The Marriage of Figaro (1981)

A room in the palace

It is the morning of Figaro’s wedding day. While Susanna tries on a hat, Figaro measures a corner of the room to see if the bridal bed, the count’s present, will fit into it. Figaro is pleased with this proof of the count’s disinterested blessinq on the match. And how convenient that the bridal chamber is to be in this part of the palace if there is a ring from the count or the countess, they can be there in two steps. Susanna points out the less innocent implications of the bed- if she can reach the countess in two steps, the count can reach her in one, and without waiting for a summons. Figaro, at first burning with jealous anger, soon declares his readiness to match his wits against the count’s. He has never doubted which one of them is the better man. Now he will prove it.

Marcellina, Bartolo’s middle-aged housekeeper, is bent on frustrating the marriage and having Figaro for herself, the means being a bill of debt which Figaro has failed to honor, and which with some judicious help from the law can be converted into a marriage contract. Bartolo promises to support her claims. He has detested Figaro ever since the barber helped his ward Rosina (now the countess) to elope from his house; besides it will be a way of getting Marcellina off his hands. Marcellina’s spite against Susanna is sharpened by an unsuccessful skirmish with her low-born rival. Each with icy politeness insists that the other should take precedence, but when Susanna points reverently to her age, Marcellina crumples and flounces out, leaving Susanna in possession of the field.

Cherubino the page comes to Susanna to entreat her help The count has caught him alone with Barbarina, the gardener Antonio’s daughter, and dismissed him from his service. This is a disaster, for Cherubino, though at all times in love with the whole female sex, is just now particularly in love with the countess and would rather die than be separated from her. He has just time to slip behind an armchair as the count strides in, eager to start his campaign with Susanna. But it has hardly begun before he too has to take cover at the sound of a voice outside the door. As the count steps behind the armchair, Cherubino slips round the other side and hides Linder a drape across the front of the chair. Basilio the music- master, enters; he has been eavesdropping and heard everything, so taunts Susanna about Cherubino’s intrigue with the countess. The count cannot keep out of it and, rising from behind the chair, furiously orders the page to be brought to him. Basilio smirks while Susanna falls into an opportune faint, from which she has hastily to rouse herself as the two men are about to place her in the armchair. The count, describing with some pride how he found Cherubino in Barbarina’s house, hiding under a table cloth, lifts the drape and is thunderstruck to find him again Cherubino has witnessed his advances to Susanna! Figaro and the remainder of the servants flock in, full of gratitude for the count’s nobility in abolishing the old abuses. The count thanks them and proceeds to liquidate Cherubino by commissioning him to his regiment and posting him immediately to the front. Figaro dwells with relish on the austerities of army life, which Cherubino will find somewhat different from the life to which he has been accustomed.

The private chambers of Countess Almaviva

The countess’s bedroom, the same day. The countess sits alone, brooding “O love, bring some relief to my sorrow … give me back my loved one or in mercy let me die” But her spirit has been rekindled by her husband’s aspersions. If Bartolo and Marcellina are to be the lynchpin of his strategy, she too will stoop to intrigue with her servants. A plot is devised. Figaro has written an anonymous letter warning the count that the countess has arranged to meet a lover in the garden that night. The second part of the plan is now hatched. Cherubino, w10 despite the count’s orders is still in the palace, is instructed in a fresh escapade. Disguised as Susanna, he is to meet the count in the garden; the countess will find them there, and catch the count! Cherubino is allowed to sing the countess a love song of his composition, and is then coached in his new role. While Susanna locks the main door, Cherubino removes his coat. Putting a bonnet on Cherubino’s head, Susanna almost falls in love with the young rascal, for he looks so charming. Then she gets a dress to complete the disguise, leaving Cherubino kneeling before the countess in his shirt-sleeves. Suddenly there is a knock at the door; the counts voice is heard, demanding entry Cherubino hides in the closet while the countess, having hurriedly removed the key from the closet door, unlocks the main door and admits the count.

The count has heard voices, and his suspicions, aroused by the locked door of his wife’s bedroom, increase when the countess in obvious agitation denies that she was talking to anyone- for Susanna, she says, has gone to her room to fetch a dress. The count produces the anonymous letter and is beginning to question the countess about it when there is a sound from the closet. The countess, even more flustered, assures him that it must be Susanna, who perhaps did not go to her room after all. The count bangs on the door and commands Susanna, if she is inside, to come out, then he turns on his wife with angry sarcasm. The countess is nervous but defiant, while the returning Susanna hides and comments anxiously on the scene. The count, convinced that the countess has a lover concealed in the closet, goes off to fetch tools with which to break down the closet door, locking the main door behind him and taking the countess with him. The moment they are gone, Susanna hurries to the closet as the page rushes out. There is a scuffle, a hasty embrace; Cherubino escapes by the window, and Susanna takes his place in the closet.

The count and countess return. The countess tremulously confesses that the person in the closet is not Susanna but Cherubino. Enraged by what he takes to be certain proof of his wife’s infidelity, the count approaches the closet door. It opens- to reveal Susanna. While the count ransacks the closet to make sure there is no one hiding there, Susanna quickly tells the countess what has happened The countess recovers and throws the count’s accusations back in his face. He is forced to make an apology. The entry of Figaro enables him to create a diversion by producing the anonymous letter, of which Figaro stubbornly denies all knowledge, despite whispered injunctions from the countess. Suddenly Antonio the gardener bursts in noisily demanding justice. His best flowerbeds have been ruined: he has seen Cherubino jump from the window Figaro, improvising superbly, confesses the crime: it was he who jumped. In the fall he hurt his foot and, as they see, can only hobble. He pours scorn on Antonio’s insistence that it was the page; the old fool is always drunk from the start of the day and would not be worth listening to even if sober. Antonio retorts by thrusting a folded parchment in his face: what about this, then, that he found on the flowerbed? Figaro is speechless; but, prompted by the countess and Susanna, he is able to identify it as the page’s commission and explain why he had it in his pocket it needed sealing. Once again the count retires battled. But even now Figaro is not safe. Marcellina arrives, with Bartolo and Basilio in support, and shrilly urges her cause. Figaro and Susanna are at a loss. The count is triumphant.

A formal room in the palace

Despite some twinges of conscience about the countess, the count has laid his plans At his forthcoming trial Figaro will be passed off with Marcellina, leaving the way clear. Susanna, too, has plans. She will play the count at his game and win. Seeming to yield to the count, she agrees to meet him that night in the garden But Figaro, not quite sure what she is plotting, enters just too soon, and an unguarded word from Susanna arouses the count’s suspicions Alone, the count explodes with Jealous anger The idea of being tricked and held up to ridicule by a serf whom he personally raised from the dust is gall and wormwood and an intolerable threat to his mastery. Meanwhile the countess waits nervously for news of Susanna. Has she been rash in agreeing to the intrigue? No matter! It may be that now the count will be won back by her unchanging love. At Figaro’s trial the count’s lawyer Don Curzio duly pronounces the sentence Figaro must pay .Marcellina or marry her. But the count now suffers a totally unexpected setback: Figaro is discovered to be the offspring of Bartolo and Marcellina the count and Don Curzio can only rage helplessly in the background as the happy couple embrace their long-lost son, “Rafaello:’ Susanna, arriving with the countess’s dowry with which to pay off Marcellina, finds Figaro in her rival’s arms and at first is as upset as the count. When the situation has been explained to her, her contentment is complete: the last obstacle to her marriage has been removed.

The countess reflects that her cause is just and she must not shrink from fighting for it. When Susanna returns, she dictates the letter that will finally ensnare the count and bring about the downfall of his lascivious plans. They read it through and the countess fastens it with a pin. A crowd of peasant girls enter, with bunches of flowers for the countess. One of them looks strangely like Cherubino. The resemblance is even more striking when Antonio creeps up behind him and pulls off the bonnet in which Barbarina had disguised him. Cherubino’s continued presence in the castle makes Figaro’s version of the leap from the window look a little suspect. But Figaro’s spirits are not to be dampened and, as there seems at last no further reason to postpone the wedding, the peasants assemble and two bridal veils are brought in- for Bartolo and Marcellina have decided to follow their son’s example.

While kneeling to receive her veil from the count, Susanna slips the letter into his hands. The count pricks his finger on the pin. Figaro, who has not been admitted to the secret, sees the letter and the pin, but does not see who gave them to the count. Figaro laughs: his master is evidently up to his usual tricks. The count rises and invites the whole company to the banquet and ball, with fireworks.

The garden; evening

In the darkness Barbarina, in great distress, is searching for something. Figaro and Marcellina enter. Barbarina innocently explains that she has lost the pin which the count ordered her to give back to Susanna. Figaro is stunned: the situation in all its bitter irony stares him
in the face. Susanna has betrayed him; the count has won. Marcellina tries to comfort him, but in a passionate outburst of disillusionment he rails against the fickleness of women and the folly of men who believe in them. He slips into the shadows, but not before Susanna and the countess have entered the garden. Susanna, perfectly aware that Figaro is listening, and determined to punish his lack of faith, sings a song which he thinks must be intended for the count, but into which in reality she pours all her love and tenderness for Figaro.

The intrigue enters its last and most sinister phase Most of those not directly involved, are hidden in an arbor nearby. Bartolo and Basilio are watching from the shrubbery. Susanna and the countess have set their trap and are waiting for the count to spring it. The count is in the garden not far off. Figaro is concealed in the thick of it. But things are not to happen quite as planned Cherubino is still at large. He cannot find Barbarina, but there is Susanna, who will do- only it is not Susanna but the countess. The countess, agitated and indignant, repulses him. The count enters to keep his tryst with Susanna under the trees, only to find himself apparently forestalled by the inevitable Cherubino. This has gone too far; he aims to box his ears, but in the darkness boxes Figaro’s instead. The count and the countess (or, as he thinks, Susanna) are lost among the trees. Susanna, dressed in her mistress’s garment, forgets to alter her voice. In a flash Figaro sees it all: Susanna has not been untrue to him; it is a game to trick not him but the count. It is now his turn to tease Susanna. Falling at her feet and pretending to be addressing the countess, he protests his undying adoration. Susanna, resuming her natural voice, furiously boxes his ears- to his enormous satisfaction. Soon she too is undeceived. All is well, they love each other again. But one more scene remains to be played. As the count comes into sight, Figaro again falls at the feet of Susanna. The count, enraged but triumphant, strides to the arbor and removes Cherubino, Barbarina, and Marcellina witnesses of his wife’s depravity. He turns round the countess is coming towards him. The count is finished. He can only ask for forgiveness, which the countess graciously does not refuse. After that there is general rejoicing and preparations for a night of festivities.