THE MARRIAGE OF FIGARO
Similarly, in The Marriage of Figaro it is crucial that the countess and Susanna can be mistaken physically for each other. The comedy is of a decidedly different nature when the two are completely opposite sizes, yet the other characters in the opera pretend they can’t tell which is which simply because their faces are covered. Both women should be more or less the same size–consistency, not size, is the issue. Yet inconsistency was only one of this production’s many bizarre casting problems, which had little to do with the vocal ability of its principals and which at times made it look more like a Saturday Night Live satire.
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Baritone Andrew Schultze as the count had a stodgy stage presence but a pleasant, though often unfocused, voice. His big act-three aria was marred by uneven register shifts, a weak upper range, and runs that were completely slurred over. His wife, the countess, was sung by Rochelle Ellis, who possesses one of those all-around soprano voices that sounds as if it could encompass both the mezzo and standard repertoire. It has a very dark, full color, with enormous projection and a large though controlled vibrato. It was the best voice in the show–beautifully graceful, even if too large and too romantically colored for Mozart. Ellis was also the only singer who was able to deliver an impressive Mozartean trill.
