Mozart: The Master Surveyor of Man; Part Four

This is part four of five where we will cover Le nozze di Figaro. I follow the librettos found in Three Mozart Libretti, Dover Edition, 1993. This post became longer than I initially thought. 

I must confess that I prefer to watch this opera instead of listening to it, it is very funny in a way. It is always funny with misunderstandings, people trying to outsmart each other, mistaken identities and so on. In short: It is very fun. At the same time it is not funny at all. We find out that the Count Almaviva is a serial adulterer, breaking the marriage covenant time and time again, but he has not always been like this, once they loved each other, and cherished one another. 

I am going to review things I deem important, not what other critiques might have or would say, bear with me. I am trying to apply themes in the operas of Mozart to the Christian, and his life, and to find “spiritual gifts” (only the Spirit of God can give true spiritual gifts) in them, to find theology in the magic world of Mozart’s music.

We will view the Count Almaviva, the Countess Rosina Almaviva, Susanna the Countess’s maid, Figaro, the Count’s valet, and Cherubino the count’s page. There are many people who want to prevent this marriage between Figaro and Susanna. We have the Count that intends to have Susanna for himself, we have Marcellina who herself wants to marry Figaro, and her goal is to make the Count unsuccessful in his plans with Susanna so that the marriage will fail; she has lent Figaro money, and if he fails to pay her back he has to marry her, so she too, has the goal of preventing the marriage. 

The opera starts with Figaro measuring their room which the Count “graciously” has given Figaro and Susanna who are soon to be married. When Susanna gets the news she says that they shall not accept the offer from the Count since he has ulterior motives for his generosity. Figaro cannot understand her insinuations, so she tells him that the Count is planning to reinstate the old feudal right he once had abolished, to have the bride the first night before the husband. Figaro is rightfully wroth with the Count and tries to find a way out of it. Listen to it: Hermann Prey and Mirella Freni. The music of Mozart is so exquisite. 

Susanna is called away and Figaro is left by himself forming a plan to thwart the plans of the Count. Susanna returns to find Marcellina and her lawyer in her room, it is clear that they resent each other. It is a great duet between Susanna (Anna Moffo) and Marcellina.

When they leave Susanna Cherubino arrives, the Count’s page, which is like a hormone-ridden teenager that loves every woman, but maybe most of all the Countess. This is a very funny scene.

Cherubino has come, he sings about his love for all woman, at the same time comes the Count, and Cherubino has to hide himself, a few moments later comes the curious and all-seeing Don Basilio, so the Count most also hide in this room. Susanna tries to rid him without any luck, and Don Basilio starts to speak about how the Count would be a perfect lover unto Susanna, which makes the Count delighted, then he starts to tell how Cherubino stares at the Countess, and what if the Count sees it, how it would be devastating, and how everyone is gossiping about Cherubino and the Countess, and the Count cannot take it any longer and stands up, and Don Basilio and Susanna want to flee from this situation, and the Count is asking what everyone is gossiping about. Don Basilio tries to excuse himself, he had talked before he had thought it through, and Susanna nearly faints and both the men try to both help her and take advantage of her, and at the same time they say that her honor is safe with them. When they try to put her on the same place where Cherubino is hiding she wakes up. And the Count is recounting the day before when he found Cherubino hidden with Barbarina and when he shows how he removed the cloth and found Cherubino Susanna shuts her eyes, and Count Almaviva (Gerald Finley) finds the page, all the while Susanna wants to disappear through the ground Don Basilio enjoys himself, since he is a real gossip. 

Cherubino asks the Count to forgive him which he cannot do, but when Cherubino says: “Even a child can repeat what he hears,” he has heard the whole conversation the Count has had with Susanna, the Count instead says that he will make Cherubino into a soldier at his regiment, and says that he has to go at once. Figaro has arrived, and he whispers to Cherubino that he shall stay while he sings: “No longer, you amorous butterfly, will you enjoy your customary boudoir excursions! No longer will you disturb the sleep of beautiful women, you Narcissu, you Adonia of love… You’ll live among soldiers… a gun on your shoulder and a sword at your side.” This is the conclusion of the first act.

The second act starts with the Countess Amaviva, and she sings a beautiful aria Porgi amor, “Is there no consolation, O God of Love, in return for my sorrows and my sighs? Either restore my dearest one’s affection to me, or let me find peace in death!” Kiri te Kanawa sings this beautifully.

Susanna comes to the room of the Countess and asks her to finish the story, and Susanna says that she has told her everything, and the Countess asks if the Count had tried to seduce her and she replies that he instead offered her money, and the Countess says that the Count no longer can love her, and Susanna asks why the Count then is so jealous, and the Countess replies: “That’s the custom of modern husbands; they’re unfaithful by philosophy, capricious by character, and jealous as a matter of pride.” Figaro arrives and tells them about his plan, he will send a note saying that the Countess will met a lover in the garden, the Countess fears what the Count will do, and Figaro says: “All the better. We’ll be able to embarrass him, confound him, confuse him, overturn all his plans, fill him with suspicions, and fix it in his mind that the trick he’s trying to play on me may be played on him by others.” At the same time shall Susanna make plans with the Count in the garden while they plan to send in Cherubino in women’s clothes to fool the Count, while he will be discovered by the Countess. He sends Cherubino to them.

This scene is also very funny; the Countess, Susanna and Cherubino think that the Count has gone hunting, but he arrives early since he has found Figaro’s note, and Cherubino has to hide in her closet, Susanna has just gone out when the Count knocks on the door. Cherubino knocks something over in the closet which they all hear, and the Count asks who is in the closet. The Countess says that Susanna is in there. The Count commands Susanna to come out, while the Countess commands her to stay in the closet. The Counts ask why, and the Countess replies because of modesty. The Counts then commands Susanna to answer him while the Countess commands her to be silent. Gerald Finley plays this role with perfection together with Dorothea Röschmann as the Countess.

One can understand that the Count is suspicious. The Count takes with him the Countess to get some tools to open the door, and locks everything. Susanna has already been able to sneak into the room and lets Cherubino out who escapes through the windows and Susanna goes into the closet. 

When the Count and Countess return to the room, the Countess says it is not Susanna who hides in the closet, and the Count is really wondering who it is. It is merely a boy she says, the Counts fears the worst, and he has a bare chest, it cannot get any worse for the Count who promises to kill the page, Cherubino, who he never seems to get rid of. And when he is about to open the door Susanna comes out, and both the Count and Countess are shocked since both of them expected Cherubino. We shall not stop here, but it is one of the funniest scenes in the opera. The Count is angry, and he is, which was Figaro's intent, confused of everything that has happened this day.

One thing in this opera which makes it hard to play is that the Count is nearly always angry. Few are able to convey this, but Gerald Finley is grandiose in his portrait of the depraved and hard heartened Count that is so marred by his sins of commission and sins of omission in every aspect of his life. 

So when the Count tries to repent of his wrongs which he does with excuses, his wife, the Countess, snubs at him, and when he tries to get any help from Susanna they both say that he got what he deserved with his “false” suspicions. And then comes Figaro, and the gardener. It is also a great scene of the opera, with great many misunderstandings: who jumped from the window? Was it one man or two, or a man on a horse? Figaro claims it was he who jumped because of the letter he had written to the Count, and the Count wants to punish Figaro because of this, but then do both Susanna and the Countess say that he will not be forgiven since he does not forgive others. Let us remember that this is a theme in Scripture. The one who does not forgive will not be  forgiven of God. This is how the second act ends.

Act III starts with Count trying to understand what has happened this day. He does not know what to believe. And the Countess sends Susanna to the Count to lure him to the garden later. Let us view this great encounter between the Count and Susanna. The Counts is filled with desire which he cannot control and is easily deceived. Nothing is more dangerous than sexual desires that run amok unchecked. It is a force that is very hard to control. Listen and watch Miah Persson and Gerald Finley sing; it is so beautiful, and in a way funny, and it shows how desires can take over a man and his reason. 

The Count is happy, but when Susanna leaves Figaro arrives and she says to him that they have won, and when the Counts hear this he understands that he has been deceived, and he decides that Figaro must Mary Marcellina as punishment. Figaro asks for time to find his parents and when he tells how and where he was found as a child it becomes clear to Marcellina that Figaro is her son and the lawyer his father. So the Count’s plan is thwarted again. This is a beautiful scene in the opera, and also funny. Nothing goes the Count's way this day. 

But the Countess still loves her husband and wants him back to the happy love they once had. So the Countess still asks Susanna to meet the Count in the garden, and they write a letter to him to make him come, which is a great duet between the Countess (Kiri te Kanawa) and Susanna (Mirella Freni).

Susanna leaves this letter with the Count at the wedding ceremony, Figaro is ignorant of all this but when he finds out, he thinks that Susanna is going to brake their wedding covenant, and he is enraged and goes to the garden to find her in the very act and to take his revenge. 

This is the great ending of the opera, with more misunderstandings and mistaken identities. Everyone is in the garden: Susanna dressed as the Countess, the Countess dressed as Susanna, Figaro as himself on guard, the Count thinking he has won the prize, and everyone else. 

When the Count comes to Susanna who in reality is his wife, he tries to seduce her, Figaro sees everything and is devastated. Then comes Susanna dressed as the Countess and Figaro tries to explain how the Count has gone away with his wife, and that he wants revenge, but when Figaro understands that it is his wife hearing Susanna’s voice he pretends to seduce her as the Countess, which enraged Susanna. Then comes the Count, and they understand that the Count has not yet seen through their deception, and they set out to make the Count jealous who believes that Figaro is making advances at his wife. When they are commanded to come out they ask the Count for forgiveness which he refuses. Then comes the Countess, and the Count, for maybe the first time in his life, understands how he has destroyed his wife. In a way, killed her through his adulteries and hardness of heart. And she forgives him when he for the first time begs for forgiveness without any excuses. The Countess has such grace and strength. 

This opera is about man's sin and depravity and hardness of heart and how it destroys everything, the Count does not only destroys himself; he destroys everything he touches: his wife, Figaro, Susanna, and his staff. He destroys everything, and still does his wife find the resolve to forgive him. This is the great strength of the opera: forgiveness without cause. That is how God forgives man. That is the thing I cannot understand how God forgave me without cause. I am forever thankful to God that saved and redeemed me. And this opera is able to retell the great message that forgiveness is something incredible, something beautiful, that it is a kind of grace. Forgiveness without cause. I can only ask every reader to take up a Bible and to read about how God sent his only-begotten Son to die as a substitute for man, atoning for our sins, and he did that already when we were his enemies, with our backs turned at him. Still, he calls us out from darkness to give life and forgiveness, let us turn to him in repentance and faith because he has promised: "All that the Father giveth me shall come to me; and him that cometh to me I will in no wise cast out" (John 6:37). Come thou unto him. 

We have not touched much on the music of the opera. But I never get tired of listening to Mozart's three great operas: Le nozze di Figaro, Don Giovanni and Così fan tutte. They contain the most perfect and beautiful music and singing that ever has been created by man, and they all have great messages of truth: sin and depravity, hardness of heart, forgiveness, love, joy, reprobation, that the heart is deceitful above all, and that the wages of sin is death. They are funny and have great depth. Mozart was a genius in the creation of the characters and the music that conveys so many sides of the character and his feelings. I remember an interview with the conductor Harnoncourt, he was convinced that Mozart had much to do with the librettos of his operas, and of course the librettist, da Ponte, was a master in story telling. He had a background as a Catholic priest so he knew all of the examples and stories of Scripture. And he became the first professor of Italian literature at Columbia University. But da Ponte was also a very depraved man who lived a dissolute life, he knew both depravity and grace, and that is what we see in Mozart's da Ponte operas. 

I can truly recommend these two great video releases of this great opera. The videos in this post come from both of these: a DVD from 1976, which you may find at Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Mozart-Nozze-Figaro-Hermann-Prey/dp/B0007P0LNO. Or a release from 2006 from the Royal Opera House in London, which you may find it at Presto Music: https://www.prestomusic.com/classical/products/7980427--mozart-le-nozze-di-figaro-k492.