Theatre Review: The Marriage of Figaro at Theatre Royal

Overtures (in more ways than one) in the boot room of a down at heel stately pile is the vibe for Opera North's new staging of The Marriage of Figaro. It's Mozart for the Bonkchestershire set in this Jilly Cooper-tinged production and has all the campery of recent TV smash Rivals save for Danny Dyer's moustache.

It's wedding day for Figaro and Susanna, and their boss, the Count (resplendent in his character-defining red corduroy trousers), is already trying to sleep with the bride. This is not a plot whose sexual politics have aged well in a time of #MeToo and the Count's approach to wedding etiquette is very much a HR nightmare. Figaro vows to outfox him, sending anonymous letters and hatching schemes, while hyperactive page Cherubino careers through the plot getting caught in compromising situations and narrowly escaping out of windows. Oh, and it briefly looks like Figaro might legally have to marry cougarish Marcellina instead, until it turns out she's his mum, which sorts that awkward situation out sharpish.

The Countess, understandably done with her husband's antics, teams up with Susanna to fight back. They send the Count a forged letter inviting him to a midnight garden rendezvous, then swap clothes so he ends up declaring his love to his own wife without realising it. When he catches Figaro apparently necking with the "Countess" and calls for the guards, the real Countess steps out of the shadows and the whole game is up. Caught comprehensively red-handed, the Count drops to his knees and begs forgiveness. She grants it but, as the lights go down on a romp of almost three hours of Mozart at his most irresistible, her eyes betray the modernity of this production and her questioning of whether she's done the right thing by forgiving him at all.

Claire Lees is a standout as Susanna, her aria "Giunse alfin il momento – Deh vieni non tardar", delivered just a stable's width away from her unwitting, seething new husband, is one of the evening's loveliest moments, as is her duet "Canzonetta sull'aria" with Gabriella Reyes' Countess. The glorious building and layering of seven voices into "Esci omai, garzon malnato" that closes Act 2 is another highlight. Oliver Rundell's conducting is wonderfully assured and never lets the momentum slip across the full three hours.

In an almost 250-year old opera about randy, scheming Spaniards, sung in Italian, written by a Frenchman and scored by an Austrian, the comedy shines through in Louisa Muller's new production and loses nothing in the language or passage of time. There are some serious acting chops on display here too, the kind that can play second fiddle to the music in lesser stagings but not here, and James Newby's Count, Hongni Wu's Cherubino and supporting parts like Bartolo, Marcellina and Basilio make the most of these talents.

All the slapstick, mistaken identity, cross dressing and even the arrival of a drunken bee-keeper land the laughs and keep the plot, which has more turns than do the pages of the score for the orchestra, feeling fun and breezy. The ill-shaped, under-stairs cupboard doors, flown walls and the split staging of Act 3, where the Count appears curiously dressed as an evil Wallace from Wallace and Gromit, are lovely touches in Madeleine Boyd's design.

The Marriage of Figaro will set you back far less than a weekend in the something-of-a-setting of the Cotswolds and considerably more entertaining and enriching than most of what's on telly. Get yourself along.

To check out Theatre Royal's programme of opera, ballet, musical theatre and drama, head to their website below.

trch.co.uk