The MET Live in HD: The New Season 2014-15 The Marriage of Figaro and Macbeth by Kathryn Bumpass

This season's Met Live in HD series will begin locally on Saturday, March 18, 9:55am, with Mozart's The Marriage of Figaro. All performances will be held at the Performing Arts Center on the Cal Poly campus. Tickets are $27 each, which includes parking, and may be purchased online at Pac Slo.org, or by calling 805-756-4849.

Erwin Schrott - Le Nozze di Figaro - Se vuol ballare

The Marriage of Figaro is one of Mozart's best-loved operas, and one of three he wrote with librettist Lorenzo da Ponte. They were unusually well paired, and produced Mozart's other frequently performed works, Don Giovanni and Cosi fan tutte. Librettists of Mozart's day were frequently mere hacks, who relied on commonplace plot situations and versification schemes. Da Ponte was a true man of letters with an excellent sense of drama and thus made a perfect partner for Mozart, who was a supreme musical dramatist.

The story from which da Ponte fashioned the libretto was the work of Pierre Antoine Caron de Beaumarchais, a French playwright, spy and diplomat for the royal court of France. He wrote a total of three plays, all involving the characters Figaro, Count Almaviva and Rosina (later the Countess). The first two, The Barber of Seville, and The Marriage of Figaro, achieved great success and inspired more than one opera, including the well known The Barber of Seville by Rossini.

The Figaro plays feature a central character who is brilliantly crafty, sneaky, deceptive, and glib of tongue. He is trusted by his master, Count Almaviva, but ready to take advantage of him. In his play, Beaumarchais attacks the droit de signeur, the master's privilege of sleeping with the bride of a servant on the night of her marriage. The Count has officially renounced this practice, but wishes to bed Susanna anyway. Figaro's task is to prevent the Count from doing so, and the entire play/opera needs to be seen in this light.

The other main theme in Figaro is the Countess's loss of the philandering Count's affections. In her two big arias – "Porgi amor" and "Dove sono" – she laments her situation. She schemes with Susanna to shame the Count, allowing him to woo the woman he believes to be Susanna, but is in fact his own wife, disguised as Susanna. Exposed in his unfaithfulness, he is repentant and seeks the Countess' forgiveness.

Like most Italian comic operas, this one is full of subplots, deceptions, disguises and broad, even slapstick, humor, too complicated to go into here. Many of these are worked out – along with the main themes – in musically complex ensembles. Probably the most famous of this genre – apart from the great Act II finale from Rossini's The Barber of Seville – is the second act ensemble finale. Generally speaking, an increasing number of characters enter, each contributing to or introducing a new complication, and so it is in Mozart's Figaro.

Even by 18th century comic opera standards, Figaro is a fast-paced opera. From its lightning overture to its conclusion with the Act IV ensemble finale, the dramatic action is swift, the musical numbers tumble over each other in fast tempos (allegro, allegro molto, prestissimo), in a race to the two big ensemble finales. In the Act II finale, the hyperactivity is designed to build up maximum confusion and the undermining of the main characters' plans. In the Act IV finale, all the deceptions are uncovered, complications resolved, and moral order restored.

The Met's new production of Figaro stars Ildar Abdrazakov in the title role, Marlis Petersen as Susanna, Peter Mattei as the Count and Marina Poplavskaya as the Countess.

October also features Verdi's Macbeth, to be presented locally on Sunday, October 26, at 2:00pm. Verdi was a lifelong admirer of Shakespeare. His last two operas, Otello and Falstaff, were both taken from Shakespeare's plays; and he thought seriously about setting King Lear and Hamlet. He considered Macbeth, composed in 1847, the best opera he had composed up to that time and as a sign of his high regard for it, dedicated it to his patron and "second father", Antonio Barezzi.

Harold Powers notes that three genres of serious opera were recognized in Verdi's time: the biblical, the historical, and the genre fantastico. With its witches, apparitions and ghost Macbeth clearly belongs to the genre fantastico. Verdi insisted that there were only three main characters in this opera: Macbeth, Lady Macbeth and the chorus of witches. "The witches dominate the drama; everything stems from them," he wrote.

The pairing of a baritone and a dramatic soprano became one of Verdi's favorite dramatic devices. Both characters are complex, and their singing must be calculated to elicit many moods and traits of personality. As one scholar has noted, Macbeth kills but vacillates; his action is driven by Lady Macbeth's constant prodding. She is cold and ruthless, but ends her life in madness.

Lady Macbeth is a particularly demanding role. The singer must command a huge range. And presenting great difficulty for a soprano, much of the vocal line lies in the lower register. Verdi was not a sadist in asking the singer to master such a part; he was striving for a particular effect. He wanted the soprano to be primarily an actress not a singer. In a letter, he wrote about two scenes, the duet between Lady Macbeth and Macbeth, and Lady Macbeth's sleepwalking scene, saying "They must be acted and declaimed in a voice that is hollow and veiled; without this the whole effect is lost."

In the Met's production, Anna Netrebko, one of today's reigning divas, takes on the vocally and dramatically demanding role of Lady Macbeth; Zeljko Lucic stars as Macbeth.

And there's more: In another city-wide production, OperaSLO will be joined by performing arts organizations from all over the city in what may be today's grandest of all grand operas. The large forces required include the OperaSLO orchestra and chorus, the Central Coast Children's Choir. Civic Ballet San Luis Obispo, Ballet Theater San Luis Obispo, CORE Dance Company, and Studio@Ryan's American Dance.