Designer heaven

Graham Vick's production, first seen at Glyndebourne three years ago and now revived by Daniel Farncombe, is staged at one remove. It is costumed in the right century, but in a set within a set.

The outer set is a hall whose heavy iron radiators and swing doors suggest a present-day rehearsal space. The inner set consists of skeletal, transparent-walled frame structures that mark out room spaces but that intersect differently in each act.

In the final act, the nocturnal garden scene (where the audience is afforded perfectly bright night vision), these cubes are suspended at angles, rather like Daniel Libeskind's design for the V&A. Why? Maybe because Le Nozze Di Figaro, a subversive tale of class and gender relationships, is about how people slot, or not quite slot, together in everchanging ways, ways not necessarily neat or obvious. The Count's social position at the end is certainly askew.

This is an excellent cast, with a signal Glyndebourne debut from the soprano Ruth Ziesak, a put-upon Countess of many parts - and a voice of intense character - who upholds her dignity even when conspiring girlishly with her servant Susanna. In that role is Sarah Fox, who plays a confident rather than a coquettish character, and she's partnered by Christopher Maltman, who is a sparkling and equally selfassured Figaro.

In the celebrated breeches role of Cherubino, Linda Tuvas is charmingly marooned between childish awkwardness and adolescent hormonal excess, and Mariusz Kwiecien makes a welcome return as the Count, unable to see his own hypocrisy until his ultimate exposure as a love rat.

The acting is beautifully done, with impeccable comic timing but also with the necessary underlying seriousness that a piece about emotionally wounded and abused people has to have.

Conductor Mark Wigglesworth does not always keep everything meticulously together between pit and stage, but there's the right open spirit in his reading, and the London Philharmonic Orchestra - particularly the woodwinds - plays excellently.

Le Nozze Di Figaro