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Biography of Mozart

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart was born in Salzburg, Austria in 1756. His father Leopold was court musician to the Archbishop-Prince of Salzburg. Both Wolfgang and his older sister Maria were musical prodigies, including at the harpsichord and the violin, and from 1762 their father took them on a number of tours around the royal courts of Europe to much acclaim. From 1774 to 1777 Mozart is employed as Concert Master for the Archbishop-Prince of Salzburg. In 1778 Mozart’s mother died in Paris and afterwards Mozart moves to Vienna in 1781 where he remains until his death in 1791 working a free-lance composer, piano teacher  and performer. In 1782 he married Constanze Weber, sister of Aloysia who had earlier rejected Mozart. They had seven children but only two survived infancy. During his ten years in Vienna, Mozart had considerable success, living off commissions and performances, and wrote over 800 compositions, including the famous operas Don Giovanni, The Magic Flute, The Marriage of Figaro, and Così fan tutte, three renowned symphonies, nos. 39, 40 and 41 composed between June and August 1788, concertante including Eine kleine Nachtmusik K.525, concertos for strings and wind, chamber music including string quintets and piano quartets, vocal music, and.  masses, most notably the Mass in C Minor K.427 However,  he and his wife were extravagant in their living arrangements and he died in 1791 penniless and was buried in a pauper’s grave in Vienna.

Background and inspiration to The Marriage of Figaro

Figaro was based on the comedy La Folle Journée ou Le Mariage de Figaro written in 1778 by the French playwright Pierre Augustin de Beaumarchais (1732-1799) and formed part of a trilogy preceded by The Barber of Seville and succeeded by The Guilty Mother. The Le Mariage de Figaro had been an enormous success on its première in Paris in 1784 and was seen as an attack on aristocratic privilege foreshadowing the French revolution in 1789. The play attracted Mozart’s attention because of its success in Paris and the reputation of Beaumarchais.

Musical period, characteristics of music, libretto and story

The Marriage of Figaro was composed by Mozart between October 1875 and April 1876 when at the height of his fame in Vienna and during what is known as the classical period in music (c.1750-1825). The opera was commissioned by Emperor Joseph II The opera is in the tradition of opera buffa or comic opera which originated in Naples and Venice in the early eighteenth century. The libretto, in Italian, was written by Lorenzo da Ponte (1749-1838) an accomplished opera librettist who also wrote the librettos for Mozart’s operas Don Giovanni (1787) and Cosi fan tutte (1790). The story of the opera closely follows that of Beaumarchais’ play although edited down in length. The story follows on from The Barber of Seville with Figaro, then the barber of Seville now the Count of Almaviva’s valet, who is about to marry Susanna, maid to the Count’s wife Rosina. The complicated plot centres on Figaro’s attempts to thwart the Count exercising a droit de seigneur over  Susanna by involving Cherubino, the Count’s page,  as a diversionary love interest. The action of the opera occurs over a single day on the wedding day of Figaro and Susanna at the Count’s castle near Seville in Spain. Ponte’s libretto removes much of the subversive political message of Beaumarchais play, which Napoleon had said ‘contained all the revolution’, and turned the opera into a romantic comedy with a particular focus on the relationship between Susanna and the Countess. The Overture to Figaro is in abridged sonata form in D Major and is independent musically from the main opera which is divided into four Acts. The first Act is made up of a chorus, three duets, a terzetto, three arias and the famous cavatina se vuol ballare; the second Act of a cavatina, an arietta, an aria, a terzetto, a duetinno and a concluding finale ‘Esci omai, gaezon malnato’, which is the longest uninterrupted piece of music Mozart ever wrote lasting 20 minutes!; the third Act of two duetinnos, two  recitativos and arias, a sestetto, a coro and finale; the fourth Act a cavatina, Wiener Realzeitung: the whole cast sing a song of  joyous

Public reaction to the first performance

The première of the Marriage of Figaro took place on 1 May 1786 at the Imperial Burgtheater in Vienna. Mozart directed the first two performances, with Francesco Benucci, a celebrity bass-baritone, playing Figaro and Nancy Storace, an English soprano, playing Suzanne. The Irish tenor Michael Kelly sang the roles of Don  Basilio, the court’s music master, and Don Curzio, the judge. The opera had nine performance at the Burgtheater in 1786 However, the opera had a mixed reception in Vienna from the audience due to the complexity of the music but received critical acclaim including from Mozart’s contemporary Joseph Haydn (1732-1809). The political dimension to the opera was alluded to in a press review on 11 July 1786 in the Wiener Realzeitung: ‘What in our time is not permitted to be said is sung.’ The opera then moved to Prague from December 1786 to January 1787 where it was a tremendous success with Mozart himself conducting a performance on 22 January. Mozart wrote of the opera’s reception in Prague: “for here nothing is spoken of but – Figaro; nothing played, sung and whistled but – Figaro.”  The opera was revived in Vienna in 1789 for which Mozart made a number of changes including replacing two of the arias performed by Suzanne.

Popularity today

The Marriage of Figaro remains a central element of the modern operatic repertoire. It comes eighth on the list of most popular operas by number of performances compiled by Operabase for 2017/18.  The only one of Mozart’s operas performed more often is The Magic Flute which is third. Don Giovanni is in ninth position.  The Marriage of Figaro has been recorded by many of the great conductors, including by Erich Kleiber, Karl Böhm, Sir George Solti, Colin Davis, Herbert von Karajan, and  Claudio Abbado.

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