



In Peter Shaffer's Amadeus, the undertalented Antonio Salieri thinks back to the premiere of an opera by his rival, Mozart. He remembers that what captivated him above all was the last act.

"The scene was night in a summer garden," he recalls. "Pinprick stars gleamed down on shaking summerhouses. Plotters glided behind pasteboard hedges.

"I saw a woman, dressed in her maid's clothes, hear her husband utter the first tender words he has offered her in years, only because he thinks she is someone else. Could one catch a realer moment? And how, except in a net of pure artifice? The disguises of opera had been invented for Mozart."

He's talking about The Marriage of Figaro. And it doesn't matter that those words are really Shaffer's, not Salieri's. They get to the heart of Figaro, which the Orlando Opera will stage beginning Friday.

Artificial and real, all at once: No one should find that odd nowadays. If reality is what you get when television producers abandon a load of people in a tropical lagoon, why can't it come from a composer breathing life into his characters?

After all, the Spanish castle where Figaro takes place is quite a temptation island. Figaro and his sweetheart just want to get married. Another couple is being split asunder because of the husband's roving eye -- which has settled on Figaro's bride. An adolescent boy gets excited over every woman he sees, and he has a habit of turning up in women's rooms at the most inopportune times. "Lechery, treachery, deceit, disguise -- and then there's forgiveness," said David Scott, stage director of Orlando's production.

All that may sound serious. But in Figaro, it's the stuff of comedy. It's comedy with a serious tinge, admittedly: When the Countess Almaviva, that wronged wife, longs for the bliss that she and her husband once shared, Mozart's wistful melodies push laughter far to the background. And when her husband, caught skirt-chasing in the last scene, begs for her forgiveness, her brief words of consent swell into a chorus that transfigures the whole opera. But those poignant moments are woven into a story brimming with conspiracies, momentary triumphs, sudden reverses and descents into chaos. From the first moments, one group of characters or another is conniving to teach someone a lesson. And Mozart's music propels the schemes so vigorously that things only really settle down with the last chord -- after a chorus of rejoicing that lasts all of one minute.

Admittedly, Figaro takes longer than that flash of a celebration might suggest. The play it comes from, by the Revolutionary-era Frenchman Caron de Beaumarchais, is full of not only plot twists, but wisecracks and political potshots. The writer who adapted the tale for Mozart, Lorenzo da Ponte, noted in his preface that he had reduced 16 characters to 11, omitted one act and several scenes, and expunged many of Beaumarchais' witticisms. Nevertheless:

"In spite . . . of all the zeal and care on the part of both the composer and myself to be brief, the opera will not be one of the shortest that has been performed on our stages," da Ponte confessed. He and Mozart hoped, he added, that they had managed to "paint faithfully and in full color the diverse passions that are aroused."

That they did. Figaro's four acts, together with the intermissions that link them, clock in at three hours-plus. But that isn't like three hours-plus of, say, Richard Wagner.

The swirling string line that launches the overture sets the tone, and from there on every hairpin turn in the plot has its match in Mozart's music. Tempo, color, harmony, texture, mood -- any of it can change in an instant. And it never stays put for long: Most of the opera's numbers tell their tales within four minutes or so. And even the biggest exception to that rule -- the 20-minute finale of Act 2 -- is so full of action, dramatically and musically, that the time sweeps by.

Of course, the stage director has the challenge of making all these convolutions clear to the audience. The key, Scott thinks, is to focus on the main strand: Count Almaviva's desire for Susanna, Figaro's bride, and the schemes that she, Figaro and the Countess devise in hopes of thwarting him. And the director has a powerful helper.

"Mozart gives you so much in the music that has to do with the drama," Scott said.

Figaro's music is so descriptive that singers and directors often take their cues right from it. During a trio in Act 1, Susanna swoons with fear because of the sudden appearance of the Count. The way the music's highest line plunges -- with a crescendo to make even more of a lurch -- is so clear a picture of a drooping body that some directors have Susanna falter right along with it. In the Act 2 finale, another surprise makes three schemers so happy -- and the tune they sing is so bouncy -- that directors sometimes let them break into a little dance.

If anything, performers have to resist getting carried away, said soprano Jennifer Aylmer, Orlando's Susanna. Aylmer played the part first when she was in college, she recalled, and she spent a lot of time "mugging and striking poses." Now, she tries to focus on what makes Susanna real.

"All this poor woman really wants is to have a happy life with Figaro," Aylmer said. "Even though Susanna is young and sprightly and loves playing tricks on people . . . I think her driving force is her love for Figaro. She would do just about anything to get this going and have her wedding."

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