Le nozze di Figaro

«I have just returned from the Opéra Comique,
where I heard Le nozze di Figaro for the second time,
and if they perform it again, then I will go again,
and again and again! God, how divinely goodthe music is…»
P.  I. Tchaikovsky

In his Memoirs, librettist and dramatist Lorenzo da Ponte, telling of his meetings and talks with Mozart, recalled that it was Mozart who offered him work on a new opera after de Beaumarchais´ scandalously sensational comedy La folle journée, ou Le Mariage de Figaro. De Beaumarchais´ play was staged in Paris in 1784 and proved a terrific success; however, soon staging it became banned everywhere. Rehearsals of Le Marriage de Figaro in the German translation of Emanuel Schikaneder were also stopped in Vienna.
Mozart and da Ponte worked on the opera in secret, telling no-one. When the draught was complete, Lorenzo da Ponte set off to see the Emperor and, having given free reign to the eloquence he controlled to perfection, he convinced Josef II that the opera was utterly safe from a political viewpoint, and that the entire content concerned the family life of a count and countess, and the music filled with various positive qualities. Having listened to some fragments from Le nozze di Figaro (as the opera was entitled), the Emperor permitted rehearsals to begin in Vienna at the Burgtheater. At the first meeting between Mozart and the orchestra and the singers, after bass Francesco Benucci´s performance of Figaro´s aria «Non più andrai, farfallone amoroso…», all vied with each other to cry «Bravo, bravo, maestro!» At other rehearsals the same inspiration was retained, the artistes and musicians constantly calling out «Long live the great Mozart!» It was with no less enthusiasm that the premiere was met, conducted by the composer on 1 May 1786. In its first year, the number of performances of Le nozze di Figaro had it rivalling popular Italian operas, which at that time was an unheard of event. However, Mozart´s enemies somehow succeeded in getting the opera dropped from the repertoire. The subsequent Prague production of the opera in December 1786, seven months after the Viennese premiere, proved a staggering success. It was at that moment that the eternal life of Le nozze di Figaro began. The opera has been staged by almost every major music theatre in the world. In Russia, it was first performed in 1815 by the German Opera Company in St Petersburg. In Russian (apropos, in the timeless translation by the great Russian composer Pyotr Tchaikovsky, who adored this work) the opera was first performed in Moscow on 5 May 1876 by students from the Conservatoire. In St Petersburg Le nozze di Figaro was first performed at the Mariinsky Theatre on 25 September 1901 in a staging by Osip Palechek (V. Kastorsky as Almaviva, M. Cherkasskaya as the Countess, M. Mikhailova as Susanna, D. Bukhtoyarov as Figaro, S. Gladkaya as Cherubino and N. Fride as Marcellina). The next time that Le nozze di Figaro was performed at the Mariinsky Theatre was almost one hundred years later – on 5 April 1994.