The Marriage of Figaro, Mozart, Wild Arts, The Rep, Birmingham | 27 September 2026⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ Review by David Gray & Paul Gray

Photo credit: The Rep, Birmingham

The Marriage of Figaro, Mozart, Wild Arts

The Rep, Birmingham | 27 September 2026

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ Review by David Gray & Paul Gray

“No gimmicks, no nonsense, just pure Mozart.”

The late Peter Stein directed WNO’s seminal production of Verdi’s Falstaff in the 1980s. He commented on his approach, asserting that all stage action should take its impulses and flow from the energies in the score.

It appears that the Director of Wild Arts’ superb production of The Marriage of Figaro, celebrated soprano, Danielle de Niese has taken a leaf out of Stein’s book. In this staging, there is a quite wonderful feeling of synthesis, where the energies driving the action and the energies embedded in the score are at one. It is a totally integrated musical and dramatic whole.

This relationship between music and action is particularly evident in the Act II and Act IV finales. Fiendish in their musical complexity, they really can be a pig to stage. In this production, however, they feel effortless, unfussy, fluid, and authentic.

De Niese chooses to simply tell the story, without trying to impose any great vision, or to burden the production with gimmicks and tricks. She leans into the human experience and highlights Mozart’s and Da Ponte’s genius and understanding of their characters’ emotional reality. The result is not traditional or hide-bound, but fresh and inspiring.

Assisting in this is a cast of exceptionally strong singing actors who have a real understanding - not only of their own characters - but how they mesh with the other characters. The ensemble is musically and emotionally tight and there is a wealth of dramatic imagination.

Timothy Nelson is particularly impressive in his embodiment of the Count. On the face of it the Count is a spoiled thuggish bully driven by libido. Underneath, however, he is a rather fearful little boy who knows he is out of his depth in the world of the sexual intrigue he has created.

Countess, Elinor Rolfe Johnson, is honourable, but vulnerable to the attractions of Abbie Ward’s swaggering Cherubino. The sexual chemistry between them is palpable. But everywhere one looks in this production there is great chemistry between all of the couples. And just about everyone is, or gets, married in the end.

Standing in, Richard Hetheringon conducts with elegance and dramatic flair. The small band of ten outstanding players allows him to highlight the detail in the music. And the balance between wind and stings, often difficult in one-per-part chamber orchestra realisations, is exemplary.

Vocally, and this is an issue with The Rep’s poor acoustic – an acoustic which is clearly not designed for unamplified singing - the higher voices dominate, whereas the baritones and basses seem to have to work very hard a lot of the time to be heard. Rolfe Johnson is a voice to watch out for: powerful, rich, soaring and controlled.

But the real star of this show is Mozart - which is perhaps as it should be. Mozart was a composer who really understood people and how to give their emotions lyrical form in a quite remarkable way. This beautifully simple - and true production - begins and ends with that, and this is its undeniable strength.

Creatives

Director – Dainelle de Neise

Designer – Laura Stanfield

Musical Director – Richard Hetherington

Cast

Figaro – Matt Siveter

Susanna – Ellie Neate

Count Almaviva – Timothy Nelson

Countess – Elinor Rolfe Johnson

Cherubino – Abbie Ward

Marcellina – Olivia Ray

Bartolo/Antonio – Timothy Dawkins

Don Basilio/Don Curzio – William Searle

Barbarina – Eleanor O’Driscoll