2 arias from The Marriage of Figaro

Voi che sapete

Non so più       

One of the most intriguing characters in Mozart’s opera The Marriage of Figaro - based on a libretto by Lorenzo Da Ponte after a comedy by Beaumarchais and first performed in Vienna in 1786 - is the teenage page boy Cherubino. On the one hand, he is so young that Mozart wrote the role for a mezzo-soprano and, on the other hand, he is old enough to take a keen interest in the younger women in the Almaviva household, including Figaro’s maidservant fiancée Susanna and the Countess Almaviva herself. To a guitar accompaniment simulated in the orchestra by pizzicato violins, he sings “Voi che sapete” to Susanna and the Countess at the same time, giving voice to the pain and the delight of the new emotions he feels in his heart. His other aria“Non so più,” expressing much the same sentiments but in a more agitated state of mind, is sung to Susanna but addressed, he says, to”all the women in the castle.”