Le Nozze di Figaro

[ChandlersFord]

What exactly are we supposed to admire about this opera, considered (by some) one of the greatest ever written?

I've seen it in the theatre only once: David McVicar's Covent Garden production, still in repertoire. I'd listened to it several times before that, of course, and each time I'd found myself giving up on it some time after the end of Act 1. The plot is far too complex to command the attention and, for a comedy, it is far, far too long.

There are some good 'hit songs' along the way and a nice overture, but it's a tedious piece of work taken as a whole.

Maybe the people who acclaim it are people who only listen to excerpts discs?

I've made a decent attempt to appreciate this opera - I even tried watching a Blu Ray last month, but it was no good. I don't think the greatest singers, orchestra and conductor who ever lived would be able to convince me that this is anything other than a long, unfunny joke of an opera, and one that lacks a punchline, to boot.

When Da Ponte cracks a joke, it's no laughing matter .....

[french frank]

When Da Ponte cracks a joke, it's no laughing matter .....

Explaining the joke doesn't help much either! I suppose the 'joke' - i.e. the plot - is Beaumarchais' rather than Da Ponte's. The only thing I'd (half) agree about is that the opera should be experienced as intended - live in the theatre. "A long unfunny joke"? Only one joke? No "punchline"? Isn't the closing chorus the punchline (a much better one than the moralising ensemble at the end of Don Giovanni, I think). But if it doesn't appeal, it doesn't. At this stage there's probably no chance of a damascene conversion, if you wanted one. My own favourite Mozart opera is Die Entführung (few people would consider it his "greatest") and I'm not keen on Don Giovanni which some would put at the very top. I'm not interested in people explaining to me why my judgement is faulty.

As for Le Nozze, you could say the "joke" was overlong, but what about the music?

[ChandlersFord]

Explaining the joke doesn't help much either! I suppose the 'joke' - i.e. the plot - is Beaumarchais' rather than Da Ponte's. The only thing I'd (half) agree about is that the opera should be experienced as intended - live in the theatre. "A long unfunny joke"? Only one joke? No "punchline"? Isn't the closing chorus the punchline (a much better one than the moralising ensemble at the end of Don Giovanni, I think). But if it doesn't appeal, it doesn't. At this stage there's probably no chance of a damascene conversion, if you wanted one. My own favourite Mozart opera is Die Entführung (few people would consider it his "greatest") and I'm not keen on Don Giovanni which some would put at the very top. I'm not interested in people explaining to me why my judgement is faulty.

As for Le Nozze, you could say the "joke" was overlong, but what about the music?

That's my favourite Mozart opera, too.

The music is 'marvellous', of course, even if it doesn't always compel my attention. But I think you need more than marvellous music to make a good opera. People with sharper ears than mine and better knowledge of voices will no doubt enlighten me as to how brilliantly Mozart constructs his trios, septets, whatever, but the doesn't amount to much given..... Figaro's seriously flawed dramaturgy. I can well believe a lot of people give up on the plot, which wearies the mind with its contortions.

Don Giovanni is better than .....Figaro, but it also suffers from longeurs and it can seem like a long wait to get to the marvellous 'confrontation' scene.

Cosi Fan Tutte has a similarly tedious plot line to ...Figaro, and some would also argue that it's a 'nasty story'; I have a lot more tolerance for it than for ....Figaro but, again, I don't think it's a flawless masterwork.

I guess I don't really rate WAM as an operatic composer: but I'm not alone in my eccentric opinion. Edward Downes agreed with me.

[smittims]

Ah, ChandlersFord, how the years roll back! You remind me of someone on Another Place who used to post 'Mozart-is-rubbish' threads from time to time.

To take your first question literally (I'm that sort of person I'm afraid), I'm not aware that anyone is 'supposed' to admire it. If you don't like it, there's no need to listen to it. I wonder if it's your lack of appreciation of it that's the problem here, rather than anything Mozart or his libbrettist did. We all have our blind spots: ther's a number of highly-accalimed composers who I think are overrated. Many people don't like Mozart at all, and even more people don't like any classical music. Why bother, unless it troubles you that others like it and you don't?

I must take up one or two of your points, though. There are plenty of people who love 'Figaro' and rate it amongst the finest of operas who have indeed seen it in the theatre many times, and have written about their admiration for it. And I don't find the plot complex at all, given the length of the work. Everything I think is dealt with in good order.

I'd be interested to know if you feel the same about other operas . Fidelio, Dionizzetti, Verdi, Wagner?

[french frank]

I'm not alone in my eccentric opinion. Edward Downes agreed with me.

Nothing wrong with eccentricity! I suppose we're dealing with a feature of opera - "silly plots with music". I do rate Le Nozze even if I don't see a lot of point in comparing it with anything, or judging how well it bears up in the face of simple rules for opera. I appreciate its moments, probably the two most touching moments involving the countess - when she laments her lost love and happiness and when she forgives her errant husband. And that probably says something about me! One person could dismiss it as trite and corny, another feels emotionally involved. But there are a number of "jokes" (not just one: Marcellina-Susanna, Cherubino-Almaviva, Antonio the stock Shakespearean comedy figure) and several sub plots: Bartolo, Marcellina, Bartolo & Marcellina, Cherubino-Barbarina. The narrative is "busy" but not really complex or difficult to follow.

As with Puccini, I feel my emotions are being manipulated at times, but, hell! I can stand it. It's a question of how well one feels the bits meld together to form an overall satisfactory whole.

[ChandlersFord]

Ah, ChandlersFord, how the years roll back! You remind me of someone on Another Place who used to post 'Mozart-is-rubbish' threads from time to time.

To take your first question literally (I'm that sort of person I'm afraid), I'm not aware that anyone is 'supposed' to admire it. If you don't like it, there's no need to listen to it. I wonder if it's your lack of appreciation of it that's the problem here, rather than anything Mozart or his libbrettist did. We all have our blind spots: ther's a number of highly-accalimed composers who I think are overrated. Many people don't like Mozart at all, and even more people don't like any classical music. Why bother, unless it troubles you that others like it and you don't?

I must take up one or two of your points, though. There are plenty of people who love 'Figaro' and rate it amongst the finest of operas who have indeed seen it in the theatre many times, and have written about their admiration for it. And I don't find the plot complex at all, given the length of the work. Everything I think is dealt with in good order.

I'd be interested to know if you feel the same about other operas . Fidelio, Dionizzetti, Verdi, Wagner?

I'd say Fidelio is an opera people claim to admire rather than to love. Although I prefer it to ....Figaro, the characters are sketchy and more representative of ideas rather than flesh and blood people. Downes, again, did not consider Beethoven an operatic composer (source: conversation with Edward Heath, during the latter's visit to the ROH while leader of the opposition).

Wagner is my favourite composer, so needless to add he's my favourite opera composer, too. Although people complain about the length of his works, they've never struck me as being any longer than they need to be. And his plot lines are simplicity itself.

I'm a selective Verdian (Otello, bits of Traviata, most of Don Carlos, bits of the other 'big ones') but the so-called 'galley years' represent nothing but sheer, trudging mediocrity.

I've enjoyed L'Elisir D'Amore in the opera house, but wouldn't care to listen to it on record. Ditto Lucrezia (both Lammermoor and Borgia). Not so familiar with his lesser works.

[ChandlersFord]

Nothing wrong with eccentricity! I suppose we're dealing with a feature of opera - "silly plots with music". I do rate Le Nozze even if I don't see a lot of point in comparing it with anything, or judging how well it bears up in the face of simple rules for opera. I appreciate its moments, probably the two most touching moments involving the countess - when she laments her lost love and happiness and when she forgives her errant husband. And that probably says something about me! One person could dismiss it as trite and corny, another feels emotionally involved. But there are a number of "jokes" (not just one: Marcellina-Susanna, Cherubino-Almaviva, Antonio the stock Shakespearean comedy figure) and several sub plots: Bartolo, Marcellina, Bartolo & Marcellina, Cherubino-Barbarina. The narrative is "busy" but not really complex or difficult to follow.

As with Puccini, I feel my emotions are being manipulated at times, but, hell! I can stand it. It's a question of how well one feels the bits meld together to form an overall satisfactory whole.

Puccini may have been the supreme opera composer. He'll never be my favourite, but he knew what worked.

Interestingly, for works that seem so theatrically 'right', he was slow in achieving what he wanted, as the troubled history of Butterfly, etc, demonstrates.

I still think the ending of La Fanciulla Del West (a happy one, which is yet heartbreaking for most the characters on stage, and for the listener) shows a genius at work.

[RichardB]

See my comment in the "Mozart's servants" thread. Figaro is based on a play which was seen in the years before the French Revolution as revolutionary and subversive, so that the Da Ponte/Mozart opera, despite its political content being stripped out for performance in conservative Vienna, carried some of that reputation with it. So for me it gains much of its interest and complexity from being seen in the context of its own time and place. It embodies the first stirrings of the idea that an artist might "speak truth to power", apart from its musical qualities, especially Mozart's sensitivity to complex layers of emotion expressed with all possible means, including particularly subtleties of instrumentation, a concept seemingly alien to many later opera composers like Verdi and Puccini although highly developed by Wagner. Mozart achieves miracles within the parameters available to him, and it isn't very fair to judge his operas by the standards of works composed many decades later, when full-blown hysteria had become de rigueur in opera. If you just don't like the way it sounds, that's another thing. As Smittims says, most people don't like any classical music.

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

Mozart was the trigger that started my real love of music. He remains a pinnacle of my appreciation, and two works stand head and shoulders at the top: Symphony no 40 and The Marriage of Figaro.

Only once have I been disappointed with the opera. I went to an Opera North performance in York, where the characters hid behind trees that were effectively small hand mirrors shaped like trees - just another attention-seeking director. But much worse than that was the horribly amplified harpsichord in the recitatives - ugly and unnecessary. But neither of these misjudgements in any way detracted from the magnificence of the opera itself.

[Lordgeous]

Its just the music of Figaro for me, the arias, duets, the magnificent ensembles. Every note is magic. For many years I too didn't "get" Mozart until one day I was soaking in the bath when Figaro came on the radio.... Picture the scene... No, don't! Tears welled up, even in the happiest moments. Suddenly it "clicked" and I realised what the fuss was all about. I've often tried to convince my non-Mozart-fan friends of what lies beneath the 'pretty' surface, usually failing. To me "all human life is there", every emotion. Then there's The Flute, Giovanni.... all wonderful but not as overflowing with genius as Figaro. It would be my "one record" were I condemned to that desert island!

[pastoralguy]

I’ve never really been an opera fan despite having played in a professional opera orchestra. (I always felt it was much more fun to play than to listen to). However, if I had to choose one work to take to the desert island it would be The Marriage of Figaro. The happiest period of my life was playing in a Scottish Opera production of Figaro where playing it nightly was simply an amazing experience. (The conductor asked me in the bar after a performance if I was getting a bit sick of it. I replied I could play it every night for the rest of my life and not get sick of it!)

Perhaps, imvho, the greatest musical work ever created. Mind you, I have absolutely no idea what is going on in the last act!