Italiano | English
Music by
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Libretto by
Lorenzo Da Ponte
The first performance of the Le nozze di Figaro was at the Burgtheater in Vienna on May 1, 1786.
The Characters
- Count Almaviva
- Countess Almaviva
- Susanna, her maid, betrothed to Figaro
- Figaro, valet to Count Almaviva
- Cherubino, the Count’s page
- Marcellina, housekeeper to Bartolo
- Bartolo, a doctor from Seville
- Don Basilio, music master
- Don Curzio, magistrate
- Barbarina, daughter of Antonio
- Antonio, gardener, Susanna’s uncle
- Villagers, peasants, servant
Act One
While preparing for their wedding, the valet Figaro learns from the maid Susanna that their employer, Count Almaviva, has designs on her. The servant vows to outsmart his master. Before long Bartolo enters the servants' quarters with his housekeeper, Marcellina, who wants Figaro to marry her to cancel a debt he cannot pay. After Marcellina and Susanna trade insults, the page Cherubino arrives, reveling in his infatuation with all women. He hides when the Count shows up, furious because he caught Cherubino flirting with Barbarina, the gardener's daughter. The Count pursues Susanna but conceals himself when the music master Don Basilio approaches. The Count steps forward, however, when Basilio suggests that Cherubino has a crush on the Countess. Almaviva is enraged even further when he discovers Cherubino in the room, and he assigns him to his regiment in Seville.
Act Two
In her boudoir, the Countess laments her husband's fading love but plots to chasten him, encouraged by Figaro and Susanna. They will send Cherubino, disguised as Susanna, to a romantic meeting with the Count. Cherubino appears, and the two women begin to dress the page for the rendezvous. While Susanna goes out to find a ribbon, all of a sudden the Count knocks at the door. Cherubino hides in a closet, and the Countess admits her husband, who is unconvinced of her story that Susanna is inside the wardrobe. He takes his wife to fetch some tools to force the closet door. Meanwhile, Susanna helps Cherubino out a window, then takes his place in the closet. Both Count and Countess are amazed to find her there. Antonio, the gardener, storms in with crushed geraniums from a flower bed below the window. Figaro arrives and announces that the wedding is ready. Marcellina, Bartolo and Basilio burst into the room waving a court summons for Figaro.
Act Three
In an audience room where the wedding is to take place, Susanna leads the Count on with promises of a rendezvous in the garden. But the nobleman grows doubtful when he spies her conspiring with Figaro. Marcellina is astonished but thrilled to discover that Figaro is her long-lost natural son by Bartolo. Mother and son embrace. The Countess joins Susanna in composing a letter that invites the Count to the garden that night. Later, during the marriage ceremony of Figaro and Susanna, the bride manages to slip the note, sealed with a hatpin, to the Count, who punctures his finger, dropping the pin, which Figaro retrieves.
Act Four
In the garden, Barbarina, after trying to find the lost hatpin, tells Figaro and Marcellina about the coming assignation between the Count and Susanna. Susanna rhapsodizes on her love for Figaro, but he thinks she means the Count. Susanna hides in time to see Cherubino woo the Countess — now disguised in Susanna's dress — until Almaviva chases him away and sends his wife, who he thinks is Susanna, to an arbor, to which he follows. Figaro understands the joke and, joining the fun, makes love to Susanna in her Countess disguise. The Count returns, seeing Figaro with his wife. Outraged, he calls everyone to witness his judgment, but now the real Countess appears and reveals the trick. Understanding the truth at last, the Count begs her pardon.
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