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The Marriage of Figaro

The Canadian Opera Company

At the Four Seasons Centre in Toronto on Tuesday

Mark Twain's quip that Wagner's music is better than it sounds is true of all operas some of the time. I had about three hours to contemplate this sad fact on Tuesday, during the Canadian Opera Company's spirited but superficial performance of Mozart's comedy The Marriage of Figaro.

Music is the only art in which the entire work can be present to the senses, and yet still be missing something. Strange as it may seem, the main thing missing from this three-hour show was time. From overture to finale, the performance felt restless, as if whatever music were happening at the moment had to be got through quickly to make way for more important stuff coming up later.

Time and pacing are mainly the business of the conductor, and Julia Jones, the leader of this performance, was no dawdler. She set a brisk pace for most of the evening, and although it would be rash to say her tempo choices were often wrong, they seldom allowed the music to make the best case for itself.

She took the overture at breakneck speed, which was not an original choice, but remained a puzzling one when essential details and basic rhythms flew past in a blur. The steep emotional progression of the first scene, from contentment to angry defiance, registered on me like the action in a speeded-up film, as the orchestra flung messy arpeggios at the harried lovers, Figaro and Susanna.

What I missed from Jones all evening was a feeling for the natural logic of Mozart's phrases, which often escapes an implacable forward beat. What I mostly got was the depressing illusion that Figaro is not a great opera, but a chore.

The COC's mostly young cast didn't have the capacity to surmount such guidance, even with Guillaume Bernardi's buoyant stage direction. Baritone Russell Braun (Count Almaviva) was almost the only one to find a sustained character arc, culminating in an Act 3 soliloquy in which the outwardly self-assured aristocrat revealed the lonely little man hiding inside.

Robert Gleadow's Figaro was amusing to watch, but too blithe to depict the heartier passions of his character, such as jealousy and anger. His handsome baritone was sometimes overwhelmed by not very powerful gusts of sound from the orchestra.

Ying Huang (Susanna) sang with a bright, clear soprano, but her pitch was often wonky. She sometimes looked as if stricken by momentary amnesia as to her dramatic function.

Jessica Muirhead offered an appealing sketch of the Countess she may become, once she escapes the classroom in her mind. Her fine rich soprano bloomed beautifully at the moment when the Countess forgives her proud, selfish husband – for me, the evening's most moving episode.

Mezzo-soprano Sandra Piques Eddy was charmingly callow as Cherubino, though her first aria (Non so piu cosa son) was spoiled, as this number so often is, by a big slowdown near the end that turned the auto-erotic punchline into a tiny orgy of sentimental inwardness. Smaller roles were performed cleverly and well by mezzo-soprano Megan Latham (Marcellina), bass Jonathan Green (Don Basilio/Don Curzio), bass-baritone Andrew Stewart (the gardener), soprano Lisa DiMaria (Barbarina), soprano Teiya Kasahara (First Bridesmaid) and mezzo-soprano Erin Fisher (Second Bridesmaid).

Morris Ertman's monochromatic draftsman's set conveyed a feeling of sumptuousness without physical clutter. Ann Curtis's handsome costumes adhered to no particular period and, with pointed exceptions, kept to a muted palette of light earth tones and silvery greys. Kevin Fraser's lighting subtly enhanced the action, until he tried a dramatic shadow effect in Act 3 that looked like something from a film-noir thriller. Bernardi's stage direction was thoughtfully in tune with the opera's comic spirit and a lot less randy than the approach taken by Robin Phillips when this production was new in 1993. Choreographer Heidi Strauss made the most of Piques Eddy's weightless limbs and set some gravely apt dance steps on the excellent COC chorus.

The orchestra seemed in good form, when it wasn't tumbling over Jones's rapid beat. I was thinking in the first half how great it was to hear Mozart in an opera hall lively enough to sustain the bottom line with only three double basses, so was surprised, after intermission, to see only two (one player had fallen ill). Parts of Figaro are apparently failure-proof: Several scenes were still funny after two centuries and a gazillion performances. But so much of the opera's real strength was wasted.

The season's opening production was dedicated to the memory of Richard Bradshaw, so often a powerful presence in an orchestra pit, though seldom at his best in Mozart's music. If the COC really wants to honour his legacy, they should stop at nothing to get a first-rate music director, who can not only perform well but who can also, when necessary, find guest conductors able to help the company sound its best.

The COC's production of The Marriage of Figaro continues at Toronto's Four Seasons Centre through Nov. 2.