ENO: A Theatrical Anatomy of Desire, Power, and Performance
Review by Eric Page
Joe Hill-Gibbins’ reimagining of Mozart’s seminal opera emerges as a forensic exploration of matrimonial dynamics, transforming the Coliseum stage into a provocative laboratory of human relationships. Five years after its truncated 2020 debut, this production finally unfurls its complex dramatic tapestry, revealing the intricate social choreography embedded within Da Ponte’s libretto.
The staging is a masterclass in minimalist dramaturgy: a stark white cube punctuated by four doors, a seemingly austere landscape that becomes a kaleidoscopic terrain of social performance. Matthew Richardson’s lighting design transforms this architectural skeleton, suffusing the space with chromatic intelligence—green washes suggesting pastoral liberation, saturated hues delineating social hierarchies with remarkable subtlety.
Jenny Ogilvie’s movement direction elevates the production beyond mere operatic convention, orchestrating a physical language that is simultaneously baroque and brutally contemporary. The performers navigate this spatial construct with a choreographic precision that transforms each doorway into a metaphorical threshold of social negotiation, desire, and potential subversion.
Jeremy Sams’ translation becomes a critical intervention, rendering Mozart’s 18th-century intrigue with an electrifying contemporary urgency. The linguistic texture vibrates with scandalous immediacy, transforming archaic court machinations into a razor-sharp examination of power, consent, and performative identity.
Full cast, creatives and synopsis here:
Musically, conductor Ainārs Rubiķis conducts the ENO orchestra with extraordinary dynamism. The orchestral interpretation becomes a living, breathing entity—each tempo shift, each textural nuance articulating the opera’s underlying emotional tectonics. Mozart’s score is rendered not as a historical artifact, but as a contemporary meditation on human complexity. The ENO chorus are as polished as ever, here seemingly with a menacing edge to their movements, a suggestion of mob perhaps to their movement and apparent servile deference, I thoroughly enjoyed their every appearance.
The vocal performances constitute a remarkable ensemble achievement. Mary Bevan’s Susanna emerges as a revelation—her soprano simultaneously embodying agency and strategic brilliance. David Ireland’s Figaro becomes her perfect dialectical counterpart, their vocal and dramatic chemistry articulating a relationship defined by mutual wit and strategic negotiation.
Nardus Williams’ Countess represents the production’s most transcendent vocal moment. Her arias are not merely musical set pieces but profound articulations of feminine interiority—each phrase a complex negotiation between societal constraint and internal rebellion. Her vocal technique approaches the sublime, rendering emotional complexity with crystalline precision.
Hanna Hipp’s Cherubino deserves particular mention—a performance that deconstructs adolescent desire with remarkable nuance. The character becomes a complex exploration of nascent sexuality, performative identity, and social transgression. Rebecca Evans throbs through Marcellina switching focus with ease and eliciting real laughter from the audience with her acting, Neal Davies’s Bartolo is as much fun and there’s a real chemistry on show here. Ava Dodd as Barbarina gives us Valleys Girls delulu charm and Hubert Francis’ Basilio is all puff, nonsense and spiv.
This production of The Marriage of Figaro represents more than a revival of a canonical work. It is a critical reimagining that reveals how operatic form can illuminate contemporary social dynamics. By stripping away historical ornament, Hill-Gibbins reveals the work’s enduring power: an intricate theatrical mechanism for examining human desire, social performance, and the perpetual negotiation of power.
This is a musically lush, beautiful sung Figaro, but one lacking in visual impact. Still worth a punt up to London to see and enjoy and smile at some frothy naughty brilliance that still delights 200 years later. As with any opera by Mozart, The Marriage of Figaro is bursting with recognisable music and this production is at once intellectually rigorous and breathtakingly entertaining.
The Marriage of Figaro
Until February 22nd
ENO, London Coliseum
Book tickets, info and lots of discount offers on their website here
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