Mozart’s servants’ lot in life.

[JasonPalmer]

Looking forward to this.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000s8w6

Donald Macleod looks at the pivotal roles played by the servants in Mozart's operas Le nozze di Figaro, Così fan tutte and Don Giovanni.

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

It’s really Da Ponte’s servants, but an interesting topic nevertheless.

[JasonPalmer]

Pity the singing is not in English.

[smittims]

Well, let's remember that Mozart himself, and his father, were, technically at least, 'servants' of the Cardinal Archbishop. That must have given him an insight into the problems and frustrations of a servant's life.

For most of us, I imagine. it's a lost world, and one difficult to envisage. Sevants were a class, a remnant of the feudal society, known as 'household', between family and employees. Some, Figaro and Leporello for example , evolved complex relations with their employers, sometimes leading to privileged positions. Anyone reading Osbert Sitwell's life will find this in his father's butler, Henry Moat. At times it could even be like a sort of marriage: learning how to survive , and get round each other .

[RichardB]

The play by Pierre Beaumarchais’ (La folle journée), produced in 1784, on which Le nozze di Figaro is based, was described by the revolutionary Georges Danton as sufficiently subversive of the feudal order to be “killing off the nobility”, although it was stripped of all its political references in order to evade the imperial Viennese censor of the time. (See David Coward's introduction to his English translations of Beaumarchais' Figaro plays.)

[french frank]

The play by Pierre Beaumarchais’ (La folle journée), produced in 1784, on which Le nozze di Figaro is based, was described by the revolutionary Georges Danton as sufficiently subversive of the feudal order to be “killing off the nobility”, although it was stripped of all its political references in order to evade the imperial Viennese censor of the time. (See David Coward's introduction to his English translations of Beaumarchais' Figaro plays.)

And, if I remember, Figaro's monologue in the play is explicitly anti-nobility and the social order. He rants about the count, an undeserving individual, being born to have so much, his 'entitlement' as would be said now. In the opera the monologue is there but Figaro, his suspicions aroused about Susanna and Almaviva, rants against women and their faithlessness and how men are deceived. I have a vague feeling there was some kind of discussion with the emperor to ensure that the opera plot met with his approval and would not be banned (unlike Beaumarchais' play). I may be mistaken about that. But there is no explicit social criticism, just the outwitting of the count by resourceful servants.

[RichardB]

there is no explicit social criticism, just the outwitting of the count by resourceful servants.

Yes, but of course Beaumarchais would have been known in Vienna by reputation, even though his play couldn't be performed there, so that a certain amount of his banned social criticism would no doubt have been floating around in the audience's minds when they saw the opera.

[french frank]

Yes, but of course Beaumarchais would have been known in Vienna by reputation, even though his play couldn't be performed there, so that a certain amount of his banned social criticism would no doubt have been floating around in the audience's minds when they saw the opera.

I'm not sure how well the play's content would have been generally familiar to the Viennese audience, but it does seem to me to have been a very daring - and interesting - choice (I think Mozart's) for the new partnership's first opera.

[french frank]

Though getting back to the servants' 'lot in life', in Figaro they seem a pretty happy-go-lucky crowd. There is the feudal echo of the 'droit de seigneur' but the tables are soon turned without too much trouble. The count is a villainous aristocrat but the countess is in league with the servants to outwit and humble him.

[smittims]

'Figaro' has an interesting precursor in 'La Finta Giardiniera', which also features a lecherous landowner, cheeky servants, revealed identities and disguises in a garden at night. So it wasn't unfamiliar territory for Mozart.

[Mandryka]

It made me see how uncomfortable I am with Radio 3. Too slow! Too smug! Too many musical excerpts breaking up the flow of the argument! Surely they could have made a programme a quarter of the length and found someone with a Manc accent to present it. Hate it!

They need to add a "move forward 5 minutes" button on the player thingy.