The Marriage of Figaro (, ), 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 Beaumarchais, ("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.
Considered one of the greatest operas ever written, it is a cornerstone of the repertoire and appears consistently among the top ten in the Operabase list of most frequently performed operas. 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 it as being "one of the supreme masterpieces of operatic comedy, whose rich sense of humanity shines out of Mozart's miraculous score".
Composition history 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, 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.Mann, William. The Operas of Mozart. Cassell, London, 1977, p. 366 (in chapter on Le Nozze di Figaro).The librettist Lorenzo Da Ponte in his memoirs asserted that the play was banned only for its sexual references. See the Memoirs of Lorenzo Da Ponte, translated by Elisabeth Abbott (New York: Da Capo Press, 1988), 150. Mozart's librettist Lorenzo Da Ponte 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 . 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.While the political content was suppressed, the opera enhanced the emotional content. According to Stendhal, Mozart "transformed into real passions the superficial attachments that amuse Beaumarchais's easy-going inhabitants of [Count Almaviva's castle] Aguas Frescas". Stendhal's French text is in: The libretto was approved by the Emperor before any music was written by Mozart. (Quoting Memoirs of Lorenzo da Ponte, transl. and ed. by L. A. Sheppard, London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1929, pp. 129ff
The Imperial Italian opera company paid Mozart 450 florins for the work; this was three times his meagre yearly salary when he had worked as a court musician in Salzburg. Da Ponte was paid 200 florins.
Roles The voice types that appear in this table are those listed in the critical edition published in the Neue Mozart-Ausgabe.Le nozze di Figaro, p. 2, NMA II/5/16/1–2 (1973) In modern performance practice, Cherubino and Marcellina are usually assigned to mezzo-sopranos, and Figaro to a bass-baritone.See ; ; and . Mozart (and his contemporaries) never used the terms "mezzo-soprano" or "baritone" (although the NMA score lists Almaviva as . Women's roles were listed as either "soprano" or "contralto", while men's roles were listed as either "tenor" or "bass". Many of Mozart's baritone and bass-baritone roles derive from the basso buffo tradition, where no clear distinction was drawn between bass and baritone, a practice that continued well into the 19th century. Similarly, mezzo-soprano as a distinct voice type was a 19th-century development (). Modern re-classifications of the voice types for Mozartian roles have been based on analysis of contemporary descriptions of the singers who created those roles and their other repertoire, and on the role's tessitura in the score.
+RoleVoice typePremiere cast, 1 May 1786Conductor: W. A. MozartCount AlmavivabaritoneStefano MandiniCountess Rosina AlmavivasopranoLuisa LaschiSusanna, the countess's maidsopranoNancy StoraceFigaro, personal valet to the countbassFrancesco BenucciCherubino, the count's pagesoprano (breeches role)Marcellina, Doctor Bartolo's housekeeper sopranoBartolo, doctor from Seville, also a practising lawyerbassBasilio, music teachertenorMichael KellyDon Curzio, judgetenorMichael KellyBarbarina, Antonio's daughter, Susanna's cousinsopranoAnna GottliebAntonio, the count's gardener, Susanna's unclebassChorus of peasants, villagers, and servants
Instrumentation The Marriage of Figaro is scored for 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, often joined by a cello. The instrumentation of the recitativi secchi is not given in the score, so it is up to the conductor and the performers. A typical performance lasts around three hours.
Synopsis The Marriage of Figaro continues the plot of The Barber of Seville several years later, and recounts a single "day of madness" () in the palace of Count Almaviva near Seville, Spain. Rosina is now the countess. Dr. Bartolo is seeking revenge against Figaro for thwarting his plans to marry Rosina himself, and Count Almaviva has degenerated from the romantic youth of Barber, (a tenor in Paisiello's 1782 opera), into a scheming, bullying, skirt-chasing baritone. Having gratefully given Figaro a job as head of his servant-staff, he is now persistently trying to exercise his droit du seigneur – his right to bed a servant girl on her wedding night – with Figaro's bride-to-be, Susanna, who is the countess's maid. He keeps finding excuses to delay the civil part of the wedding of his two servants, which is arranged for this very day. Figaro, Susanna, and the countess conspire to embarrass the count and expose his scheming. He retaliates by trying to compel Figaro legally to marry a woman old enough to be his mother, but it turns out at the last minute that she really is his mother. Through the clever manipulations of Susanna and the countess, Figaro and Susanna are finally able to marry.
Place: Count Almaviva's estate, Aguas-Frescas, three leagues outside Seville, Spain. Synopsis based on .
Overture
The overture is in the key of D major; the tempo marking is presto; i.e. quick. The work is well known and often played independently as a concert piece.
Act 1 A partly furnished room, with a chair in the centre.
Figaro happily measures the space where the bridal bed will fit while Susanna tries on her wedding bonnet (which she has sewn herself) in front of a mirror. (Duet: "" – "Five, ten, twenty"). Figaro is quite pleased with their new room; Susanna far less so (Duettino: "" – "If the countess should call you during the night"). She is bothered by its proximity to the count's chambers: it seems he has been making advances toward her and plans on exercising his droit du seigneur, the feudal right of a lord to bed a servant girl on her wedding night before her husband can have sex with her. The count had the right abolished when he married Rosina, but he now wants to reinstate it. The countess rings for Susanna and she rushes off to answer. Figaro, confident in his own resourcefulness, resolves to outwit the count (Cavatina: "Se vuol ballare, signor contino" – "If you want to dance, Sir Count").
Figaro departs, and Dr. Bartolo arrives with Marcellina, his old housekeeper. Figaro had previously borrowed a large sum of money from her, and in lieu of collateral, had promised to marry her if unable to repay at the appointed time; she now intends to enforce that promise by suing him. Bartolo, seeking revenge against Figaro for having facilitated the union of the count and Rosina (in The Barber of Seville), agrees to represent Marcellina pro bono, and assures her, in comical lawyer-speak, that he can win the case for her (aria: "" – "Vengeance").
Bartolo departs, Susanna returns, and Marcellina and Susanna exchange very politely delivered sarcastic insults (duet: "" – "After you, brilliant madam"). Susanna triumphs in the exchange by congratulating her rival on her impressive age. The older woman departs in a fury.
Cherubino then arrives and after describing his emerging infatuation with all women, particularly with his "beautiful godmother" the countess, (aria: "" – "I don't know anymore what I am") asks for Susanna's aid with the count. It seems the count is angry with Cherubino's amorous ways, having discovered him with the gardener's daughter, Barbarina, and plans to punish him. Cherubino wants Susanna to ask the countess to intercede on his behalf. When the count appears, Cherubino hides behind a chair, not wanting to be seen alone with Susanna. The count uses the opportunity of finding Susanna alone to step up his demands for favours from her, and offers to pay money if she will submit to him. As Basilio, the music teacher, arrives, the count, not wanting to be caught alone with Susanna, hides behind the chair. Cherubino leaves that hiding place just in time, and jumps onto the chair while Susanna scrambles to cover him with a dress.
When Basilio starts to gossip about Cherubino's obvious attraction to the countess, the count angrily leaps from his hiding place (terzetto: "" – "What do I hear!"). He disparages the "absent" page's incessant flirting and describes how he caught him with Barbarina under the kitchen table. As he lifts the dress from the chair to illustrate how he had lifted the tablecloth to find Cherubino with Barbarina, he finds the very same Cherubino in the hiding spot. The count is furious, but is reminded that the page overheard the count's advances on Susanna, information that the count wants to keep from the countess. The young man is ultimately saved from punishment by the entrance of the peasants of the count's estate, a preemptive attempt by Figaro to make the count commit to a formal gesture symbolising his promise that Susanna would enter into the marriage unsullied. The count evades Figaro's plan by postponing the gesture. The count says that he forgives Cherubino, but he dispatches him to his own regiment in Seville for army duty, effective immediately. Figaro gives Cherubino mocking advice about his new, harsh, military life from which all luxury, and especially women, will be totally excluded (aria: "Non più andrai" – "No more gallivanting").This piece became so popular that Mozart himself, in the final act of his next opera Don Giovanni, transformed the aria into Tafelmusik played by a woodwind ensemble, and alluded to by Leporello as "rather well-known sounds".
Act 2 A handsome room with an alcove, a dressing room on the left, a door in the background (leading to the servants' quarters) and a window at the side.