The Marriage of Figaro
The Marriage of Figaro (Italian: Le nozze di Figaro, pronounced [le ˈnɔttse di ˈfiːɡaro] ), K. 492, is a commedia per musica (opera buffa) in four acts composed in 1786 by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, with an Italian libretto written by Lorenzo Da Ponte. It premiered at the Burgtheater in Vienna on 1 May 1786. The opera's libretto is based on the 1784 stage comedy by Pierre Beaumarchais, La folle journée, ou le Mariage de Figaro ("The Mad Day, or The Marriage of Figaro"). It tells how the servants Figaro and Susanna succeed in getting married, foiling the efforts of their philandering employer Count Almaviva to seduce Susanna and teaching him a lesson in fidelity.
For other uses, see The Marriage of Figaro (disambiguation).
Le nozze di Figaro
The Marriage of Figaro
Considered one of the greatest operas ever written,[1] it is a cornerstone of the repertoire and appears consistently among the top ten in the Operabase list of most frequently performed operas.[2] In 2017, BBC News Magazine asked 172 opera singers to vote for the best operas ever written. The Marriage of Figaro came in first out of the 20 operas featured, with the magazine describing the work as being "one of the supreme masterpieces of operatic comedy, whose rich sense of humanity shines out of Mozart's miraculous score".[3]
Composition history[edit]
Beaumarchais's earlier play The Barber of Seville had already made a successful transition to opera in a version by Paisiello. Beaumarchais's Mariage de Figaro, with its frank treatment of class conflict,[4] was at first banned in Vienna: Emperor Joseph II stated that "since the piece contains much that is objectionable, I therefore expect that the Censor shall either reject it altogether, or at any rate have such alterations made in it that he shall be responsible for the performance of this play and for the impression it may make", after which the Austrian Censor duly forbade performing the German version of the play.[5][6] Mozart's librettist managed to get official approval from the emperor for an operatic version, which eventually achieved great success.
The opera was the first of three collaborations between Mozart and Da Ponte, followed by Don Giovanni and Così fan tutte. It was Mozart who originally selected Beaumarchais's play and brought it to Da Ponte, who turned it into a libretto in six weeks, rewriting it in poetic Italian and removing all of the original's political references. In particular, Da Ponte replaced Figaro's climactic speech against inherited nobility with an equally angry aria against unfaithful wives.[7] The libretto was approved by the Emperor before any music was written by Mozart.[8]
The Imperial Italian opera company paid Mozart 450 florins for the work;[9] this was three times his meagre yearly salary when he had worked as a court musician in Salzburg.[10] Da Ponte was paid 200 florins.[9]
Frequently omitted numbers[edit]
Two arias from act 4 are often omitted: one in which Marcellina regrets that people (unlike animals) abuse their mates ("Il capro e la capretta"), and one in which Don Basilio tells how he saved himself from several dangers in his youth by using the skin of a donkey for shelter and camouflage ("In quegli anni").[32]
Mozart wrote two replacement arias for Susanna when the role was taken over by Adriana Ferrarese 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), in which the two clarinets are replaced with basset horns, are normally not used in modern performances. A notable exception was a series of performances at the Metropolitan Opera in 1998 with Cecilia Bartoli as Susanna.[33]
Other uses of the melodies[edit]
A musical phrase from the act 1 trio of The Marriage of Figaro (where Basilio sings Così fan tutte le belle) was later reused by Mozart in the overture to his opera Così fan tutte.[41] Mozart also quotes Figaro's aria "Non più andrai" in the second act of his opera Don Giovanni. Further, Mozart used it in 1791 in his Five Contredanses, K. 609, No. 1. Mozart reused the music of the "Agnus Dei" of his earlier Krönungsmesse (Coronation Mass) for the Countess's "Dove sono", in C major instead of the original F major. Mozart also reused the motif that begins his early bassoon concerto in another aria sung by the Countess, "Porgi, amor".[42] Beethoven wrote Variations on 'Se vuol ballare', WoO 40, for violin and piano 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 it 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 adaptation of the opera in English, translating from Beaumarchais's play and re-using some of Mozart's music, while adding some of his own.[43]
In his 1991 opera, The Ghosts of Versailles, which includes elements of Beaumarchais's third Figaro play (La Mère coupable) and in which the main characters of The Marriage of Figaro also appear, John Corigliano quotes Mozart's opera, especially the overture, several times.
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