( Photo: Johannes Ifkovits)
By PAT ST. GERMAIN [Winnipeg Sun, 15 April 2006]

It takes a villain to make Mozart's comic opera The Marriage of Figaro sing.

And celebrated lyric baritone Russell Braun is just the man for the job in his Manitoba Opera debut tonight at the Centennial Concert Hall. His skirt-chasing scoundrel Count Almaviva sets out to seduce former barber Figaro's bride on her wedding day, but Braun says his count is not such a bad buy once you get to know him -- he's a lecher, for sure, but he has mitigating historical depth.