Have a little Figaro...

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Many thousands of days ago, I ended my tenure as artistic director of the Newnan Community Theatre Company by translating, directing, and performing in Mozart’s Marriage of Figaro.

Such a handsome young man…

For my last season, I decided to go out with a bang by translating and directing Le Nozze di Figaro. I mean, a perfect, three-and-a-half-hour long 18th-c. comic opera in Newnan, GA, with amateur singers — what could go wrong? (Other than Dave Dorrell’s job requiring him to travel during performances and thus knocking him out as Figaro with three weeks to go…)

Amazingly, not only did we pull it off, we packed the house with audiences who roared with laughter, sold out every performance, and I retired a happy Count.

Recently we had a bunch of old videotapes digitized, and I was delighted — and relieved — that my rendition of the Count’s Act III aria is actually watchable. Even the vocal fireworks near the end are not too shabby, and I am still impressed that I was able to hit that traditional-but-unauthorized high G.

Here’s what’s going on in this piece:

  • Susanna, the ladies’ maid, has just flirted with the Count to set him up to be tricked into showing his true colors that evening in the garden.

  • Figaro has borrowed money from the older Marcellina with the provision that if he can’t pay it back he’ll marry her.

  • The drunk gardener Antonio is Susanna’s uncle and guardian.

  • And above all, the Count’s self-pitying anger that he’s cursed to live without love is a dead giveaway of his narcissism: He’s married to the long-suffering Countess, whom he actually went to great lengths to win in the prequel, Barber of Seville.

Sidebar

I will pause here to state my long-held belief that the classics, like Figaro or Shakespeare or Moliere, are just as appropriate for community/amateur theatres to produce as any of these lame “mama-n-’em” comedies I see so much of these days. These pieces are just theatre, people, not unclimbable cliffs. As long as you understand how theatre works and can teach it to those who don’t, what’s to stop you?

For example, we treated Figaro like any other musical comedy — and it worked. Why wouldn’t it? (One opera aficionado in the audience told us that of all the Figaro’s he had seen all over the world, ours was the first to capture that joy.)

All of this to say…

You should do Mozart’s Marriage of Figaro. Here’s a PDF of the libretto with stage directions. Here’s the bare libretto in early 20th-c. frames (with links to production photos). I highly recommend Opera Practice Perfect, whose CDs provide a piano accompaniment for each character’s arias and ensembles. We rented an arrangement from the Welsh National Opera which allowed us to hire a string quartet and a flute, clarinet, and bassoon to join our pianist, although I can’t find a link to that at the moment. (There seem to be plenty of options, though.)

If you’re serious about it, I’ll even scan the score for you.

figaro leads the palace staff in sucking up to the Count.

Marcellina finds herself aroused by the passion with which Dr. Bartolo (her old employer) vows vengeance on Figaro for helping the count steal Rosina from him in the prequel.

After raging about finding the page boy Cherubino where he shouldn’t have been, the count finds him hiding again.

Cherubino shares his awful poetry about being in love.

the count is nonplussed at discovering it is in fact susanna hiding in his wife’s closet and not the page boy.

The count rages that he will never find love.

antonio uncovers cherubino’s disguise.

In the garden that night, At the costume ball, figaro rallies his troops to expose the count’s folly.

Mistakenly believing that susanna intends to be unfaithful to him — and on their wedding night — figaro mistakes her love song to him as being meant for the count.

figaro tells Marcellina and barbarina of his suspicions. They are not convinced.

the count is enraged when he catches the countess in flagrante with figaro. However, it’s actually susanna in disguise; the countess soon emerges from the gazebo and exposes his folly. He is forced to beg for forgiveness. Happy ending.