Love, Mozart and humanity

Best opera of all time? The Marriage of Figaro was hugely popular when it premiered (1786) and ever since.

But it nearly didn't happen. The source, a daring play by Beaumarchais, was written in the years leading up to the French Revolution, part of his trilogy on Figaro. (Yes, the Barber of Seville was the first of these plays.) They were banned for overt themes of class tensions and privilege, and particularly for the uppity and confident speeches of the lower classes.

Beaumarchais produced in 1784, "La folle journée, ou le Mariage de Figaro" ("The Mad Day, or The Marriage of Figaro". To gain censor approval, political references had to be removed, and interestingly Mozart's librettist skewed the plot to gender issues over class. He left some of the subtler statements - and a few very unsubtle. ("So little master you wish to go dancing", sings Figaro on learning the Count is aiming to bed Susannah, his bride. "You can go dancing, but I'll call the tune." Listen here to Erwin Schrott at ROH, 2011: "'Se vuol ballare.'".)

As this review of an LA production puts it, Immortal maestro Mozart’s merry, madcap marriage makes monkeys out of monarchs – and music for the millennia."

It's all about the women - especially the lower class women. Renee Fleming as Countess, Alison Hagley as Susanna.

Right of passage: Gerald Finley as a young Figaro in our 1994 production.

The Marriage of Figaro often tops audience polls for best opera. And that's what the singers say too. Here are comments from performers at Glyndebourne.  It won when   BBC Music Magazine asked 172 of the world’s greatest opera singers in 2018.

Their comments are interesting. ‘Such a human portrait’ says Renée Fleming. ‘No matter how many times I sing this opera I am always completely stunned how little people have changed since Mozart’s time, in terms of relationships and the maneuvering they do.’

Soprano Dame Felicity Lott, meanwhile, praises Figaro’s ‘sublime and well-drawn characters’, while bass-baritone Gerald Finley calls the work ‘a singer’s rite of passage’.

Finley receiving award of Kammersänger of the Bayerische Staatsoper - where he was singing Amfortas in Wagner's Parsifal.

An aside for Finley fans: In another rite of passage, Gerald Finley was named a Kammersänger of the Bayerische Staatsoper on July 20, 2024, in recognition of his long and distinguished association with the company. Finley joins a list of esteemed singers who have previously received the honorary title from the Bavarian State Opera, including Nina Stemme, Plácido Domingo, and Jonas Kaufmann.

He's back there next year - singing ... Count Almaviva in Marriage of Figaro!

So this wasn't just another opera buffa by Mozart? Like Seraglio, 4 years earlier, it is a new sort of very human comedy, but now, Mozart is placing the comedy firmly in social and political context. It's about love and infidelity and their consequences, all firmly in the context of class and authority and their distortion of humanity, and gender inequality and its subversion by women. It's breathtakingly fast: a highly complex plot filled with disguises and mistaken identities all of which happens on a single day. It's politically subversive, not merely, like Seraglio, delineating the class strata, but barracking for the lower lot. It celebrates the wit and resourcefulness of the working-class servants, Figaro and Susannah, who cleverly outwit the philandering nobleman, Count Almaviva, and restore order to his household, but the gender strand wins, entwined with class. It's Susannah whose strategies triumph, nervously assisted by her mistress, the Countess, who reaches for smelling salts when revenge is mentioned, and in the end forgives her entirely unforgiveable husband.

"Mozart's "Le Nozze di Figaro" ("The Marriage of Figaro") stands apart from all other operas not only because of its seraphic score but also because of its radiant, truly civilized acceptance and affirmation of humanity. From the opening scene, we have the feeling that we know these characters (in their 20th-century incarnations) and that -- despite their abundant flaws -- we love them all. None of them needs touching up, and if the heroes are not especially heroic, the villains are not so terribly villainous, either. This is the human race in all of its frivolity, lust, silliness -- and sweet glory." From the Washington Post, 1998.

Enter Da Ponte

Portrait by Samuel Morse, Lorenzo Da Ponte, at the New York Yacht Club

The extraordinary story of Lorenzo Da Ponte would make a fine but hardly believable opera. An Italian born Jew, he was converted to Catholicism at his father's remarriage and took the name of the bishop who baptised him, later became a Catholic priest, at which stage he was best friends with Casanova, had lived in a brothel and had multiple children by different women. (All source material for Don Giovanni!)

In a long life (1749 – 1838) Da Ponte moved around Europe, fleeing legal and political threats and among other activities, serving briefly as court poet and librettist in Vienna.

As European politics exploded, he shifted to America, where he became the first professor of Italian literature (unpaid) at Columbia University, and introduced the New World to Italian opera.

And for just five of his 89 years, Da Ponte wrote the libretti for Mozart's most popular Italian operas, The Marriage of Figaro (1786), Don Giovanni (1787), and Così fan tutte (1790).

The story of the opera

How much can happen in one day in your average aristocratic house? The full title of the opera is

Here's an essay summarising the happenings. And here's a brisk synopsis.

And there's a formal synopsis after the historical summary as always in Wiki.

The music

Too many gems to rank them - this is Mozart's jewelcase of arias, duets and quartets. There's a brief list here. And again it's mainly about the women.

For the Countess, the top challenge is "Porgi amor", her song of grief at her husband's infidelity. Listen to Jesse Norman to get every subtle note.

Here's Gundula Janowitz as the Countess Paris Opera Garnier in 1980.

and we have Renee Fleming (right).

Here's what they are singing, just four lines.

O Love, give me some remedy

For my sorrow, for my sighs!

Either give me back my darling 

Or at least let me die.

"That's the whole thing! She expresses her deep sadness in just those four short lines. How does that work? Mozart fills in all the gaps for us. When she asks to die, he moves the vocal line up in stepwise motion until it sounds like a cry for help. She is in pain, and we as the audience are given the opportunity to understand her motivation before she cooks up her plan." 

Want more exploration of Mozart's magic here? Join a workshop about this aria with Joyce DiDonato a Carnegie Hall Master Class January 2016.

And then for Susannah, there's “Deh, vieni, non tardar”, from Act IV , one of the most beautiful love songs from Mozart. How sweet and longing and lovely... but oh dear, Susanna is faking seduction of the Count in order to annoy Figaro! You can never be sure the most beautiful music is the simplest with Mozart. "Ah, come! Do not delay," she sings, but not to him. Here are the words.

And here's Kathleen Battle with this glorious, bewitching and wickedly misleading aria at Metropolitan Opera 1985.

Our production

We're in Glyndebourne in 1994 - this is a good oldfashioned production. It works because the music works.

"The performance is ideal musically with Haitink having a seemingly innate feel for Mozart’s rhythms and turn of phrase. The principals are uniformly good with Gerald Finley’s lithe figured but well covered and coloured vocal tone being particularly notable in his arias whilst his acting is outstanding . Andreas Schmidt is a chubby-cheeked and appropriately humourless and haughty Count. Alison Hagley’s well portrayed and pert Susannah is well up to the many acting demands with facial surprises to match her vocal clarity; her Deh ieni, non tardar is a delight. As the Countess, Renée Fleming of 1995 is not the svelte figure that introduces so many performances for New York’s Met on broadcasts worldwide and on DVD. Nonetheless her pure lyric soprano, caressing the phrases in Porgi amor  and Dove sono  has not been bettered since that of Kiri Te Kanawa twenty years or so before." More here in a full review of the performance and recording.

Full opera online?

Yes, Dame Kiri is still on YouTube in the role - full opera here. No subtitles, though. Her "Dove sono" starts at 1.44.

Special offer!!!

"Se vuol ballare" Bryn Terfel, 1993 as Figaro!

There's a great Paris 1993 production online with English subtitles and yay! Bryn Terfel, early in his career as a very young and hilarious Figaro. Susannah is Alison Hagley, who sang the role the following year for us in Glyndebourne. Start at 10 minutes to get Bryn's belligerant "Se vuol ballare - So little master.." The censors would not have liked that!! For those who like such comparisons, here's Bryn at the Met 5 years later - the voice and the confident acting have blossomed.

Lyn 3/9/25