
  • Contact us
  • Press
  • FAQ
  • Privacy
  • Terms and conditions
  • Cookies
  • Discover
  • Venues
  • Restaurants
  • Stations
  • Boroughs
Sign up to CW’s newsletter
By entering my email I agree to the CultureWhisper Privacy Policy (we won`t share data & you can unsubscribe anytime).
×