The scurrying violins of the Overture to Mozart’s The Marriage of Figaro set the mood for the Australian Romantic & Classical Orchestra’s high-energy season opener. With lashing strings, biting accents and punchy brass, the HIP band raised the curtain on a dynamic concert that celebrated the orchestra’s fifth birthday, its late Artistic Director Richard Gill (with whom Rachael Beesley and Nicole van Bruggen started ARCO in 2013, off the back of a Victorian Opera production of Figaro) and its future, which – if this concert was anything to go by – the band is charging into at full tilt.
Mozart reportedly delivered the score to the Overture mere hours before The Marriage of Figaropremiered, and ARCO certainly captured its feverish energy before the final bars saw baritone arrive on stage, antique ruler in hand, to begin measuring up his bridal chamber as the titular Figaro.
The baritone charmingly preoccupied, Greco’s Cinque… dieci… venti… duet with soprano Jacqueline Porter – who...to continue reading, please follow this link to the Limelight website.