Music 3003 – Music of the Classic Era, Spring 2020 Prof

Music 3003 – Music of the Classic Era, Spring 2020 Prof. David Smey Class 11 – Tuesday, March 3 In this session we dove into Mozart’s first “all-time great” opera, Le Nozze di Figaro (The Marriage of Figaro, 1786). First, we did a little background: Mozart and Opera In the 18th Century opera is the most glamorous and potentially lucrative area of music- making. Mozart and his father are sophisticated members of the industry, so from childhood onwards Mozart frequently tries his hand at making operas. It is difficult to get a good count of how many opera projects Mozart tries, because some are left incomplete and others are one-act miniatures that don’t seem to “count,” but it looks like you could say that he writes about 22 of them. Wikipedia list Collaboration with Lorenzo da Ponte Mozart’s first big success in the opera house comes early in his Vienna years, with Die Entführung aus dem Serail in 1783. (This is the “Turkish” opera we were looking at last week.) For his next big project he teams up with a new librettist in town, an Italian named Lorenzo da Ponte. Da Ponte is a fascinating figure. He was born in the Jewish ghetto of Ceneda, Italy, and when he was a young boy his father decided that the whole family should convert to Christianity. (At this time there were many rules that limited the way Jews could participate in society, so converting was a common strategy. Later in history Felix Mendelssohn’s family will do the same thing.) The Catholic priests recognized Lorenzo’s talent, and he eventually became a priest himself and a poet who had a deep love for the Italian language. (One of his specialties was improvising poetry on the spot, which sounds a little like the “slam poetry” scene of today.) Da Ponte had a knack for getting himself in trouble by having affairs with married women and making political alliances with unpopular figures, so he eventually fled Italy for Austria. Happily, in Vienna they had just opened a new opera that specialized in Italian opera buffas, and his services were needed as a librettist. [I forgot to mention one more interesting bit in class – later Da Ponte moves to New York City and makes a living running a kitchen supply shop!] The operas that Da Ponte and Mozart collaborate on are highly regarded because they seem very “human” and relevant to our present day. Perhaps because of his lowly origins Da Ponte allows all of his characters to have some measure of dignity and to present their own point of view. (This is something that people also say about Shakespeare.) Le Nozze premieres in 1786. Da Ponte will collaborate on two more Mozart operas, Don Giovanni and Cosi fan tutte. The Source material: a play by Beaumarchais The French playwright Pierre-Augustin Caron de Beaumarchais wrote three plays that center around the character of Figaro. The Marriage of Figaro is actually the second in the trilogy. Le Barbier de Séville [1775] Le Mariage de Figaro [1778] La Mère coupable [The Guilty Mother, 1792] Le Mariage was banned in France in 1781, though it became un-banned in 1784. At some point King Louis XVI remarked that Beaumarchais “mocks everything that must be respected in a government.” When Mozart and Da Ponte were planning their first project, an operatic version of The Barber of Seville was the largest success in Vienna. (This is the version by Giovanni Paisello in 1782, not the one by Rossini that modern audiences are more familiar with. That one won’t appear until 1816.) It enjoyed more than 100 performances in the capital city, so it makes a lot of sense that Mozart and Da Ponte would choose to make the sequel. The Characters Figaro and Susanna are both servants to the Count. They have plans to marry ASAP. Count Almaviva is a philanderer who would prefer Susanna to remain unmarried. His wife, the Countess laments the fact that her husband doesn’t love her, and wishes he would behave. Dr. Bartolo and Marcellina are plotting to disrupt the marriage. Bartolo has a grudge against Figaro based on something that happened in the previous opera. Marcellina wants to marry Figaro. Don Basilio is the music teacher, who is also an enthusiastic gossip. Perhaps the most unusual character of all is Cherubino the page. He is supposed to be a love-crazed boy, but he is sung by a soprano. In the beginning of the opera he is obsessed with the Countess. In class we watched some of Act I. We’ll return to Le Nozze on Thursday. .

Load more