Figaro – her husband to be – is sung by a dependable and mahogany-toned Riccardo Fassi with a resolutely delivered ‘se vuol ballare’. She took a while to project the voice over the orchestra and was not helped by unclear diction in her opening duet, but her lilting Act 4 aria ‘Deh vieni’ was beautifully rendered, proving beyond doubt her Mozartian credentials. As Susanna, Giulia Semenzato has a natural stage presence, impressing in her feisty no-nonsense wife-to-be role, and almost stealing the scene when introduced to Figaro’s long-lost parents. Giulia Semenzato and Riccardo Fassi (c) ROH/Clive BardaĪmongst the young, and mainly Italian cast are some well-defined performances. How refreshing to see contemporary concerns with sexual politics largely muted. Events are neatly anticipated, and nobody laughs more heartily than this second night Covent Garden audience at the hands-on physicality between an insatiable Count and the sassy young servant Susanna. From the bustling overture, busy domestic staff, variously bottom-pinching and conspiring, make their own mischief in a sort of mini-drama that could be the inspiration for Downton Abbey – the Musical. Within Tanya McCallins’s vast set, with its almost preposterously high windows and cavernous spaces (atmospherically lit by Paule Constable), one might think characterisation could be lost.

McVicar updates Figaro to a French château belonging to the 1830s. Mozart, of course, treats Lorenzo da Ponte’s critique of prevailing social values with lacerating humour, and this revival of David McVicar’s 2006 production still manages to tickle a few ribs with its political satire and slapstick comedy.

With its thumb-nosing at society’s upper echelons, it’s no surprise that Beaumarchais’s original play La Folle Journée ou Le marriage de Figaro was banned by King Louis XVI in 1784, or that Napoleon Bonaparte considered the play to have been ‘the first step towards the French Revolution’. As an exploration of 18 th-century class structures Le nozze di Figaro is a timeless classic which no number of revivals will diminish.

Marriage of figaro royal opera house