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By CAMILLE REYES
© St. Petersburg Times, published November 16, 2000
TAMPA -In Mozart's comic opera The Marriage of Figaro, wedding bells are delayed, but not thwarted, in spite of a flirtatious count, and thanks to enough mistaken identities to make even Shakespeare proud. The Marriage of Figaro will be sung in Italian Friday through Sunday at the Tampa Bay Performing Arts Center. It is delivered by two masters and longtime collaborators, conductor Anton Coppola and director Jim Lucas.
The Marriage of Figaro is the sequel to Beaumarchais' play The Barber of Seville. As sequels go, the plot is fairly convoluted, at least for today's I Still Know What You Did Last Summer crowd. Yet Lucas calls the plot "simple" and then embarks on a five-minute explanation concluding with "all goes flooey in the second act."
The "flooey" comes through one of the best female roles in any Mozart opera, the Countess, played in this production by Faith Esham. The Countess (Rosina in The Barber of Seville) decides she will devise her own scheme to derail her unfaithful husband's plan to bed the maid Susanna.
"The greatest challenge of playing the Countess is to balance the gravity of her feelings with the truth that she is a young woman," said Esham.
Part of the Countess' depth as a character stems from Mozart's exquisite aria in Act 3. "The aria is not hard when you look at it on the page," she said, "but it is difficult to sing the legato line and preserve the sense of pathos."
According to Coppola and Lucas, the dramatic approach to the opera changes with each cast, but the score is the score.
"Mozart is a supreme Austrian composer, yet in many works he was essentially Italian -- that is his genius," Coppola said.
Coppola and Lucas have collaborated numerous times, including on four productions in Tampa, thanks to Judith Lisi, the president and executive producer of the Center. Coppola and Lucas have even done The Marriage of Figaro together, teaming up 26 years ago in Rhode Island.
Figaro and Don Giovanni are Coppola's favorite Mozart operas, although he says with a smile, "I'm overwhelmed by parts of The Magic Flute; I just don't know what it's about."
Lucas likes Figaro and Cosi Fan Tutti best. "Yet the second act of Figaro is one of the most fantastic -- 25 minutes of fabulous music and acting all the way through," he said.
Although opera singers are not collectively known for their acting chops, Faith Esham has a head start in that department. She holds degrees from the Julliard School, where she received a solid foundation in drama from the late Boris Tumarin, a Chekovian expert.
Even with her training and highly acclaimed career, Esham approaches the role of the Countess with humility. "So many great women have sung this role in history," she said. "I'm trying not to let their ghosts haunt me in a negative way, but rather inspire me and at the same time bring something of my own to the role."
Esham has played both Cherubino, a page to the Countess, and Susanna, a consummate Mozart role. This is her first time as the Countess. "The Countess is different from Cherubino and Susanna because she is so very unhappy," says Esham. "Her pain is so compelling, so overriding, so tremendous."
So where is the laughter in all of this suffering? The Countess' turmoil adds dimension to the comedy and is far more disturbing today than it was in the 18th century. "This is not an American pie-in-the-face comedy," Lucas said. "It's a classic comedy because it ends happily."
Opera Tampa's production of The Marriage of Figaro, with the Florida Orchestra, is at Tampa Bay Performing Arts Center, Tampa. Curtain is at 8 p.m. Friday and Saturday, 2 p.m. Sunday. Tickets are $19.50-$55.50. Call (813) 229-7827, (800) 955-1045 or (813) 222-1082 (TDD for the hearing impaired).