The Marriage of Figaro (Italian: Le nozze di Figaro, pronounced [le ˈnɔttse di ˈfiːɡaro]), K. 492, is a comic opera in four acts composed in 1786 by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. The Italian text was written by Lorenzo Da Ponte. The opera first performed at the Burgtheater in Vienna on May 1, 1786. The story is based on a 1784 stage play by Beaumarchais titled La folle journée, ou le Mariage de Figaro ("The Mad Day, or The Marriage of Figaro"). It follows the servants Figaro and Susanna as they work to marry, stopping their employer, Count Almaviva, from trying to seduce Susanna and teaching him about loyalty.
This opera is widely regarded as one of the greatest ever written. It is a key part of the opera repertoire and often appears in the top ten most performed operas according to Operabase. In 2017, BBC News Magazine asked 172 opera singers to vote for the best operas. The Marriage of Figaro was chosen as the top opera among 20 featured works. The magazine described it as "one of the greatest masterpieces of operatic comedy, with Mozart's music showing deep human qualities."
Composition history
Beaumarchais's earlier play, The Barber of Seville, was successfully changed into an opera by Paisiello. Beaumarchais's The Marriage of Figaro, which openly discussed conflicts between social classes, was first banned in Vienna. Emperor Joseph II said, "Because the play has many things that are not acceptable, the Censor must either stop it completely or make changes so that the Censor is responsible for the performance and its effects." After this, the Austrian Censor banned the German version of the play. Mozart's librettist, Lorenzo Da Ponte, managed to get the emperor's approval for an operatic version, which later became very popular.
This opera was the first of three works created together by Mozart and Da Ponte, followed by Don Giovanni and Così fan tutte. Mozart chose Beaumarchais's play and shared it with Da Ponte, who created a libretto in six weeks. Da Ponte rewrote the story in poetic Italian and removed all political references from the original. For example, he changed Figaro's powerful speech against inherited nobility into an equally strong aria about unfaithful wives. The libretto was approved by the Emperor before Mozart began writing the music.
The Imperial Italian opera company paid Mozart 450 florins for the work. This was three times the small yearly salary he had earned as a court musician in Salzburg. Da Ponte received 200 florins for his work.
Roles
The voice types shown in this table come from the official version published in the Neue Mozart-Ausgabe. Today, in performances, Cherubino and Marcellina are typically sung by mezzo-sopranos, while Figaro is usually performed by a bass-baritone.
Instrumentation
The opera The Marriage of Figaro uses two flutes, two oboes, two clarinets, two bassoons, two horns, two clarini, timpani, and strings. The recitativi secchi are accompanied by a keyboard instrument, usually a fortepiano or a harpsichord, and often include a cello. The specific instruments used for the recitativi secchi are not listed in the score, so the conductor and musicians decide which instruments to use. A typical performance lasts about three hours.
Synopsis
The Marriage of Figaro continues the story of The Barber of Seville several years later. It takes place during a single "day of madness" (la folle journée) in the palace of Count Almaviva near Seville, Spain. Rosina is now the countess. Dr. Bartolo wants revenge on Figaro for stopping his plan to marry Rosina. Count Almaviva, who was once a romantic young man in The Barber of Seville, has become a scheming, bullying man who tries to force Figaro’s bride-to-be, Susanna, to let him sleep with her on her wedding night. He delays the civil part of the wedding between Figaro and Susanna, which is planned for that day. Figaro, Susanna, and the countess work together to embarrass the count and expose his plans. The count tries to legally force Figaro to marry an older woman, but it turns out she is actually Figaro’s mother. Through the clever actions of Susanna and the countess, Figaro and Susanna are finally able to marry.
The overture is in the key of D major. The tempo is presto, meaning it is played quickly. This piece is well known and often performed as a concert piece on its own.
A partly furnished room has a chair in the center.
Figaro measures the space where the bridal bed will fit, while Susanna tries on her wedding bonnet (which she made herself) in front of a mirror. (Duet: "Cinque, dieci, venti" – "Five, ten, twenty"). Figaro is happy with their new room, but Susanna is not. (Duettino: "Se a caso madama la notte ti chiama" – "If the countess should call you during the night"). She is worried because the room is near the count’s chambers, and she fears the count will try to exercise his droit du seigneur, the feudal right of a lord to sleep with a servant girl on her wedding night before her husband. The count had promised to stop this right when he married Rosina, but now he wants to use it again. The countess calls for Susanna, who leaves to answer. Figaro, confident in his ability to outsmart the count, resolves to stop him. (Cavatina: "Se vuol ballare, signor contino" – "If you want to dance, Sir Count").
Figaro leaves, and Dr. Bartolo arrives with Marcellina, his old housekeeper. Figaro once borrowed money from Marcellina and promised to marry her if he could not repay it. Now, Marcellina wants to force him to marry her by taking him to court. Bartolo, who wants revenge on Figaro for helping the count marry Rosina in The Barber of Seville, agrees to help Marcellina for free. He uses funny legal language to promise her he can win the case. (Aria: "La vendetta" – "Vengeance").
Bartolo leaves, and Susanna returns. Marcellina and Susanna exchange polite but sarcastic insults. (Duet: "Via resti servita, madama brillante" – "After you, brilliant madam"). Susanna wins by joking about Marcellina’s age. Marcellina leaves in anger.
Cherubino arrives and talks about his growing interest in all women, especially the countess. (Aria: "Non so più cosa son" – "I don’t know anymore what I am"). He asks Susanna to help him with the count, who is angry with Cherubino for being flirtatious. The count discovered Cherubino with the gardener’s daughter, Barbarina, and plans to punish him. Cherubino wants Susanna to ask the countess to save him. When the count appears, Cherubino hides behind a chair to avoid being seen alone with Susanna. The count uses the chance to demand favors from Susanna and offers to pay her if she agrees. Basilio, the music teacher, arrives, and the count hides behind the chair to avoid being caught alone with Susanna. Cherubino leaves the chair just in time, and jumps onto it while Susanna covers him with a dress.
When Basilio talks about Cherubino’s interest in the countess, the count jumps out of hiding. (Terzetto: "Cosa sento!" – "What do I hear!"). He criticizes Cherubino for flirting and describes how he caught him with Barbarina under the kitchen table. As he lifts the dress from the chair to show how he found Cherubino, he sees Cherubino hiding there. The count is angry but remembers that Cherubino heard the count’s advances on Susanna, which the count wants to keep secret. Cherubino is saved when the peasants from the count’s estate arrive. Figaro planned this to make the count promise Susanna will enter the marriage without being harmed. The count avoids this by delaying the promise. He forgives Cherubino but sends him to his regiment in Seville for military service immediately. Figaro mocks Cherubino with advice about his strict new life, which will have no luxury or women. (Aria: "Non più andrai" – "No more gallivanting").
A handsome room has an alcove, a dressing room on the left, a door in the background (leading to the servants’ quarters), and a window on the side.
The countess laments her husband’s unfaithfulness. (Aria: "Porgi, amor, qualche ristoro" – "Grant, love, some comfort"). Susanna enters to help the countess prepare for the day. She tells the countess the count is not trying to seduce her but offering her money for affection. Figaro enters and explains his plan to distract the count with anonymous letters warning him about adulterers. He already sent one to the count (via Basilio) claiming the countess has a secret meeting that night. They hope the count will be too busy looking for fake lovers to stop their wedding. Figaro also tells the countess to keep Cherubino around. She should dress him as a girl and trick the count into an illegal meeting where he can be caught. Figaro leaves.
Cherubino arrives, sent by Figaro. Susanna encourages him to sing the song he wrote for the countess. (Aria: "Voi che sapete che cosa è amor" – "You ladies who know what love is, is it what I’m suffering from?"). After the song, the countess notices the count forgot to seal Cherubino’s military commission with his ring, making it unofficial.
Susanna and the countess begin their plan. Susanna removes Cher
Frequently omitted numbers
Two arias from Act 4 are often left out: one in which Marcellina feels sorry that people (unlike goats, sheep, or wild beasts) treat their partners badly (Il capro e la capretta); and one in which Don Basilio explains how he saved himself from several dangers in his youth by using the skin of a donkey for shelter and hiding (In quegli anni).
Mozart wrote two replacement arias for Susanna when Adriana Ferrarese took over the role in the 1789 revival. The replacement arias, "Un moto di gioia" (replacing "Venite, inginocchiatevi" in Act 2) and "Al desio di chi t'adora" (replacing "Deh vieni non tardar" in Act 4), use basset horns instead of two clarinets. These arias are usually not performed in modern shows. An exception occurred in a series of performances at the Metropolitan Opera in 1998, where Cecilia Bartoli played Susanna.
Performance history
Figaro had its first performance at the Burgtheater in Vienna on May 1, 1786, with actors listed in the "Roles" section below. Mozart conducted the first two shows himself, sitting at the keyboard, which was the usual practice at the time. Later performances were led by Joseph Weigl. The first production was performed eight more times, all in 1786.
Although nine performances were far fewer than the frequent shows of Mozart's later success, The Magic Flute, which was performed nearly every other day for months, the premiere was considered a success. The audience applauded so much during the first night that five musical pieces were performed again, and seven were repeated on May 8. Emperor Joseph, who oversaw the Burgtheater, was concerned about the length of the performance and instructed his assistant, Count Orsini–Rosenberg, to take action:
Posters were printed and displayed at the Burgtheater in time for the third performance on May 24.
The newspaper Wiener Realzeitung published a review of the opera in its July 11, 1786, edition. The review mentioned possible disruptions caused by paid hecklers but praised the work highly:
Ferenc Kazinczy, a Hungarian poet, attended a May performance and later recalled how deeply the opera impressed him:
Joseph Haydn greatly admired the opera, writing to a friend that he heard it in his dreams. In the summer of 1790, Haydn tried to stage the work with his own company at Eszterháza but was stopped by the death of his patron, Nikolaus Esterházy.
The Emperor requested a special performance at his palace theater in Laxenburg, which happened in June 1786.
The opera was first performed in Prague starting in December 1786 by the Pasquale Bondini company. This production was very successful; the newspaper Prager Oberpostamtszeitung called the work "a masterpiece" and said "no piece (as everyone here claims) has ever caused such a sensation." Local music lovers paid for Mozart to visit Prague and see the production; he listened on January 17, 1787, and conducted it himself on January 22. The success of the Prague production led to the commissioning of the next Mozart/Da Ponte opera, Don Giovanni, which premiered in Prague in 1787 (see Mozart and Prague).
The opera was not performed in Vienna in 1787 or 1788, but a revival production began in 1789. For this performance, Mozart replaced both arias sung by Susanna with new compositions better suited to the voice of Adriana Ferrarese del Bene, who played the role. To replace "Deh vieni," he wrote "Al desio di chi t'adora" – "To the desire of [the one] who adores you" (K. 577) in July 1789. To replace "Venite, inginocchiatevi," he wrote "Un moto di gioia" – "A joyous emotion" (K. 579), likely in mid-1790.
Critical discussion
Lorenzo Da Ponte wrote a preface for the first published version of the libretto. In it, he confidently stated that he and Mozart had created a new type of music drama.
Charles Rosen, in The Classical Style, suggests that Da Ponte's words should be taken seriously. He points out that the way the characters sing together in groups adds depth to the story, making it more dramatic than traditional recitatives. Rosen also explains that Mozart used the musical style of the classical period to express the drama in the opera. Many parts of the opera follow a structure similar to sonata form. By moving through a series of musical keys, the music builds and resolves tension, mirroring the emotional changes in the story. As Rosen writes:
This is shown in the final scenes of all four acts. As the story becomes more intense, Mozart stops using recitatives and instead uses more complex musical writing. Characters appear on stage, and the music combines solo and group singing in many ways. The scenes in acts 2 and 4 end with all seven or eight characters singing together. The finale of act 2 lasts 20 minutes and is one of the longest continuous musical pieces Mozart ever composed. In this scene, eight of the opera’s 11 characters are on stage, singing for more than 900 bars of unbroken music.
In act 4’s aria “Aprite un po’ quegli occhi,” Mozart uses the sound of two horns playing together to symbolize being cheated on. Later, Giuseppe Verdi used the same technique in Ford’s aria in Falstaff.
Johannes Brahms once said, “In my opinion, every scene in Figaro is a miracle. I cannot understand how anyone could create something so perfect. Nothing like it was ever done again, not even by Beethoven.”
Other uses of the melodies
A musical phrase from Act 1 of The Marriage of Figaro (where Basilio sings "Così fan tutte le belle") was later used by Mozart in the overture to his opera Così fan tutte. Mozart also included a part from Figaro's aria "Non più andrai" in the second act of his opera Don Giovanni. Additionally, Mozart used this music in 1791 in his Five Contredanses, K. 609, No. 1. Mozart reused the music of the "Agnus Dei" from his earlier Krönungsmesse (Coronation Mass) for the countess's "Dove sono," changing the key from F major to C major. Mozart also reused the musical theme that begins his early bassoon concerto in another aria sung by the countess, "Porgi, amor." Beethoven wrote Variations on 'Se vuol ballare', WoO 40, for violin and piano based on Figaro's cavatina. Ferdinand Ries used music from the opera in his Fantasies on Themes from 'Le Nozze di Figaro', Op. 77. Moscheles used the duettino "Crudel! Perchè finora" in his Fantaisie dramatique sur des Airs favoris, Bijoux à la Malibran for piano, Op. 72/4. Johann Nepomuk Hummel quoted the opera in his Fantasia über 'Le nozze di Figaro', Op. 124. Franz Liszt quoted the opera in his Fantasy on Themes from Mozart's Figaro and Don Giovanni, S. 697.
In 1819, Henry R. Bishop wrote an English version of the opera, adapting it from Beaumarchais's play and reusing some of Mozart's music while adding his own.
In his 1991 opera, The Ghosts of Versailles, which includes elements from Beaumarchais's third Figaro play (La Mère coupable) and features characters from The Marriage of Figaro, John Corigliano quotes Mozart's opera, especially the overture, multiple times.