THE METROPOLITAN OPERA

The best news about the Met’s eleven-year-old Jonathan Miller production of Le Nozze di Figaro is that it has been restaged by Gregory Keller, more tautly spun, many elegant jokes or character moments inserted, several idiocies discarded and with plenty of room remaining for singers with a flair for it (such as Luca Pisaroni and Isabel Leonard) to invent comic business of their own.

--Opera Today

[The] staging of “Figaro” is handsome, intelligent and focused.

--Associated Press

The staging, now under the direction of Gregory Keller, gave weight to both the comic and tragic aspects of the opera, thankfully with a bit more emphasis on the comedic side of the scale...There is after all only so much new material one can squeeze out of a two hundred year old classic, but Mr Keller did well in delivering a fresh staging that was, more than anything, entertaining and engaging.

--Opera Britannia

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Conductor: Daniel Ettinger*/Fabio Luisi

Production: Jonathan Miller

Sets: Peter J. Davison

Costumes: James Acheson

Lighting: Mark McCullough

Choreographer: Terry John Bates

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Figaro: John Relyea / Luca Pisaroni

Susanna: Danielle de Niese / Lisette Oropesa

Countess Almaviva: Emma Bell* / Annette Dasch

Count Almvaviva: Bo Skovhus / Ludovic Tezier

Cherubino: Isabell Leonard

Dr. Bartolo: Maurizio Muraro / John Del Carlo

Marcellina: Wendy White / Ann Murray

Don Basilio: Philip Langridge / Greg Fedderly

Don Curzio: Tony Stevenson

Barbarina: Ashley Emerson*

Antonio: Patrick Carfizzi

Bridesmaids: Ann Carolyn Bird / Joyce El-Khoury

Jennifer Johnson*

Continuo: Dennis Giauque / Steven Eldridge,

harpsichord

David Heiss, cello

* = debut

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September 22, 26, October 1, 5, 9

November 23, 27, 30, December 4, 8, 12 2009

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Photos: Andrea Mohin (NYT)

Mary Altaffer (AP)