Music Holiday Work the Revolution in Action
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AQA Music GCE – Summer Work 2021 Nene Park Academy Music Department Music Holiday work In this booklet you will find: An article to read Further reading suggestions Online course suggestions Preparing for your A-Level Holiday work The Revolution in Action Le Nozze di Figaro begins with the imagination of a bed. The curtain opens on a room in the house of Count Almaviva. His manservant, Figaro, is to be married to Susanna later that day and this will be their new quarters. Figaro is trying to work out the best position for their marriage bed: 'Five, ten, twenty', he sings. Susanna, in the meantime, is trying on a hat or a veil for the wedding. She attempts to get Figaro's attention: 'Look at me for a moment'. These twin preoccupations with sex and fashion seem transparent and familiar to a 21st-century audience. But, as ever with Mozart, simple things mean so much more than they say. Here are two basic freedoms that we take for granted – power over what you wear, and choice of sexual partner. But for Figaro and Susanna, as servants, neither is straightforward. Figaro might be happy with their allocated room: 'If by chance Madam should call you in the night, din din, then in two steps you'll be there'. But Susanna is all too well aware that the lascivious Count will be just as handily near by, ready to claim droit de seigneur. In the same way – as Mozart's first audiences would have known – sumptuary laws in Europe had long forbidden 'superfluity' for the lower classes and dictated who could wear what. It is easy to forget the radical politics that drive this opera, but they are there even in this opening scene. Le nozze di Figaro – ossia la folle giornata (Figaro's wedding or the Mad Day) premiered in 1786, is the first of the three brilliant collaborations between Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and Lorenzo Da Ponte, the other two being Don Giovanni (1787) and Così fan tutte (1790). It was Mozart who chose the subject, but it was Da Ponte who created one of the most subtle librettos in all the operatic repertoire. Mozart, unlike Da Ponte, had been a professional musician from childhood, and he demanded the same rigorous dedication from his librettist. 'In opera', wrote Mozart, 'the poetry must be the obedient daughter of the music. The best thing is when a good composer, who understands the stage enough to make sound suggestions, meets an able poet, that true phoenix.' Together, Mozart and Da Ponte changed the whole direction of the operatic form. Early operas had been based on myth and told stories of heroes, gods and goddesses. Here Da Ponte shows us real people in real situations, attempting – as he said – 'to paint faithfully and in full colour the diverse passions that are aroused'. In this work even the lower classes are allowed to feel. When Figaro understands the implications of Susanna's anxieties about the Count, his fury is expressed in the Act I aria 'Se vuol ballare' (If you want to dance). AQA Music GCE – Summer Work 2021 Nene Park Academy Music Department Mozart gives him a classic stately three-four minuet which breaks out into swift scales of rage to match Da Ponte's words, 'but I'll play the tune …'. Le nozze di Figaro, based on Beaumarchais's 1778 sequel to his equally famous Le Barbier de Séville (1773), picks up after Figaro, the barber, has successfully assisted Count Almaviva in rescuing Rosina from the machinations of her guardian Don Bartolo. In Le nozze di Figaro – in both Beaumarchais and Mozart – Almaviva has tired of Rosina, now his Countess, and is looking elsewhere for entertainment. While Le Barbier de Séville was a straightforward comedy, Le Mariage de Figaro is a much darker play with considerably more emphasis on the class struggle played out between Figaro and his master. So much so, that many critics have read this play as a foreshadowing of the events that unfolded 11 years later during the French Revolution. In Austria, the Empress Maria Theresa and, more especially, her son Joseph II, practised an enlightened absolutism and introduced reforms in the class system. So, in spite of its seditious qualities, Da Ponte was granted official permission by Joseph II to make Beaumarchais's play into an opera. But there was still the power of the censor to consider, so Da Ponte and Mozart laced their politics with comedy. While the Count is pursuing Susanna, Marcellina, one-time housekeeper to Dr Bartolo, has hired him as a lawyer to advise her on her rights over Figaro. She has lent him money some while ago and, if he reneges on the loan, he is bound to marry her. Susanna and Marcellina mutually loathe each other, but they both observe scrupulous politeness in giving way at the door… 'The bride to be' says Marcellina. 'The lady of honour' bows Susanna. 'Your merit', 'Your fine dress', 'Your position'. But Susanna finally wins with 'Your great age'. One of the most intriguing characters in Le nozze di Figaro is Cherubino, a young gentleman of the court who is devoted to the Countess – and to Susanna – and to every lady in the world. As in Beaumarchais's play, Cherubino is always played by a woman, emphasising his boyish tenderness, but also giving scope for much comic by-play with cross-dressing the boy-who-is-really-a-girl, which works as well today as it did then. From one tiny hint in Beaumarchais, about his always 'fluttering' to the ladies, Da Ponte develops Cherubino's themes. In the opera he becomes 'a butterfly' – 'farfallone amoroso' – a little Narcissus, or an 'Adoncino' – a little Adonis of love. And Mozart creates a music to match in Cherubino's well-known aria, 'Non so più cosa son, cosa faccio' (I no longer know who I am, or what I do). 'Now I'm all fire, now all ice. Every woman changes my temperature, every woman makes my heart beat faster.' The part of Susanna is key to the opera, and there is some suggestion that her wit, honesty and resourcefulness made her Mozart's own favourite. At Glyndebourne both Le nozze di Figaro and the role of Susanna have a special place in the history of the Festival. When John Christie first embarked on the crazy project of building a private opera house in the Sussex countryside many thought he was just that – crazy. But his own wife was the most direct: 'If you're going to spend all that money John, for God's sake do the thing properly!' That wife knew what she was talking about, because, as Audrey Mildmay, she had been a singer in the Carl Rosa Opera Company. She may have been John Christie's wife, but the conductor Fritz Busch insisted that she audition for the 1934 season. Being a true professional, she did so with good grace as Busch's audition notes reveal: 'a delightful voice, well-trained and full of artistry. Italian good. Strongly recommended. Properly used, her talent would have success in Dresden and Berlin.' And so, in the very first season at Glyndebourne in May 1934, Audrey Mildmay sang the role of Susanna in the opening performance of Le nozze di Figaro. AQA Music GCE – Summer Work 2021 Nene Park Academy Music Department Together, Susanna and the Countess make the moral centre of Le nozze di Figaro. The Countess's entrance is delayed, in that we do not meet her until the beginning of Act II and then she is alone in her room and utterly exposed. The music tells us that this is a serious moment, as the act opens with a brief introduction prefacing the Countess's famous lament 'Porgi amor', (Grant love, some relief to my sorrow, to my sighing'). The Countess has one other solo aria in Act III, 'Dove sono I bei momenti' (Where are the beautiful moments of sweetness and pleasure I used to know?) It is another dignified lament. So much so, that Mozart was actually re-using the melody here from the Agnus Dei of his earlier Coronation Mass transposed from the original F major to C major. And yet, the Countess's situation at this moment is humiliating and heartbreaking. The Count may pursue other women, but he is still jealous of his wife, and mistrusts her fidelity. Figaro, Susanna and the Countess come up with a plot to embarrass the Count. Susanna will agree to meet the Count in the garden that very evening. In the meantime, a message will be sent to the Count alerting him to an assignation that will take place between his lady and her secret lover. In an extended duet, 'Canzonetta sull'aria' (On the breeze), the Countess dictates a letter to Susanna. It's meant simply to confirm Susanna's bogus arrangements with the Count, but it spells out all the Countess's own love and longing for her unfaithful husband. The Countess folds the letter with a pin, and the wedding guests gather. As Susanna kneels for the Count's blessing, she passes him the note. Figaro notices that he pricks his finger on the pin. At the beginning of Act IV comes Barbarina's aria – the only piece in the opera in a minor key. This young servant – also the subject of the Count's attentions – is tearfully searching for something …'I have lost it, O unhappy one …' When Figaro comes in, Barbarina explains that she has lost a pin that the Count gave her to return to Susanna, with the instruction that she was to say that this was 'the seal of the pins'.