Week 8 assignment: essay – interrelationships reflection apa format | Applied Sciences homework help
- Is it better to see the film first or to read the novel first? What informs your decision?
Music Interprets Drama: The Marriage of Figaro Perhaps in the age of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756–1791), the opera per- formed a function for literature somewhat equivalent to what the film does today. Opera—in combining music, drama, sets, and sometimes dance—was held in high- est esteem in Europe in the eighteenth century. And despite the increasing com- petition from film and musical comedy, opera is still performed to large audiences in theaters and larger audiences on television. Among the world’s greatest operas, few are more popular than Mozart’s The Marriage of Figaro (1786), written when Mozart was only thirty. Mozart’s opera interprets the French play The Marriage of Figaro (1784), by Pierre Augustin de Beaumarchais, a highly successful playwright friendly with Madame Pompadour, mistress of Louis XVI at the time of the American Revolution. Beau- marchais began as an ordinary citizen, bought his way into the aristocracy, survived the French Revolution, went into exile, and later died in France. His plays were the product of, yet comically critical of, the aristocracy. The Marriage of Figaro, written in 1780, was held back by censors as an attack on the government. Eventually pro- duced to great acclaim, it was seditious enough for later commentators to claim that it was an essential ingredient in fomenting the French Revolution of 1789. Mozart, with Lorenzo Da Ponte, who wrote the libretto, remained generally faithful to the play, although changing some names and the occupations of some jac16871_ch15_378-396.indd 382 12/9/17 11:19 AM 383
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characters. They reduced the opera from Beaumarchais’s five acts to four, although the entire opera is three hours long. In brief, it is the story of Figaro, servant to Count Almaviva, and his intention of marrying the countess’s maid Susanna. The count has given up the feudal tradition, which would have permitted him to sleep with Susanna first, before her husband. However, he regrets his decision because he has fallen in love with Susanna and now tries to seduce her. When his wife, the countess, young and still in love with him, discovers his plans, she throws in with Figaro and Susanna to thwart him. Cherubino, a very young man—sung by a female soprano—feels the first stirrings of love and desires both the countess and Susanna in turn. He is a page in the count’s employ, and when his intentions are discovered, he is sent into the army. One of the greatest arias in the opera is “Non più andrai” (“From now on, no more gallivanting”), which Figaro sings to Cherubino, telling him that his amorous esca- pades are now over. The nine-page aria is derived from part of a single speech of Beaumarchais’s Figaro: No more hanging around all day with the girls, no more cream buns and custard tarts, no more charades and blind-man’s-bluff; just good soldiers, by God: weatherbeaten and ragged-assed, weighed down with their muskets, right face, left face, forward march.1 Mozart’s treatment of the speech demonstrates one of the resources of opera as opposed to straight drama. In the drama, it would be very difficult to expand Figa- ro’s speech to intensify its emotional content, but in the opera the speech or parts of it can be repeated frequently and with pleasure, since the music that underpins the words is delightful to hear and rehear. Mozart’s opera changes the emotional content of the play because it intensifies feelings associated with key moments in the action. The aria contains a very simple musical figure that has nonetheless great power in the listening. Just as Mozart is able to repeat parts of the dialogue, he is able to repeat notes, passages, and patterns. The pattern repeated most conspicuously is that of the arpeggio, a chord whose notes are played in quick succession instead of simultane- ously. The passage of three chords in the key of C expresses a lifting feeling of exuber- ance (Figure 15-3). Mozart’s genius was marked by a way of finding the simplest, yet most unexpected, solutions to musical problems. The arpeggio is practiced by almost every student of a musical instrument, yet it is thought of as something appropriate to practice rather than performance. Thus, Mozart’s usage comes as a surprise. 1Pierre Augustin de Beaumarchais, The Marriage of Figaro, trans. Bernard Sahlins. (Chicago: Ivan R. Dee, 1994), p. 29. FIGURE 15-3 An arpeggio from “Non più andrai” (“From now on, no more gallivanting”), from the end of act 1 of The Marriage of Figaro. Figaro sings a farewell aria to Cherubino, who has been sent to the army because of his skirt chasing. It can be heard on YouTube. The essence of the arpeggio in the eighteenth century was constant repetition, and in using that pattern, Mozart finds yet another way to repeat elements to jac16871_ch15_378-396.indd 383 12/9/17 11:19 AM 384
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intensify the emotional effects of the music. The listener hears the passage, is cap- tured, yet hardly knows why it is as impressive and as memorable as it is. There are ways of doing similar things in drama—repeating gestures, for example—but there are very few ways of repeating elements in such close proximity as the arpeggio does without risking boredom. The plot of the opera, like that of the play, is based on thwarting the plans of the count with the use of disguise and mix-ups. Characters are hidden in bedrooms, thus overhearing conversations they should not hear. They leap from bedroom win- dows, hide in closets, and generally create a comic confusion. The much older Mar- cellina and her lawyer, Bartolo, introduce the complication of a breach of promise suit between her and Figaro just as Figaro is about to marry. The count uses it to his advantage while he can, but the difficulty is resolved in a marvelously comic way: Marcellina sees a birthmark on Figaro and realizes he is her son and the son of Bartolo, with whom she had an affair. That finally clears the way for Figaro and Susanna, who, once they have shamed the count into attending to the countess, can marry. Mozart’s musical resources include techniques that cannot easily be duplicated in straight drama. For example, his extended use of duets, quartets, and sextets, in which characters interact and sing together, would be impossible in the original drama. The libretto gave Mozart a chance to have one character sing a passage while another filled in with an aside. Thus, there are moments when one character sings what he thinks others want him to say, while another character sings his or her inner thoughts, specifically designed for the audience to hear. Mozart reveals the duplicity of characters by having them sing one passage “publicly’’ while reveal- ing their secret motives “privately.’’ The force of the quartets and the sextets in The Marriage of Figaro is enormous, adding wonderfully to the comic effect that this opera always achieves. Their musi- cal force, in terms of sheer beauty and subtle complexity, is one of the hallmarks of the opera. In the play, it would be impossible to have six characters speaking simul- taneously, but with the characters singing, such a situation becomes quite possible. The resources that Mozart had in orchestration helped him achieve effects that the stage could not produce. The horns, for example, are sometimes used for the pur- pose of poking fun at the pretentious count, who is a hunter. The discords found in some of the early arias resolve themselves in later arias when the countess smooths them out, as in the opening aria in act 2: “Porgi Amor” (“Pour forth, O Love”). The capacity of the music to emulate the emotional condition of the characters is a fur- ther resource that permits Mozart to emphasize tension, as when dissonant chords seem to stab the air to reflect the anxiety of the count. Further, the capacity to bring the music quite low (pianissimo) and then contrast it with brilliant loud passages (fortissimo) adds a dimension of feeling that the play can barely even suggest. Mozart’s The Marriage of Figaro also has been successful because of its political message, which is essentially democratic. The opera presents us with a delightful character, Figaro, a barber become a servant, who is level-headed, somewhat in- nocent of the evil ways of the world, and smart when he needs to be. He loves Susanna, who is much more worldly-wise than he but who is also a thoughtful, in- telligent young woman. In contrast, the count is an unsympathetic man who resents the fact that his servant, Figaro, can have what he himself wants but cannot possess. The count is outwitted by his servant and his wife at almost every turn. The countess jac16871_ch15_378-396.indd 384 12/9/17 11:19 AM 385
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is a sympathetic character. She loves her husband, knows he wants to be unfaithful, but plays along with Susanna and Figaro in a scheme involving assignations and disguises in order to shame him into doing the right thing. The audiences of the late 1700s loved the play because they reveled in the amusing way that Figaro ma- nipulates his aristocratic master. Beaumarchais’s play was as clear about this as the opera. Mozart’s interpretation of the play (his subject matter) reveals such a breadth and depth of feeling that now the opera is far more appreciated than the play. PERCEPTION KEY Beaumarchais’s and Mozart’s The Marriage of Figaro Read Beaumarchais’s play and Da Ponte’s libretto, and see or listen to Mozart’s opera. Several videos are available of the Beaumarchais play as well as of Mozart’s opera. The Deutsche Grammophon version of the opera, with Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau as the count, is excellent and has English subtitles. Listening to the opera while following the libretto is also of great value. Listen for the use of individual instruments, such as the clarinets on the off-beat, the power of horns and drums, and the repetition of phrases. Pay attention especially to the finale, with its power, simplicity, and matchless humor.