Mozart's Le Nozze di Figaro

Perhaps no opera is as closely and affectionately associated with a single opera house as Le Nozze di Figaro is with Glyndebourne. Michael Grandage's staging is no less than the seventh in the festival's history, and sets the opera in the sleazy Sixties. Directed by Robin Ticciati, the production was lauded for its "ideal pacing" and youthful cast (which includes "no weak link" and "looks gorgeous"—The Sunday Times), and continues Glyndebourne's rewarding explorations of Mozart and Da Ponte's "day of madness".

The story takes place on one incredible day in an upstairs-downstairs world populated by servants who are not servile and their easily-outsmarted masters. Figaro and Susanna are preparing for marriage, but before they can make it down the aisle, their plans are put in jeopardy by the Count Almaviva, who fancies Susanna so much that he wants to make her his lover. In a complicated and clever plan, the future newlyweds and their friends expose the Count's infidelity to his wife the Countess, teaching him a lesson he'll never forget.

Photo: © Alastair Muir