Back in 2015 I reviewed a 2006 recording from the Royal Opera House of Mozart’s Le nozze di Figaro directed by David McVicar.  It’s very good and has a super starry cast; Finley, Persson, Röschmann, Schrott, Shaham.  There’s even a cameo by Philip Langridge as Basilio.  So, when I saw that a new recording of the same production, made in 2022 with a young and less obviously starry cast, had been released I was in two minds whether to bother.  I’m glad I did.

I shan’t go into a lot of detail about the production because it’s similar to the earlier recording.  It’s not exactly the same though.  The revival is directed by McVicar, rather than a staff director with a score full of stickies, and he’s clearly reinterpreting with a new cast so there are differences in the characterization.  It also occurred to me that although the setting is said to be 1830s France it actually feels more like an English country house of the same period.  The servants are too smart and everything is too clean…

The real joy, though, of this performance is the singing and acting.  One would not have thought that the previous cast could be bettered but it’s at least equalled.  Obviously we open with Figaro and Susanna and in Riccardo Fassi we have a genuine bass Figaro who is athletic and youthful sounding.  We also get our first look at Giulia Semenzato’s Susanna.  She’s quite charming and sings beautifully and she just gets better as the opera progresses.  It’s a really fine performance.

Germán Alcántara’s Conte is less powder keg than Finley.  He shows anger in a somewhat less physically threatening way and it’s much easier to believe that he’s actually besotted with Susanna.  Then there’s Federica Lombardi as the Contessa.  It’s like watching and listening to a young Schwarzkopf.  She combines humanity and gravitas in full measure and sings her two big arias as near perfectly as makes no difference.  She’s also wonderful in the final scene.  Hanna Hipp is a decent Cherubino but I think there’s something aboyt the production that makes it hard for Cherubino to shine.  The rest of the cast is also excellent.  Ultimately what akes this as an ensemble is not just that all of the principals give very fine performances but that they look and sound young; which, of course, they are supposed to but hardly ever do.

The chorus and orchestra are on good form and once again Pappano conducts.  It’s obvious that he and McVicar are on the same page and tat’s so important.  The filming by Peter jonbes is fine and the sound (DTS-HD-MA and PCM stereo) and picture on Blu-ray are fine and there’s even a couple of extras on the disk including a conversation between Pappano and McVicar which goes some way to compensating for the extremely skimpy booklet; a brief synpsis is pretty much it.  Subtitle options are English, French, German, Italian, Korean and Japanese.

This is a surprisingly good disk.  It’s a fresh take on what was always a good production with a youthful cast who look and sound like the composer intended I fancy.

Catalogue number: Opus Arte Blu-ray OABD7304D