Figaro

A musicologist friend (something of a major opera queen) once said he'd die a happy man if he never saw or heard The Marriage of Figaro again. In his case familiarity bred a particularly strong brand of contempt. Though I wonder how he'd feel if he were to see Figaro, the re-imagination of the Mozart opera and the Beaumarchais play on which it is based that the inspired Minneapolis-based Theatre de la Jeune Lune has brought to the American Repertory Theatre through October 6. While some are likely to quibble about the post-modern spin that Figaro (and its companion piece in repertory Don Juan Giovanni) bring to Mozart's most famous operas, there's should be no fault placed on this terrific company of actors that must pivot between these divergent interpretations from night to night. Simply put, it is a prodigious achievement.

As in Don Juan Giovanni, this version focuses on the relationship between a master and his servant - in this case Count Almaviva (Dominique Serrand) and Figaro (Steven Epp), reprising the similar roles they play in the companion piece. (The pair also are responsible for the adaptations, and Serrand directed both, which may be why it fits so comfortably to their talents.) Their concept sets the piece forward in time - to the days of the Terror during the French Revolution - and resets it in Paris, where the Count lives in fear of guillotine and hides out in a closet (literally) watched over by Figaro. Their women- the Countess and Susannah - are elsewhere, leaving the men to bicker ("How many times do I have to save your noble ass?" wonders Figaro) and recall the more sanguine times, specifically the day Figaro married Susannah that unfolds in sequences from The Marriage of Figaro - the famous opera shoehorned into a post-modern vaudeville routine.

It may sound precious, but turns out to be amazingly fluid, funny, and surprisingly haunting - a comic reverie on the power of memory and the vagaries of fate. As the older men watch their younger selves in the sunny, frivolous past, their present fate seems all that more bleak. Little wonder the Count has gone a bit loopy and Figaro is a neurotic mess. This leads to extended comic routines between the two actors that counterpoint the beautifully played musical sequences. Even more than in the Don Juan Giovanni, the Mozart (here reconfigured for a string quintet) is expressively sung and acted. The company runs through the familiar arias and ensembles with wonderful aplomb, and give them new meaning. The beauty of this Figaro is how smartly it brings new life to these most familiar of characters, deepening their historical and social contexts in the process.

Using the same bare set as Giovanni (minus that moveable car), Serrand makes extensive use of a video screen to enhance the narrative, and gets a gorgeous assist by the lighting design (by Marcus Dilliard) and costumes (by Sonya Berlovitz.) There is exquisite acting and singing -- from the Laurel and Hardy routine of Serrand and Epp to the expressive vocals by the cast. As in the Giovanni, Mozart has never felt more intimate. Certainly this spin on this most famous of operas is something I'd hope my opera queen friend would go out of his way to see - it may allow him to appreciate the work once again.