Opera in HD: Mozart’s Le Nozze Di Figaro at The MetOpera
Mozart’s Le Nozze Di Figaro by Mozart in the modernized setting from the Metropolitan Opera stage
Stream from anywhere on Saturday, July 18, 2020
A cornerstone of any opera house’s repertoire, Mozart’s Le Nozze Di Figaro is available to stream on Saturday, July 18, 2020. Sir Richard Eyre’s dynamic production had opened 2014-2015 Met Opera season. The recording from October 18, 2014 features sopranos Marlis Petersen and Amanda Majeski; Isabel Leonard sings the role of the pageboy Cherubino; Ildar Abdrazakov leads as Figaro and Peter Mattei is Count Almaviva. James Levine is conducting.
Premiered at the Met in the 2014-2015 season, the current production transposes the action from the late 18th century Spain to an elegant villa of the 1930s. It fluidly employs the rotating stage for the fast change of the decor and uninterrupted action when moving from scene to scene. The creators and the cast present a highly entertaining and instructive storyline about the virtues of love, decency, loyalty, and the vice of jealousy.
Ingeniously using a sequence of comic scenes with hidings and cross-dressings, Beaumarchais’s play denounces the feudal rules and highlights the wits and smarts of the lower classes. According to Beaumarchais’s contemporaries, the play foreshadowed the French Revolution.
The libretto for the opera was written by Mozart’s favored collaborator Lorenzo Da Ponte. Da Ponte adapted a popular play La Folle Journée, ou Le Mariage de Figaro by Beaumarcheau for his libretto which he completed even before Mozart started writing music for the opera.
At the MetOpera, Le Nozze’s magical music and catchy arias are delivered by the incredible cast with confidence and mastery. The beauty of the duets and the ensemble arias are well-matched by the orchestral work while the comic scenes and the moments of tension are skillfully calibrated and are presented with vitality and affection.
Enjoy the vibrant production of the timeless masterpiece by Mozart and Da Ponte.
The opera’s run time is 3 hours and 30 minutes with one intermission; sung in Italian with the subtitles. The stream starts at 7.30 pm and is available for 23 hours.
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Mozart completed the score for Le Nozze in 1786 just two years after the comedy La Folle Journée, ou Le Mariage de Figaro by Beaumarchais had opened at Theatre Francaise in Paris. The play, which was written in 1778 as a sequel to The Barber of Seville, the first play in Beaumarchais’s trilogy, was banned at first by King Loius XVI. Beaumarchais revised the text and moved the action of the play from France to Spain after which it was begrudgingly allowed to be performed for the public. The success of Le Mariage made it the highest-grossing production in the 18th century. The overreach of the aristocracy, the inheritance rights, and the crumbling feudal rules were such hot subjects on the brink of a burst, that the authorities around Europe were wary about bringing the production to their countries. Napoleon Bonaparte called it “the Revolution already put into action.”
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Le Mariage de Figaro is the second of the trilogy that concludes with the play The Guilty Mother. Caron de Beaumarchais included numerous autobiographical references in his plays with even the name of the main character Figaro made to sound as fils de Caron.
The choice of the play Le Marriage of Figaro for the new opera was made by Mozart himself. He turned to Lorenzo Da Ponte who wrote the libretto in poetic Italian and removed all the political references from the text. Another shrewd alteration by Da Ponte was substituting Figaro’s powerful lines against the rights of the inherited nobility with the aria critical of the unfaithful wives. Le Nozze was the first of Mozart’s and Da Ponte’s successful collaborations on the operas which followed by Don Giovanni and Cosi Fan Tutte. Mozart’s score for Le Nozze brings both the depth and the beauty of the story to the fore with the memorable arias, unforgettable solos, and splendid orchestral parts.
In Vienna, the opera had an overwhelming success concluding each night with the lengthy applauds by the audience and multiple requests for the repeats of the beloved arias. The Emperor even had to issue a decree limiting the length of the performances at the Burgtheatrer.
At the Met, Le Nozze premiered in 1894. From that time on, the opera has attracted the roster of the finest singers. The current production is surely not an exception. Le Nozze Di Figaro is a delicious treat for every opera lover.
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Venue: Met Opera, Lincoln Center, NY