This month’s issue of Opera Now features an outstanding review of Yvonne Fontane’s production of Le nozze di Figaro with Stowe Opera, at Winslow Hall.

Described as a ‘just about faultless’ and ‘perceptive, sweet, funny’ production, Robert Thicknesse states that Figaro contained a ‘fabulous ensemble’, with Marc Callahan as Figaro, Michael Davies as the Count, and Helen Massey’s ‘utterly delightful Susanna’, expressed as ‘pure joy’. Director Yvonne Fontane’s Countess was said to be ‘dramatically many-layered’, well-suited to her voice.

The opera itself incorporates ‘human pathos, plenty of actual humour and a lot of dramatic acuity’ into the performance, where ‘the momentum was never lost’ and ‘the drama kept going’ both on the stage and in the orchestra.

Marking the performance as ‘a treat’, Thicknesse comments that Le nozze di Figaro is not always easy to get right, but Yvonne’s production was above the mark.