‘Figaro’ debut!

On June 24, the Royal Opera House celebrated the three hundred and fifty first performance of ‘Le Nozze di Figaro’ in the House, which was also the occasion of the debut of Sir Charles Mackerras conducting this opera at Covent Garden.

His vast Covent Garden repertoire, over forty four years in that pit, includes Katerina Ismailova, Turandot, Carmen, Tosca, Simon Boccanegra, Aida, Golden Cockerel, Orfeo ed Euridice, Billy Budd, Jenu°fa, Il trovatore, Midsummer Night’s Dream, Otello, Faust, Ballo in maschera, Alceste, Tristan und Isolde, Yeomen of the Guard, Roméo et Juliette, Peter Grimes, Semele, Bartered Bride, Rusalka, Greek Passion, Orlando, Kát’a Kabanová and four great Mozart operas Così fan tutte, Die Entführung aus dem Serail, Don Giovanni and Die Zauberflöte.

Sir Charles first conducted ‘Le Nozze di Figaro’ in London at Sadlers Wells in 1951. He returned to the opera, again at Sadlers Wells, in 1965 in performances which then transferred to the London Coliseum. It was in these performances that Sir Charles introduced what were, then, his revolutionary ideas about performance practice now regarded as ‘ground-breaking’. He has now brought his wonderful interpretation of ‘Figaro’ to Covent Garden at last – an outstandingly successful revival that has received exceptional critical praise and is talked of as one of Sir Charles’s most significant debuts!

The Spectator commented that ‘Throughout, Mackerras gave the impression that this score, which he must know as well as anyone ever has, has been an object of renewed study for him, and that he has imparted all he has discovered to a delighted orchestra, thrilled to share his pleasure.’ For fuller review please click here.

The Times wrote that ‘Never has that single day of torment, caprice and folly fled by so fast. Time’s wingéd chariot hurtles across the dawn-to-dusk universe of Mozart’s Figaro…thanks to the virtuoso charioteer in the pit: that Mozart veteran supreme, Charles Mackerras. For fuller review please click here.

The Sunday Times noted that ‘…under Charles Mackerras’s inspirational baton at Covent Garden…this was as close to Mozartian nivarna as we are likely to get today.’

The Guardian remarked that ‘Mackerras understands Figaro better than anyone alive. On this evidence, he still conducts it better than anyone, too.’ (For fuller review please click here.

9 July, 2008

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Sir Charles Mackerras CH AC CBE

Contact: Jane Balmer or Sophie Dand