– Mozart directed the orchestra, playing his fortepiano the joy which this music causes is so far removed from all sensuality that one cannot speak of it. " Storace, the beautiful singer, enchanted eye, ear, and soul. The Hungarian poet Ferenc Kazinczy was in the audience for a May performance, and later remembered the powerful impression the work made on him: It contains so many beauties, and such a wealth of ideas, as can be drawn only from the source of innate genius." It heard many a bravo from unbiassed 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.Īpart from that, it is true that the first performance was none of the best, owing to the difficulties of the composition.īut 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. The public, however … did not really know on the first day where it stood. "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. It alludes to interference probably produced by paid hecklers, but praises the work warmly: The newspaper Wiener Realzeitung carried a review of the opera in its issue of 11 July 1786.
The requested posters were printed up and posted in the Burgtheater in time for the third performance on 24 May (Deutsch 1965, p. You will therefore cause some posters to this effect to be printed." "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. 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 as follows: The applause of the audience on the first night resulted in five numbers being encored, seven on 8 May (Deutsch 1965, p. The first production was given eight further performances, all in 1786.Īlthough 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 (Solomon 1995), the premiere is generally judged to have been a success. Mozart himself directed the first two performances, conducting seated at the keyboard, the custom of the day. Performance historyFigaro premiered at the Burgtheater in Vienna on, the cast for which is included in the "Roles" section below. The Imperial Italian opera company paid Mozart 450 florins for the work this was three times his (low) salary for a year, when he had worked as a court musician in Salzburg (Solomon 1995). Contrary to the popular myth, the libretto was approved by the Emperor, Joseph II, before any music was written by Mozart.
In particular, Da Ponte replaced Figaro's climactic speech against inherited nobility with an equally angry aria against unfaithful wives. It was Mozart who originally selected Beaumarchais' 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.
CompositionThe opera was the first of three collaborations between Mozart and Da Ponte their later collaborations were Don Giovanni and Così fan tutte. The musical material of the overture is not used later in the work, aside from two brief phrases during the Count's part in the terzetto Cosa sento! in act 1.
The overture is especially famous and is often played as a concert piece. 492, is an opera buffa (comic opera) composed in 1786 in four acts by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, with Italian libretto by Lorenzo Da Ponte, based on a stage comedy by Pierre Beaumarchais, La folle journée, ou le Mariage de Figaro (1784).Īlthough the play by Beaumarchais was at first banned in Vienna because of its satire of the aristocracy, considered dangerous in the decade before the French Revolution, the opera became one of Mozart's most successful works. By Luigi Speranza for "Gli Operai" nozze di Figaro, ossia la folle giornata (The Marriage of Figaro, or The Day of Madness), K.