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Unfortunately, however, Figaro himself is in a fix. He has borrowed money from Marcellina, Bartolo's housekeeper, and he has promised to marry her in case of his inability to repay her. She now appears, to demand of Figaro the fulfilment of his promise. Bartolo encourages her in this, both out of spite against Figaro and because he wants to be rid of the old woman, who has been his mistress and even borne him a son, who, however, was kidnapped soon after his birth. There is a vengeance aria for Bartolo, and a spiteful duet for Marcellina and Susanna, beginning: "Via resti servita, madama brillante" (Go first, I entreat you, Miss, model of beauty!).
Photo by White
Hempel (Susanna), Matzenauer (the Countess), and Farrar (Cherubino)
in “Le Nozze di Figaro”
The next scene opens between the page, Cherubino, a boy in love with every petticoat, and Susanna. He begs Susanna to intercede for him with the Count, who has dismissed him. Cherubino desires to stay around the Countess, for whom he has conceived one of his grand passions. "Non so più cosa son, cosa faccio"—(Ah, what feelings now possess me!). The Count's step is heard. Cherubino hides himself behind a chair, from where he hears the Count paying court to Susanna. The voice of the music-master then is heard from without. The Count moves toward the door. Cherubino, taking advantage of this, slips out from behind the chair and conceals himself in it under a dress that has been thrown over it. The Count, however, instead of going out, hides behind the chair, in the same place where Cherubino has been. Basilio, who has entered, now makes all kinds of malicious remarks and insinuations about the flirtations of Cherubino with Susanna and also with the Countess. The Count, enraged at the free use of his wife's name, emerges from behind the chair. Only the day before, he says, he has caught that rascal, Cherubino, with the gardener's daughter Barbarina (with whom the Count also is flirting). Cherubino, he continues, was hidden under a coverlet, "just as if under this dress here." Then, suiting the action to the words, by way of demonstration, he lifts the gown from the chair, and lo! there is Cherubino. The Count is furious. But as the page has overheard him making love to Susanna, and as Figaro and others have come in to beg that he be forgiven, the Count, while no longer permitting him to remain in the castle, grants him an officer's commission in his own regiment. It is here that Figaro addresses Cherubino in the dashing martial air, "Non più andrai, farfallone amoroso" (Play no more, the part of a lover).
Act II. Still, the Count, for whom the claims of Marcellina upon Figaro have come in very opportunely, has not given consent for his valet's wedding. He wishes to carry his own intrigue with Susanna, the genuineness of whose love for Figaro he underestimates, to a successful issue. Susanna and Figaro meet in the Countess's room. The Countess has been soliloquizing upon love, of whose fickleness the Count has but provided too many examples.—"Porgi amor, qualche ristoro" (Love, thou holy, purest passion.) Figaro has contrived a plan to gain the consent of the Count to his wedding with Susanna. The valet's scheme is to make the Count ashamed of his own flirtations. Figaro has sent a letter to the Count, which divulges a supposed rendezvous of the Countess in the garden. At the same time Susanna is to make an appointment to meet the Count in the same spot. But, in place of Susanna, Cherubino, dressed in Susanna's clothes, will meet the Count. Both will be caught by the Countess and the Count thus be confounded.
Cherubino is then brought in to try on Susanna's clothes. He sings to the Countess an air of sentiment, one of the famous vocal numbers of the opera, the exquisite: "Voi che sapete, che cosa è amor" (What is this feeling makes me so sad).