The Marriage of Figaro: Overture

The alternative title of Le Mariage de Figaro, the brilliant Beaumarchais comedy on which Mozart’s opera is based, is La folle journée - “The Mad Day.” The composer might well have been thinking about that when he wrote the overture which, as a mad four or five minutes, is an inspired preparation for the breathtaking pace as which events are to happen between the morning and the evening in Count Almaviva’s castle in Seville. At one time there was going to be a slow section in the overture but it eventually got left out, with the result that the sense of urgency created by bustling strings and bassoons in the opening bars is sustained throughout. Although a group of rather more poised themes inervenes, the hectic rate of activity continues with crashing chords, surging basses or, at the very least, throbbing rhythms on second violins or violas. There is no time here for development or for anything but a race through the same material for a second time and a dramatic coda which, in the opera house, leads straight into the opening scene of the first act.

The direct link in the chain between Mozart and Viennese operetta is The Magic Flute which was first performed in 1791 at the same theatre - the popular Theater auf der Wieden or, as it later became, the Theater an der Wien - where composers like Franz von Suppé, Johann Strauss and Franz Lehár were to enjoy some of their most spectacular successes. The Marriage of Figaro was first performed five years before The Magic Flute at the Burgtheater, which was a much classier establishment. Even so, since it is unsurpassed even now in creating a scarcely contained sense of anticipation, the Marriage of Figaro Overture is as good a place to start as anywhere. Mozart’s inspiration here seems to have been the alternative title of the Beaumarchais play on which the opera is based - The Mad Day. Certainly, there is no time for a conventional sonata-form construction. With bustling strings and bassoon making the pace, the hectic rate of activity is only twice reduced, and even then only slightly and only briefly, to offset the general impatience to get on with it.