(Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart)
From “Alfred’s Basic Adult Piano Course Lesson Book Level Two”
Played on Korg G1B Air Digital Piano: Austrian Concert Piano
The Marriage of Figaro
The Marriage of Figaro (Italian: Le nozze di Figaro, pronounced [le ˈnɔttse di ˈfiːɡaro] (listen)), 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.
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 the work 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. 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. The libretto was approved by the Emperor before any music was written by Mozart.
The Imperial Italian opera company paid Mozart 450 florins for the work; this was three times his (low) yearly salary when he had worked as a court musician in Salzburg. Da Ponte was paid 200 florins.
Performance history
Figaro premiered at the Burgtheater in Vienna on 1 May 1786, with a cast listed in the "Roles" section below. Mozart himself conducted the first two performances, conducting seated at the keyboard, the custom of the day. Later performances were conducted by Joseph Weigl. The first production was given eight further performances, all in 1786.
Although the total of nine performances was nothing like the frequency of performance of Mozart's later success, The Magic Flute, which for months was performed roughly every other day, the premiere is generally judged to have been a success. The applause of the audience on the first night resulted in five numbers being encored, seven on 8 May. Joseph II, who, in addition to his empire, was in charge of the Burgtheater, was concerned by the length of the performance and directed his aide Count Rosenberg [de] as follows:
To prevent the excessive duration of operas, without however prejudicing the fame often sought by opera singers from the repetition of vocal pieces, I deem the enclosed notice to the public (that no piece for more than a single voice is to be repeated) to be the most reasonable expedient. You will therefore cause some posters to this effect to be printed.
The requested posters were printed up and posted in the Burgtheater in time for the third performance on 24 May.
The newspaper Wiener Realzeitung carried a review of the opera in its issue of 11 July 1786. It alludes to interference probably produced by paid hecklers, but praises the work warmly:
Mozart's music was generally admired by connoisseurs already at the first performance, if I except only those whose self-love and conceit will not allow them to find merit in anything not written by themselves. The public, however ... did not really know on the first day where it stood. It heard many a bravo from unbiased connoisseurs, but obstreperous louts in the uppermost storey exerted their hired lungs with all their might to deafen singers and audience alike with their St! and Pst; and consequently opinions were divided at the end of the piece. Apart from that, it is true that the first performance was none of the best, owing to the difficulties of the composition. But now, after several performances, one would be subscribing either to the cabal or to tastelessness if one were to maintain that Herr Mozart's music is anything but a masterpiece of art. It contains so many beauties, and such a wealth of ideas, as can be drawn only from the source of innate genius.
The Hungarian poet Ferenc Kazinczy was in the audience for a May performance, and later remembered the powerful impression the work made on him:
[Nancy] Storace, the beautiful singer, enchanted eye, ear, and soul. – Mozart conducted the orchestra, playing his fortepiano; but the joy which this music causes is so far removed from all sensuality that one cannot speak of it. Where could words be found that are worthy to describe such joy?
Joseph Haydn appreciated the opera greatly, writing to a friend that he heard it in his dreams. In summer 1790 Haydn attempted to produce the work with his own company at Eszterháza, but was prevented from doing so by the death of his patron, Nikolaus Esterházy.
Synopsis
The Marriage of Figaro continues the plot of The Barber of Seville several years later, and recounts a single "day of madness" (la folle journée) 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.
The information contained within this blog post was reproduced from Wikipedia under Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License 3.0
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