Brilliant `Figaro’ production shows Mozart’s modern appeal

In the bicentennial year of Mozart’s death, we may be asking what the bewigged composer from Salzburg has to offer modern audiences. New York City Opera National Company director Joseph A. LoSchiavo answers this question brilliantly in the touring production of “The Marriage of Figaro,” which was performed Monday night at the Maine Center for the Arts.

The story of the precociously witty valet who defeats his master’s sexual advances toward the servant’s bride, “Figaro” both enchanted and disturbed aristocratic audiences when it debuted in 1786, just before the French Revolution. In the NYC Opera production, LoSchiavo complements Mozart’s radical class views with radical casting in an otherwise traditional production.

Opera is one of the few performing arts in which color-blind casting is not an unusual practice. But LoSchiavo seems to go one step further by mingling class with racial commentary. When a black Figaro introduces his white parents to Susanna (also white), or tries to protect a white page by suggesting a case of mistaken identity in a fast getaway, the moment carries a comic irony similar to Mozart’s own theme of sharp-witted peasants imparting cunning lessons to the aristocracy.

In a story of the malicious trickery and suspicion that develop from greedy love, the color-specific casting adds a new twist to the old notion that all is not what it appears to be. And the final garden-scene sentiment — that amidst diversity we can “all be happy now” — really becomes quite modern.

In addition to presenting a resplendent show of exquisite musical quality, fine acting and beautiful spectacle, the NYC Opera adds another dimension to the porcelain reputation of opera by featuring the popular and much-praised “supertitles.” These English translations, which are projected onto a screen while the performers sing in Italian, illuminate the plot without sacrificing the integrity of the original libretto. More importantly, perhaps, they inspire audiences to listen to both the music and the language more carefully. By the end of the show, dependency on the supertitles seems to lessen, and the listener becomes addicted to the beauty of the music and the action of the performers.

For the full house at the Maine Center, Mozart’s already revolutionary themes zoomed two centuries forward, past the Age of Enlightenment and the sexual revolution and into the 1990s, a world of complex social relations and sophisticated technology. The uncanny crossover between worlds assures Mozart’s place as a “modern” composer, whose bicentennial is a timeless celebration of his daring genius and uplifting art.