The Marriage of Figaro, K. 492

• Le nozze di Figaro (1786) was the first of three operas Mozart wrote with librettist Lorenzo da Ponte. The other two are Don Giovanni and Così fan tutte.¹
• The opera was based on a controversial play by French writer Pierre-Augustin Caron de Beaumarchais. Beaumarchais’ comedy Le Barbier de Séville (1775) and its sequel, La folle jourée, ou Le Mariage de Figaro [The Follies of a Day, or The Marriage of Figaro] (1784) had both been censored in Vienna due to their critical portrayal of the ruling classes. Mozart and da Ponte toned down some of the revolutionary content in Nozze but the opera still met with pushback (Mozart’s father Leopold blamed Salieri, among others.) ²
  • A contemporary critic claimed the pushback had more to do with musical rivalries:

“Herr 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.”

Wiener Zeitung, July 11, 1786³

• Inspiration: An operatic version of The Barber of Seville, composed by Giovanni Paisiello, had been well received in Vienna in 1784.⁴
• Story: Valet Figaro and his fiancée, lady’s maid Susanna, scheme to frustrate the plans of their employer, the Count, who wants to revive the feudal “right of the first night” just for Susanna.⁵
• The overture sets the mood for the opera’s fast and wild action, all set in one jam-packed “day of follies.”⁶

1.  Cliff Eisen, and Stanley Sadie, “Mozart, (Johann Chrysostom) Wolfgang Amadeus,” Grove Music Online (2001), accessed November 19, 2019,  https://www.oxfordmusiconline.com/grovemusic/view/10.1093/gmo/9781561592630.001.0001/omo-9781561592630-e-6002278233. 
2. Ibid.
3. Ibid.
4. Ibid.
5.  Julian Rushton, “Nozze di Figaro, Le,” Grove Music Online (2002), accessed November 20, 2019, https://www.oxfordmusiconline.com/grovemusic/view/10.1093/gmo/9781561592630.001.0001/omo-9781561592630-e-5000003136. 
6. Ibid.