Courtesy of Netflix, we just caught up with the much-noted "dark Figaro"(link), from Salzburg in 2006. That would be the Claus Guth production with the comedy drilled out--ponderous tempi, portentous presentation, and angst. We give it a split verdict: Mrs. B thought it was pretty good. I'd say it was worth watching and even worth trying, but at the end of the day, it's a good argument for a traditional staging.
It certainly has its strong points. It was gloriously sung by a cast so ensemble that you almost forgot to notice that they had the star power of Anna Netrebko on board (as Susanna). As a conductor, Harnoncourt is characteristically unsubtle, but he seems to be going in the right direction most of the time. And the darkness is certainly in the script.
But the point of the Mozart da Ponte operas is not just the darkness: it is the darkness-cum-light--as someone said, "a tragedy wrapped in a comedy." It works best when you start with the smooth romance (Cosi) or the high-spirited good fun (Figaro) and then recognize with a jolt: hey, this is a serious business--something awful is going on here. Attention must be paid. This is one reason why Don Giovanni, for all its incomparable virtues, never works quite as well for me: the balance isn't quite right, the nastiness tends to outweigh the fun. The doubleness, in short, is the point.
And you miss that when (as here) you scrub out all the comedy. Granted, you gain something: you get to scrutinize the dark side; you explore it with more attention and care than you'll ever get a chance to in a more standard model. But in the end it is more one-dimensional and so ironically, less convincing.
I'm not saying it's not worth trying: I'm not the kind of traditionalist who wants them to play the same thing in the same way every night, like the D'Oyly Carte Gilbert & Sullivan, or the Preservation Hall Dixieland Band. There's a lot to be enjoyed in a performance like this, and a lot to be learned from it. One of the things you learn his how extraordinarly right Mozart (and da Ponte) got it in the first place.
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Here's a review I wrote of it a couple of years ago (second one review on the page):
http://www.amazon.com/Mozart-Nozze-Figaro-Anna-Netrebko/product-reviews/B000LC4TJ0/ref=cm_cr_pr_hist_2?ie=UTF8&showViewpoints=0&filterBy=addTwoStar
Since I wrote it, a new DVD from Covent Garden has been released with Dorothea Roschmann once again playing the Countess. IMHO, this production gets Mozart and Da Ponte right. And in the small world of opera, wouldn't you know that Figaro is played by Netrebko's real life daddy of her baby.
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