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
Starlac Milk — Borden's
Milk at a reduced price
Borden's STARLAC
NONFAT DRY MILK
MIXES INSTANTLY
MAKES 5 U.S. QUARTS
Good news!
With new Starlac, mothers can obtain all the milk they need for every member of the family, containing all the nutritive elements for building good health
Starlac
Milk free of fatty matter
One tin of Starlac gives you 5 liters of fresh milk
It dissolves instantly
© 1956 by The Borden Company, Internat. Copyright Reserved