An anonymous spectator dared to utter, after the inaugural performance, the ominous expression meringue even in the soup. An inelegant way to summarize what we had just seen. Sugar, cream, flour, dancing eggs, and an overabundance of pastel colors coexist in a colossal wedding cake, transformed into the organizing principle of the plot unfolding on stage: dramatic space, labyrinth, theatrical machine and total symbol, which Marta Pazos has conceived for the new production of Le Nozze di Figaro at the Gran Teatre del Liceu. The characters enter and exit it, traverse it vertically, disappear between its compartments and reappear at different levels as if all the action took place inside a fantasy as sweet as—it will be confirmed—sticky.
The idea possesses visual strength and, above all, coherence. During the first acts, the characters are characterized as ingredients: the combination of elements portends the realization of a project of unequivocal complexity—the weddings, in plural—in which amorous feeling and libidinal management would have to coexist without acrimony. Figaro is flour and then yeast; Susanna, refined sugar; Marcelina, butter; Cherubino, a popular lollipop; the Count, different intensities of chocolate, as his urgency increases... The costumes also evoke the graphic imagery of easily recognizable commercial brands. A separate case is the Countess, who intervenes for the first time opening the second act: she is already then a cherry liqueur bonbon, but will later provoke laughter, by showing herself as that plump and golden chocolate, a supposed symbol of class despite its industrial-scale confection.
"Inspired but unsettling synecdoche, the pastry worldview minimizes the number of psychological nuances offered by the marvelous libretto"
In parallel to the metaphorical configuration of the pastry plot, particular transformations occur. It will be during the delicious duetto between Susanna and the Countess -which leads them to compose a canzonetta sull'aria to catch the hunter, that is, to expose the Count's infidelity- when the cake dough is prepared on stage, gathering many of the mentioned elements in a container held by angels. The characters will stop appearing dressed as ingredients to show themselves already in their condition as a finished product, inhabitants of that symbolic construction that ends up absorbing everything. Susanna and the Countess's new dresses -multi-tiered cakes- will be opportunely exchanged so that the Count, married but weary of his commitment, and Figaro, loving but affected by jealousy and doubts, become confused, and thus are forced to look at themselves in the distorting mirror of their appetite, lost in the spongy labyrinth.
The idea sounds ingenious. The problem is that ideas do not always produce good theater. There are excellent ideas that, by the very logic of their functioning, push towards a kind of reduction to the absurd. An inspired but unsettling synecdoche, the pastry worldview ceases to illuminate the comedy of errors, by minimizing the number of psychological nuances offered by Lorenzo da Ponte's wonderful libretto -very close in spirit to Caron de Beaumarchais's work- and which Wolfgang A. Mozart managed to convey in arias and ensemble numbers of an expressiveness and extension never before seen. We will talk about the music heard at the Liceu, of course, but first we must still reflect on an unprecedented event, with its dramatic point: how could that thrilling story, that of the folle journée, manage to bore us already in the first acts?
"It would be too easy to dismiss the proposal with a label that, moreover, long ago ceased to function as a disqualification"
The deployment of this staging is excessive, but the problem is not the excess. The history of art is full of admirable excesses. Nor is the shamelessly kitsch aftertaste—the egg scene is extremely harsh—an insurmountable obstacle. It would be too easy to dismiss the proposal with a label that, moreover, long ago ceased to function as a disqualification. On the contrary, the kitsch register has become a form of cultural counter-discourse, proudly celebrating the falsity of the falsity of art, reclaiming the pop against the solemn; suspecting aesthetic hierarchies and very conveniently reminding us that the artifice of representation has always questioned the discrimination between truth and lie in art. Precisely for this reason, it is interesting to ask what happens when this logic becomes the sole language.
There is a moment when kitsch stops unmasking the illusion of truth in art and begins to produce another. A kinder and perhaps more popular illusion, but not necessarily more substantial. Like a sugar pill administered to make any medicine more palatable. The idea that what is easily consumable and entertaining thereby becomes light is, however, fallacious. Even when it functions as a firewall against forms of transcendence or depth that may seem outdated today, that lightness feels heavy, eventually indigestible. And not because it confronts us with an uncomfortable truth, but because it falsely eliminates the question of truth by treating it as an ideological drag, reserved for a minority. Paradoxes of postmodernity, this way of invoking the wildcard of the pop against an ancien régime conception of art smells of mothballs. If the aesthetic experience does not allow us to access a personal and possibly untransferable truth, what relevance does it have to witness the simulacrum?
Here lies the main limitation of this production. The psychological complexity of The Marriage of Figaro ends up reduced to a metaphor that ultimately devours the work. Certainly, everyone desires or loves. Everyone seeks affection. But, do they therefore form part of the same recipe? Quite the contrary, the greatness of Mozart and Da Ponte originally manages to articulate an endless number of subplots with goldsmith precision, based on very particular differences. Cherubino's desire is not manifested identically to that of the Count, despite being his perfect counterpart. The Countess's melancholy has nothing to do with Susanna's practical cunning. Figaro's energy is at the antipodes of Bartolo's resentment, Rosina's former tutor (later countess, thanks to the mediation of the then barbiere). Not to mention Marcelina's Oedipal love for Figaro...
"Lightness feels heavy, eventually indigestible. And not because it confronts us with an uncomfortable truth, but because it falsely eliminates the question of truth"
As if Mozart knew his characters better than they knew themselves, the music maintains that tension, a vibrant dialectic that Da Ponte would also apply in Don Giovanni and Così fan tutte. The trilogy, in fact, is built on these differences: variations on the same theme but fundamental in their specificity, evolving human dispositions that pivot and change direction. From a dramaturgical point of view, human relationships are only interesting when they are a bit ambiguous. In Pazos' production of these Nozze, however, the characters do not even vibrate as archetypes; surrounded by cherubs, they are absorbed by the same aesthetic substance. A proposal that possibly seeks lightness, but progresses by acquiring weight and slowness, fundamentally hampered by the absence of that sense of emotional danger that elevated The Marriage of Figaro as one of the most perfect works ever written for the stage.
If the scenic proposal ended up undermining the dramatic vitality of the work, the musical reading also failed to compensate for that loss of momentum. Giovanni Antonini, whose trajectory in the historicist repertoire invites expectations of incisive and spirited readings, seemed unusually restrained here. The Liceu Orchestra sounded correct, but rarely conveyed the theatrical urgency, electricity, or dramatic tension that the score demands. The large ensembles retained much of their effectiveness thanks to the intrinsic strength of Mozart's writing and the singers' performances, but a direction capable of providing contrast, spice, and, in short, risk was missed. Symptomatically, among the performers, Julia Lezhneva's Cherubino stood out, possessing a fresh presence, capable of breaking the dominant statism. Undoubtedly, Sara Blanch offered a very notable Susanna, particularly inspired in the second half with an excellent Giunse alfin il momento, while Adriana González built a dignified Countess, although somewhat conditioned by the scenic conception.
"As if, against the best expectations, the enormous visual machinery had ended up inhibiting part of the energy that the action needed"
Andrè Schuen's Count demonstrated powerful singing and explored the authoritarian register, condemned to approach pathos by the futility of his efforts (as the libretto specifies, but even more so here, due to the advertising costume). We expected more from Pisaroni's Figaro, who received far fewer applause than his cast partner, and who seemed somewhat deflated towards the end, for example, in Aprite un po' quegl'occhi. In fact, the fourth act revealed the limitations of Pazos's approach: where Da Ponte and Mozart deploy one of the most complex and precise theatrical mechanisms in the entire history of opera, the performance navigated in indifference, moved only by the languid rotation of the cake. The misunderstandings themselves became confusing, the chases somewhat clumsy. As if, against the best expectations, the enormous visual machinery had ended up inhibiting part of the energy that the action needed. Undoubtedly, the enormous cake functions as a powerful image of desire and the sentimental fictions with which human beings feed our lives, but it also consolidates as a mass in which the action becomes bogged down.
Mozart and Da Ponte knew that love can be comical, cruel, absurd, tender, petty, and sublime. They knew that human beings are incompatible even with themselves. That is why their characters are still alive more than two centuries later. And yet, beneath the layers of cream and meringue, hardly any of that truth can be perceived. At times it is terribly difficult to find it and, what is more serious -something that duo would never forgive-, laziness overcomes us. Covering some of the most penetrating observations ever written about human relationships with an extra layer of syrup does not make them more understandable. That total cake temptation imagines an existence under the empire of sugar, but it pays a very high price: the risk of fainting. If one wanted to take the metaphor to the paroxysm of artifice, it would be enough to consult an AI about nutritional physiology: "Although the body uses sugar as a quick source of fuel, its excessive consumption causes a sharp rise in blood glucose followed by a sharp drop, which generates fatigue, weakness, and lack of concentration."