The Marriage of Figaro
Music by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
MATRIMONY MAYHEM
One of opera’s greatest works, The Marriage of Figaro is the first of three collaborations between Mozart and librettist Lorenzo Da Ponte (followed by Don Giovanni and Così fan tutte).
A masterpiece of “opera buffa” based on the 1784 play by Beaumarchais, this raucous satirization of the aristocracy depicts servants Figaro and Susanna on their wedding day as they outwit their entitled employer in a whirlwind of general pandemonium.
The play attracted such enormous crowds that Louis XVI considered it dangerous; Napoleon later called it “the Revolution already in action.” Although Da Ponte had to dilute the libretto to get it produced, the opera’s lampoon of the upper class still stings true today.
