‘Figaro’ passes chemistry test

Under the management of Placido Domingo, Los Angeles Opera has had enormous fluctuations in quality. Sometimes the downswings are predictable -- as when last-minute changes of repertory force Band-Aid opera. But the company can fool you. Its new production of Mozart’s “Marriage of Figaro” looked as if it might turn out to be another product of L.A. Opera chaos. Maybe, in fact, it is. But much of it is wonderful.

When Domingo took over L.A. Opera, he announced that he planned to create a new cycle of the three operas Mozart wrote with the librettist Lorenzo da Ponte (“Figaro,” “Don Giovanni” and “Cosi fan tutte”) over three years with the same stage director and with music director Kent Nagano conducting. One thing after another fell through. No director could be found in time (Domingo had suggested Achim Freyer); Nagano’s schedule couldn’t be pinned down and he took himself out of the project. Last year, the company settled on a flashy production of “Don Giovanni,” with its selling point a prancing hunk of a young baritone from Uruguay whom few local opera-goers had heard of.

That heartthrob baritone, Erwin Schrott, was quickly signed to return as Figaro on Saturday night at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion. But just as with the “Don Giovanni” last season, the “Figaro” team didn’t come together until a few months before the production, when the Briton Ian Judge was finally announced as director. He is a reliable pro who has worked with the company in the past, but still there was a hint of desperation.

Also, somewhere along the line, the one relatively well-known singer in the cast, French soprano Veronique Gens, dropped out. About the best the company could do was promote the production on the sexiness of its Figaro and on another singer, Isabel Bayrakdarian, who is beginning to get attention.

As it turns out, Schrott and Bayrakdarian live up to all the hype and then some. Portraying the scheming servants in a Spanish count’s household, these two young singers are a dream Figaro and Susanna. They are both exceptional vocalists who simply take over the stage. Bayrakdarian gets special credit. It is no easy matter to steal attention away from Schrott once he starts cavorting. But Susanna is the wilier of the two in the opera, and this Armenian soprano from Canada gives the impression that she was born into the role.

What of Schrott’s cavorting? Last year, I felt he was a promising singer who was fun to watch but a superficial Don Giovanni. He wasn’t disturbingly over the top, but it wouldn’t have taken much more to get him there. One worried where he might be headed, especially given the way women swooned over him.

Intermission chatter Saturday confirmed that women -- and men -- are swooning all the more this year. Schrott’s swaggering Figaro is the life of the party, and nothing can stop him from having a good time. At one point Saturday, a light gel burst and fell on the stage. Schrott merrily turned the gel into part of his act. A showman to the core, he added extravagant vocal embellishments to his Act I aria “Se vuol ballare” that might have seemed like period-practice pretense, but he pulled it off.

Figaro is a role that thrives on a Schrottian shot of testosterone, and though the character grows in the end, he grows only slightly. Bayrakdarian’s Susanna, his bride, is the opera’s pivot. Vivacious on the surface, she becomes a spiritual guide, keeping Figaro in line while also directing Count Almaviva’s attentions away from her and back toward his wife. Without darkening her naturally cheerful, clear voice and high spirits, Bayrakdarian made a just about ideal Susanna. And the chemistry between her and Schrott proved something we don’t find often enough on the opera stage. With young singers like these, opera’s future feels secure.

Another find is Sandra Picques Eddy, a mezzo-soprano with few starring roles to her credit. She proved an extraordinarily boyish Cherubino, fine with the high jinks and then able to stop a listener cold with her coffee-with-cream voice. With Darina Takova as an unusually playful Countess, there was opportunity for a little more exploration of the relationship between the young scamp in the court and this older woman than most productions would dare. But then David Pittsinger’s Count wasn’t particularly forceful, and perhaps she needed some amusement.

Judge’s production updates this Enlightenment drama to what looks like Seville in the ‘50s or early ‘60s, with the Count as one of Franco’s Fascists. But not much is made of that, and Tim Goodchild’s handsome sets cleverly allude to the 18th century. Conductor Stefan Anton Reck added to this effect by leading an essentially modern interpretation that took its cues, especially in tempo, from the early music movement.

Judge has brought nothing particularly new or deep to this subversive drama. He does not play up the opera’s political or social implications. Nor does he achieve the catharsis that great productions can. But he keeps the stage alive and the plot relatively clear. It was a good idea to allow the main characters to retain their dignity and use the minor ones -- Anna Steiger’s Marcellina, Michael Gallup’s Doctor Bartolo, Greg Fedderly’s Don Basilio, Jessica Rivera’s Barbarino, Gregorio Gonzalez’s Antonio, Jon Kolbet’s stuttering Don Curzio -- for goofy slapstick.

And to Judge’s credit, he recognized what he had in Schrott and Bayrakdarian. When two singers can make your heart leap and yet not steal the show, that says a lot for everyone involved.

*

‘The Marriage

of Figaro’

Where: Dorothy Chandler Pavilion, 135 N. Grand Ave., Los Angeles

When: Wednesday and June 2, 5, 11, 16 and 19, 7:30 p.m.; Saturday and June 13, 2 p.m.

Price: $25 to $170

Contact: (213) 365-3500