The World's Most Famous Operas: The Marriage of Figaro

The World's Most Famous Operas

Music by: Wolfgang Mozart (1756–1791)
Rendered into Arabic by: Samir Shikhani

An opera in four acts, adapted from a comedy by Beaumarchais, produced for the first time in Vienna in 1786.

The characters:
• Count Almaviva
• Countess Almaviva
• Figaro: the Count's personal valet
• Susanna: the Countess's personal maid, and Figaro's fiancée
• Cherubino: the Count's servant
• Barbarina: the gardener's daughter
• Dr. Bartolo
• Marcellina: Bartolo's housekeeper
• Don Basilio: a music master
• Don Curzio: a lawyer
• Antonio: a gardener

The time: the eighteenth century
The place: the house of Count Almaviva, near Seville, in Spain

Act One
The scene: a room in the house of Count Almaviva

Several years have passed since the marriage of Count Almaviva and his beloved Rosina. And here is Figaro, the former barber of Seville, become the Count's personal valet, and about to marry his fiancée Susanna, the Countess's personal maid. The room in which the bridal pair are to live lies between the rooms of the Count and the Countess, and Figaro points out that it suits them perfectly should their master and mistress call them, whereas Susanna does not take the same view of making this room their bedchamber.

Susanna declares that the Count has repeatedly tried to flirt with her, as is his right in his capacity as her master and lord of the house. She goes off to the Countess's room, and Figaro gives vent to his jealousy in the song "If You Wish to Dance," in which he declares that he will have something to say if the Count wishes to dance this dance.

He leaves the hall, and in comes old Dr. Bartolo, who nurses a fierce grudge against Figaro, accompanied by his housekeeper Marcellina, a woman of middle age. We learn that Figaro borrowed money from her some time ago, and undertook, in the agreement concluded between them, to marry her if he did not repay this debt. She has come with Dr. Bartolo to catch Figaro in this marriage trap. After Bartolo swears to be revenged on Figaro and goes out, Susanna returns; she and Marcellina exchange stinging words, and the latter goes out in a fury.

Thereupon enters the young servant Cherubino, who has newly discovered the delight of love. He is in love with every woman in the opera, among them Barbarina, the gardener's daughter. Cherubino describes his agitations and emotions to the astonished Susanna in the song "I Know Not What I Am Doing!" No sooner does the Count enter the room than Cherubino hastens to hide behind one of the large chairs, since there is nothing to warrant his presence in that hall; and from his hiding place he hears the Count fixing a rendezvous with Susanna in the garden.

While they are thus engaged, the musician Don Basilio arrives, and the Count in his turn is obliged to hide behind the chair behind which Cherubino has vanished. But the latter slips nimbly around the chair and creeps to another chair, sinking down upon it with care, and Susanna covers him with a cloak. Basilio, for his part, sets about gossiping over the Countess and Cherubino. The Count springs up from his place in anger, and before long discovers Cherubino under the cloak. Matters in this comedy are near to turning ill when Figaro enters at the head of a band of peasants singing and chanting for the Count. This touches him, and he pardons the reckless Cherubino, but decides to attach him to one of the regiments of the army, where he is to be standard-bearer. This does not please Cherubino, but there is nothing to be done. The act ends with a merry military song from Figaro, in which he attempts to tease Cherubino.

Act Two

The scene: the Countess's apartments
The Countess weeps for her first love in the song "O Love, Thou Sacred Impulse," her husband the Count having begun to look at other women. For this reason we find her ready to take part in a plot whose threads have been woven by her maid Susanna and Susanna's betrothed, Figaro.
For Figaro has written a sealed letter to the Count informing him that the Countess has a rendezvous with a man in the garden.
As for Susanna, she will agree to meet the Count in the garden that same night. But Cherubino will go in her place, dressed in women's clothes. Cherubino enters and sings the song "What Is This Feeling?" which turns upon the sweet melancholy that love brings... He tries on one of Susanna's gowns, and the Countess and Susanna are both delighted at his look and his figure in the woman's dress, satisfying themselves that he makes a charming, ravishing girl.

A knock is heard at the door, and the voice of the Count demanding entry. Cherubino hides in the dressing room and shuts its door fast. Susanna hurries into the adjoining room, while the Countess opens the door to her husband. He enters with Figaro's letter in his hand, and demands of the Countess at once to know the reason the door was locked. Before the Countess can answer, the sound of a chair falling to the floor is heard from inside the dressing room. The Countess explains it by saying that Susanna is inside trying on her wedding dress. The Count orders Susanna to come out, but the Countess in her turn orders her to stay where she is. The Count notices that the dressing-room door is bolted; his anger grows, and he announces that he will open it by force, asking his wife to accompany him while he fetches the tools needed to break down the door. No sooner does he leave the hall than the Count locks the door behind him from the outside.

Susanna comes out of her hiding place, and Cherubino comes out as well; she tells him that the door is locked from the outside and there is no escape for him, so he leaps from the window into the garden, and she hides herself in the dressing room. Thus when the Count returns and breaks open the door of the room, he and the Countess are astonished to find Susanna there instead of Cherubino. The Count concludes at once that he has been the butt of a jest, and repents of his flirtation with Susanna. At that moment there arrives a gardener unsteady with drink, complaining that a man jumped from the window into the garden and fell into the middle of one of the flower beds he tends. Fortunately Figaro enters at the right moment and declares that he himself is the person who jumped into the garden. But here the gardener produces Cherubino's enlistment paper (it had fallen from him). Figaro's presence of mind comes to his rescue, and he announces on the spot that he had taken it from Cherubino in order to have it stamped with the official seal in the city. Yet no sooner does Figaro get clear of this awkward predicament than he falls into one more awkward still, for Bartolo, Basilio, and Marcellina all enter, demanding that he keep his promise to marry Marcellina, the ugly housekeeper. The Count agrees to take the legal side of this case into consideration, and the act ends with each of those present giving voice to his feelings over the tangled state that matters have reached.

Act Three

The scene: a spacious hall in the house of Count Almaviva.

The Count is not entirely convinced that his wife is innocent, and that Figaro's conduct stands above the heights of doubt and suspicion. But Susanna calms his fears with a short, sweet song beginning "Long Have You Deceived Me," and promises to meet him in the garden that evening. Presently Marcellina, Bartolo, and the lawyer Don Curzio arrive, and the farcical "trial scene" begins.

The lawyer demands of Figaro either that he repay Marcellina's debt or that he honor what he pledged in the formal undertaking and wed her. But Figaro's thoughts were turned to other matters: for no short time he has suspected that he is of noble birth, stolen from his parents as an infant, his arm marked with a secret birthmark. Marcellina rejoices at what she hears, recognizes this mark, and embraces Figaro — for he is her lost son!...

Susanna enters at that very moment, and it takes a great effort to convince her that Marcellina is embracing Figaro because she is his mother and not her rival.

No sooner is this scene over than we hear a graceful sung dialogue between Barbarina, the gardener's daughter, and the servant Cherubino, followed by a sweet song from the Countess, telling of her love for the Count, which she believes she has lost.

But the plotting does not end there. In the song "How Gentle Is the Breeze" the Countess dictates to Susanna a letter confirming the rendezvous with the Count in the garden — the Countess herself having resolved to disguise herself in Susanna's clothes and meet the Count.

Barbarina arrives with a company of young girls bearing the Countess a gift of roses; Cherubino, disguised in a girl's dress, has mingled among them. But Antonio exposes him. This poor fellow is forever being found out on suspicious occasions! Jealousy flares up in the Count's breast anew, but this time Barbarina saves the situation, announcing that she and Cherubino are in love and wish to marry.

The curtains at the back of the stage part to show a broad staircase, down which comes a great throng of people who have come to celebrate the wedding of Figaro and Susanna.

The act closes with dancing, in a merry atmosphere of weddings and rejoicings.

Act Four

The scene: the garden of Count Almaviva's house.

This closing act brings the happy resolution of the various plots whose threads have been spun in the course of the story. Its events take place at night, in the garden.

At the opening of this scene Figaro sings the song "Open Your Eyes a Little," addressing it to men, and speaking in it of the faithlessness of wives. Susanna is heard singing, for her part, the song "Ah, Why Have You Delayed So Long?" in which she speaks of her love for Figaro; but Figaro, eavesdropping at the edge of the garden, believes that she is singing of her love for the Count.

Cherubino arrives and sets about searching for Barbarina in the darkness; he stumbles upon the Countess disguised in Susanna's clothes and begins to flirt with her. The Count discovers the pair, drives Cherubino away, and flirts with her in his turn, believing his wife to be Susanna. Figaro, meanwhile, who is gradually following what is going on around him, finds Susanna disguised in the Countess's clothes and sets about courting her. Matters grow more and more entangled when the Count discovers Figaro's presence and believes he is courting the Countess (who is in truth Susanna); he seizes him and calls the others. Susanna keeps up her disguise and, in alarm, begs the Count's pardon. Before long the real Countess appears and reveals herself...

The Count realizes that he has fallen into the trap; he drops to his knees before the Countess and asks her forgiveness, begging pardon. The Countess forgives him his offense. And the opera ends with the coming together of the happy couples... the Count and the Countess, Figaro and Susanna, Cherubino and Barbarina, and Dr. Bartolo and Marcellina.