A timeless comedy
Director Mariame Clément returns with a fresh take on Le nozze di Figaro
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For Mariame the relationship between the characters is key to Le nozze di Figaro’s longevity. ‘They read very well today,’ she says. ‘Everyone understands what a master and a servant are, even in an 18th-century context. The audience’s reaction can be immediate, which is very important for comedy.’ It is for that reason that she is retaining the story’s 18th-century setting for this production, rather than transposing it to another time and place.
‘The piece doesn’t need “translating” into contemporary power relationships, in my opinion. A powerful man being defeated or even ridiculed by women or by people who are socially inferior: it’s a comedy classic that always works. A lot of the comic moments are based on situation comedy anyway, and that is quite timeless too,’ she observes. ‘A well-timed slap, someone being mistaken for someone else, someone entering at the wrong moment: these still elicit laughs today.’
Image: Mariame Clément in rehearsals for Le nozze di Figaro, Festival 2025, photograph by Richard Hubert Smith
One of the challenges in making the comedy land is ensuring that the humour in the dialogue isn’t lost. ‘So many moments in the text make me laugh,’ says Mariame, ‘for instance, the Count answering Susanna’s concern that the pavilion is quite dark with “we’re not here to read” is truly hilarious.
‘I always work very carefully on the supertitles. My stagings are very text-based, and in comedy this is even more crucial,’ she explains. ‘As the way in which Mozart set Da Ponte’s text to music is so transparent and fluid it ensures that with good supertitles and clear storytelling, we can make sure audiences get the jokes.’
Le nozze di Figaro isn’t all laughs: it has many serious themes and moments of sadness and reflection too. This is tailor-made for Mariame’s approach to comedy. Reflecting on her past productions of Don Pasquale and Il turco in Italia, she notes that ‘it was essential to me to find more serious moments in those comedies, and even darker aspects, in order to make the characters more complex and moving.’ For Mariame, Figaro, with its rich and complex characterisation, the subtlety and darkness ‘is already composed. The comedy and tragedy go hand in hand.’
Image: Mariame Clément, Julia Hansen, Louise Alder and Huw Montague Rendall in rehearsals for Le nozze di Figaro, Festival 2025, photograph by Richard Hubert Smith
‘In general, I tend to come to rehearsal very well prepared,’ she says. ‘This is even more true of comedy, and especially situation comedy, as it is often about positions, choreography and timing. It also involves the set, which means a lot has to be planned way ahead of time.
‘With experience, one also gets a feeling for which scenes need to be precisely choreographed and which ones should be left more open to improvisation. Having a clear plan doesn’t mean one isn’t flexible. The trick is to feel when the singers are on to something: then it is exciting to let go of the plan and let them follow their instincts and improvise. It’s the magic of the rehearsal room, of the chemistry between people, of whatever is in the air on that day, and that is what makes theatre interesting.’
This space for experimentation is all there on the page and the score. Figaro is an opera you can return to over and over again, and still be surprised by. ‘It is so rich, so deep, the insight on human relationships is so brilliant, that I feel I could stage it every year and not be tired of it,’ Mariame laughs.
Andrew is the former Glyndebourne’s Digital Content Editor
