Published: 13 October, 2011
by SEBASTIAN TAYLOR

ACTRESS-director Fiona Shaw’s new production of The Marriage of Figaro for English National Opera at the Coliseum is packed with all sorts of high-octane fun, insights and inferences.

But the production is so full of distracting activity that it’s sometimes difficult to appreciate the opera’s musical heights, the great arias and ensembles in Mozart’s masterpiece.

Shaw has sought to come up with a 21st-century view of the opera by exploiting the idea of a maze with Count Almaviva as the minotaur at its centre under siege from his rebellious servants.

Certainly, the set for the first two acts is very 21st century: the count’s mansion is portrayed by large white and opaque panels similar to those used by IKEA for its bedroom wardrobe.

Turns of the revolving stage move the action from the living room to the dining room and then to the kitchen and the bedroom in the same way that IKEA customers follow the trail through the store’s departments.

Initially, the revolving set works well.

But when the novelty wears off, the rushing to and fro with each turn of the set begins to distract from the music.

Irritating, too, is her parade of props: a bull’s horns here, a cine-camera there, the corpse of a dog, a Louis Vuitton handbag to name but a few.

Often, too, the energetic production fails to concentrate on providing support for some fine singing and orchestral playing under conductor Paul Daniel.

Elizabeth Llewellyn is quite outstanding as the Countess.

But her great arias have to compete with servants doing this or that in the background.

Iain Paterson delivers a confident Figaro singing at full throttle, not so much an obsequious servant, more aspiring to take the Count’s place, and he’s well matched by Devon Guthrie as Susanna, determined that the Count should not have his way.

Roland Wood draws the short strew as the Count in Shaw’s scheme of things, lacking any authority over his rebellious servants.

So he’s left with expressing exasperation rather than outrage at their behaviour.

Good performances come from Kathryn Rudge as Cherubino and Lucy Schaufer as Marcellina.

• Eight more performances till 10/11, www.eno.org