Guelph Symphony Orchestra

by David B. Knight.

If you wish to quote from or reproduce these notes please first seek permission from, and acknowledge, David B. Knight (contact: dbknight@uoguelph.ca ) and the Guelph Symphony Orchestra.

Marriage of Figaro October 23rd 2010

The Marriage of Figaro (Le nozze di Figaro) by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756-1791). The Marriage of Figaro is a superb example of opera buffa or comic opera, in which there commonly is recitative rather than spoken dialogue. In today’s concert version, however, there will be some dialogue, for the opera’s intriguing plot will be explained by “Herr Schikaneder”. Our so-named “narrator” was a famous actor in Mozart’s time and could indeed have been the narrator for the opera had such been needed. The following list will help you keep the characters in order:

betrothed to Figaro

valet to Count Almaviva

the Count’s page

housekeeper to Bartolo

a doctor from Seville

music master

magistrate

gardener, and Susanna’s uncle

Although Mozart composed twenty operas (the first when he was just 11 years old), the most famous – and sophisticated – are the final five, written between 1785 and 1791, the year of his death. The Marriage of Figaro, the first of these, represented a major step in Mozart’s life for it clearly established him as a major composer of opera. His later four remarkable operas included Don Giovanni and The Magic Flute (Die Zauberflöte, which the GSO presented four seasons ago).

Mozart started to compose his work, The Marriage of Figaro, late in 1785 and concluded it within a matter of weeks. Some Italians in the Court opposed the work but the Emperor, Joseph II, did permit its performance in 1786 and, by all accounts, he – and audiences – liked it, though he, the Emperor, decreed that there should be no excessive encores! The opera received a much warmer reception in Prague a short time later. “Here they talk about nothing but Figaro. Nothing is played, sung or whistled but Figaro,” wrote a delighted Mozart to a friend from Prague. So rapturous was the acclaim that to this day Prague holds that it was the first city to truly appreciate Mozart. In return, Mozart presented his new and glorious Symphony No. 38 in D major, K.504 (“the Prague”) at a concert there a few weeks following the opening of The Marriage of Figaro, and a year later he was present in Prague for the premier performance of Don Giovanni.

The theme for the opera was first explored by Pierre de Beaumarchais, a French playwright and adventurer. His best-known comedies, The Barber of Seville (1775) and The Marriage of Figaro (1784), inspired three famous operas. The former play inspired two operas of the same name, by Giovanni Paisiello (in 1782) and Gioachino Rossini (in 1816); the second play led to Mozart’s opera. Beaumarchais’s works were banned from the Viennese stage because they pointedly mocked the aristocracy but Mozart read a copy and he then asked Lorenzo Da Ponte to write the libretto for him. Da Ponte did so, writing in Italian and removing the original’s many political references. The libretto, thus revised, was approved by the Emperor before Mozart put pen to paper to create, in David Ewan’s words, “one of his most vivacious scores, chameleon-like in its rapidly changing hues, penetrating in its psychological understanding of the characters.”

A word about Da Ponte (1749-1838): Carter notes that due to his collaborations with Martin y Soler, Antonio Salieri, and, most notably, Mozart, Da Ponte was arguably the most significant librettist of his generation. He worked with Mozart also on Don Giovanni and Cosi fan tutte. He is said to have had a profound sense of the literary and dramatic traditions within which he was working. But, of course, it was Mozart’s brilliant music that gives life to the words, hence the opera, as those by all composers, is known as Mozart’s. Mozart enjoyed Giovanni Paisiello’s popular opera, Le barbier de Séville, which, as noted, drew directly from Beaumarchais’s play. Mozart’s opera is kind of sequel to Paisiello’s opera, but surpasses it in quality. Even so, as Julien Rushton observes, “Mozart evidently studied Paisiello’s handling of the personalities and included deliberate references to it” in his own opera.

Rushton also notes that “Mozart learned from Haydn how to engage in a witty musical discourse by development, combination, and reinterpretation of short, pliable motives.” He adds, “this technique finds its apogee in [today’s first Act] finale; the way in which the motives are tossed around the orchestra is not only witty in itself, but it allows the characters to get through a great many words without having to repeat them in order to satisfy the need for musical coherence. In this Mozart was truly an inventor; continuous opera here received its strongest stimulus.” Another remarkable moment is the sextet in the second half, and there are numerous wonderful solos, duets, and other combinations of voices. There is sweet love, anger too, and great humour, all caught expressively in Mozart’s music.

What are the elements in this opera that so well capture something of the human condition? Well, as you will hear, tensions relate to sex, love, jealousy, marriage, trickery, and social class! The first five are self-evident; the last, social class, is central. The Count at once renounces the ancient ways yet wants to retain them in practice, thus creating tension both within himself and between himself and others, notably Figaro, who is contemptuous of the Count’s social standing. Figaro feels he has the right to do as he pleases, and not have to accede to others’ demands just because of whom they are. The Countess too is caught, between her social standing (as a result of marriage) and her reliance on servants, and she resorts to using her maid Susanna’s clothes as a disguise. Oh, and yes, there are other disguises as well, which confuse the characters in the opera – and delight audiences. The fascinating twists and turns of the plot eventually are resolved in a most satisfying and enjoyable manner.