History

"How charming of his lordship! He wants
some fun: he'll get it.."
Act I, Scene 1

Le nozze di Figaro, ossia la folle giornata (The Marriage of Figaro, or the Day of Madness), is an opera buffa (comic opera) 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).

Although 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. The overture is especially famous and is often played as a concert piece.

The Marriage of Figaro was first performed at the Odeon on 27 April 1784. The opera was the first of three collaborations between Mozart and Da Ponte; their later collaborations were Don Giovanni and Così fan tutte. 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. In particular, Da Ponte replaced Figaro's climactic speech against inherited nobility with an equally angry aria against unfaithful wives. Contrary to the popular myth, the libretto was approved by the Emperor, Joseph II, before any music was written by Mozart.

The Imperial Italian opera company paid Mozart 450 florins for the work; this was three times his salary for a year, when he had worked as a court musician in Salzburg.

Emperor Joseph II was indirectly responsible for preserving this magnificent opera score for posterity. Joseph II was looking for an opera to be produced at the imperial court. Mozart's work was one of the works under consideration, along with several others by contemporary composers. With the scant success Mozart had received to that point, he reportedly swore that if his work was passed over, he would toss the entire score into the fire.

The work is now regarded as a cornerstone of the standard operatic repertoire and it appears as number six on Opera America's list of the 20 most-performed operas in North America.