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Beaumarchais made The Marriage of Figaro with stock characters but gave them depth through the force of their challenge to the existing order. He has Figaro say: “Nobility, fortune, rank, position! How proud they make a man feel! What have you done to deserve such advantages? Put yourself to the trouble of being born – nothing more! For the rest – a very ordinary man!” Later in the passage, Figaro asks “Pourquoi ces choses et non pas d’autres? – Why these things and not others?” a line that resonated in revolutionary France. Napoleon thought the play forecast the revolution. And Beaumarchais’s revolutionary credentials were impeccable — he ran arms to the American revolution, still in progress as the play was being written, and barely over when it was first produced in 1784. The Mozart and Da Ponte collaboration followed on that first production with amazing speed, going up almost exactly two years later, on May 1, 1786. Their audience, then, knew what Da Ponte and Mozart were getting into. Joseph II was never going to tolerate explicit revolutionary language, and Da Ponte softened it considerably in devising his libretto. But Mozart deepened it again with his music, giving three dimensions to two-dimensional characters by granting them real-life emotional complexity. Instead of political force, they get emotional depth, and as real people, their fates once again acquire political force.
full: https://www.the-tls.co.uk/articles/public/mozart-grace-notes/ _________________________________________________________ Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm Set your options at: https://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
