Music

Mozart's music in The Marriage of Figaro is well-crafted and immensely sophisticated but also tuneful and infectious. It is scored for two flutes, two oboes, two clarinets, two bassoons, two horns, two trumpets, timpani, and strings; the recitativi are accompanied by a keyboard instrument, usually a fortepiano or a harpsichord, often joined by a cello. The instrumentation of the recitativi is not given in the score, so it is up to the conductor and the performers.

In spite of all the sorrow, anxiety, and anger the characters experience, only one number is in a minor key: Barbarina's brief aria L'ho perduta at the beginning of Act IV, where she mourns the loss of the pin and worries about what her master will say when she fails to deliver it, is written in F minor. Other than this the entire opera is set in major keys.

Figaro in popular culture

The overture was used in the opening to the 1983 film Trading Places. The second act aria Voi che sapete was used in the TV series The Sopranos and in the first-season Mad Men episode "The Marriage of Figaro". The third act aria Vedro mentre io sospiro was featured in the 1987 film, The Running Man as the entrance theme for one of the eponymous game-show's "Stalkers", Dynamo. The actor playing Dynamo (Erland Van Lidth) was also a classically trained bass-baritone, providing the voice for the piece himself. The third act duet Sull'aria... Che soave zeffiretto was used in the 1994 film The Shawshank Redemption.