I hope you will soon get the new "Amadis"; it is the funniest, most whimsical book. I wonder how you will like Olinda! Master Amadis is a little too like butter—he melts in every sunbeam.
Our wonder increases when we reflect that this young girl is Caroline Flachsland, and her lover is Herder.[ 9 ] There can be no doubt that in this respect Mozart was a child of his time; that he willingly allowed himself to glide along the pleasant stream of life in Vienna, and that his merrier moods were often productive of free and even coarse jests. The frivolous element in Beaumarchais' comedy was not, therefore, likely to repel him, although it would be unfair to assert that it mainly attracted him; he accepted it, as others did, as the sauce which was most likely to be of acceptable flavour.
His chief concern was doubtless the gradual unfolding and continual interest of the plot, and the graphic delineation of character, qualities which were entirely overlooked by the ordinary opera buffa. Any approach to probability or analogy with actual life was not thought of, and was LE NOZZE DI FIGARO. not often replaced even by a fanciful poetic vein of humour; attempts to give consistency to the caricatures of individuals and situations only served to bring their irreconcilable contrasts into stronger relief. In "Figaro," on the contrary, the interest depends upon, the truth the representation of actual life. The motives of the actors are serious, they are carried out with energy and intellect, and from them the situations are naturally developed; only the light in which they are all portrayed is that of Beaumarchais' strongly accented "gaieté," which is by no means innocent, and in its essence nothing less than musical. It is one of the strongest proofs of Mozart's genius that he should have undertaken, moved as he was by the dramatic signification of the piece, to infuse a new soul into it by his musical treatment; so sure was he that whatever came home to his mind might be used as the germ of a living creation. The musical representation, however, could only be a true one by relying entirely on the emotions which alone are capable of being expressed in music.[ 10 ] The whole piece is raised to a higher sphere by the subordination of the powers of understanding and intellect, which Beaumarchais had made the chief factors in his design. Beaumarchais' aim was to preserve his plot and characters from vulgarity or caricature; the point of view whence the musical reconstruction proceeded led inevitably to an ennobling of the whole representation. In depicting emotions, whether as the impulse to action, or as giving significance even to the least commendable promptings of the mind, the musician was in his own element, and the MUSICAL TREATMENT OF THE DRAMA. wealth of dramatic situations and characters was a pure gain to an artist who knew how to turn it to account. The piercing eye of genius finds materials for its finest performance where a more superficial view reveals nothing but difficulties. If each of the characters, pursuing the interests they have at heart, are to express their inner sentiments at every point in conformity with their nature, it follows that the aim of dramatic characterisation in its true sense must be the representation of individuality, sharp and precise in form, true and pure as to its source; thus only will the exaggeration of caricature be avoided. This holds good of all the chief characters in "Figaro"—of the Count and Countess, Figaro, Susanna, and Cherubino. They are so entirely governed by their emotions and passions, so completely involved in the complications proceeding therefrom, that an artistic representation must depend on the depicting of these emotions in their fullest truth.
Bartolo and Marcellina seem to invite a treatment in caricature. In the "Barber of Seville" we find the same Bartolo as a buffo character. This is made impossible here by the fact that they are to appear afterwards as Figaro's parents, and ought not, therefore, to cut grotesque figures in our eyes. Beaumarchais' point, that Marcellina gives herself airs of superiority to Susanna, "parce qu'elle a fait quelques études et tourmenté la jeunesse de Madame" is not available for musical characterisation, but Mozart brings it out skilfully in another way. In the duet (Act I., 5), in which Susanna and Marcellina vie with each other in impertinence and provocation, the expression is toned down by the actual, disputing being left to the orchestra, and the two women are put quite on an equality. Susanna prevails over Marcellina only by reason of her youthful grace, and the whole appears an outbreak of that jealous susceptibility which is said to be an attribute of the female sex. Nobler women would not yield to such impulses, but these two belong to no exalted sphere, and give the rein to their angry humours. But they never forget themselves so far as to offend delicacy, and the general tone is a gay one, Marcellina being shown in no way inferior to LE NOZZE DI FIGARO. Susanna.[ 11 ] Afterwards, when graver matters engage her, when she asserts her claims upon Figaro in the first finale, or recognises him as her son in the sestet, the musical expression is sustained and full of true feeling. A singer who was able to form her conception of the part from these touches of character would make of Marcellina something quite different from the ordinary old housekeeper, whom we have unhappily been used to see and hear, no doubt from a mistaken endeavour to render the illusion that Figaro's mother must be an old woman, and sing like an old woman. Marcellina's air (Act IV., 2)," on the other hand, does not assist the characterisation, and is the only piece in the whole opera which fails of its effect. The whole style of it, even to the passages, is old-fashioned, like the traditional air for a seconda donna; it appears to have been a concession made to the taste of the singer. Basilio, the man of cold intellect and malicious cunning, is not a figure which can be made comic by caricature. Mich. Kelly (1764-1825), for whom it was written, was an Irishman, who had studied in Naples, and was highly successful as a tenor in Italy and Vienna; his powers as a mimic fitted him especially for comic parts.[ 12 ] Basilio's malice and scorn are expressed in the terzet (Act I., 7) with delicacy and character, and, in contrast with Susanna's painful excitement and the Count's anger, they give to the piece an irony, such as has seldom found expression in music. The point justly noted by Ulibicheff (II., p. 45 ) that Basilio, in his attempts to pacify the Count after finding the page in the arm-chair, repeats the words: "Ah, del paggio quel ch' ho detto era solo un mio sospetto," a fifth higher, brings out in a striking degree his character of refined malice. The effect is heightened by the use of the same motif by the Count, when he is BASILIO. telling how he found the page with Barberina; and it is attained in the simplest manner by the natural development of the musical structure. Basilio falls into the background in the course of the opera; the comic way in which Beaumarchais makes him banished by the Count, and his courtship of
Marcellina, would have afforded good operatic situations, but abbreviation and simplification were absolutely necessary, and much that was not essential had to be sacrificed. The air which is given to Basilio in the last act (Act IV., 3) scarcely affords compensation. Da Ponte, deprived of Beaumarchais' guidance in this place, makes Basilio illustrate by the fable of the asses' skin that those who can flatter and deceive succeed in the world. The musical rendering follows the story, the orchestra giving the characteristic detail. The expression of ease and self-complacency, and above all the incomparable idea, deservedly noticed by Ulibicheff, of turning the last sentence of the heartless poltroon: "Onte, pericoli, vergogna e morte col cuojo d' asino fuggir si puö," into a sort of parody of a triumphal march, give the air a character of its own". Executed with humour and delicate mimicry it becomes in fact an epitome of Basilio's character, with its utter want of genial qualities. But tone-painting occurs only in such touches as those of the storm, the yelping dog, the hurried retreat, and never comes to the foreground. This means of effect, elsewhere so favourite a device in opera buffa, is always sparingly used by Mozart. The "Din din, don, don," in the duet between Susanna and Figaro (Act I., 2) can scarcely be called tone-painting any more than it can be said to be word-painting; it is hardly more than an interjection, which has the advantage in its musical rendering of being incorporated as a motif in the structure of the piece. Nor can the term be justly applied to the march like tone of Figaro's "Non più andrai" (Act I., 9). Certain forms and phrases have developed themselves in music as expressions of warlike ideas, and they are employed as a matter of course where these ideas occur; Figaro, describing to the page the military life before him, has it mirrored as it were by the orchestra. Mozart wisely guards against entering LE NOZZE DI FIGARO. upon any musical details in the picture, which would have led to a distorted tone-painting; he confines himself to the barest and most general allusions produced by association of ideas. It is often difficult to decide how far the association of ideas contributes to the partly involuntary, partly conscious construction of the musical expression. For instance in the first duet between Figaro and Susanna (Act I., 1), the motif for the bass—[See Page Image]
with the corresponding one for the first violins, goes very well with Figaro's measuring of the room, the diminutions expressing clearly enough his repeated stretches. It cannot be doubted that the situation has suggested the motif, but whether Mozart intended to express the action of measurement is far less certain, and any idea of tone-painting is out of the question. The subordinate characters of the drunken gardener Antonio and the stuttering judge Don Curzio might under other circumstances have been made into caricatures in the sense of opera buffa, but they appear in situations which have so decided a character of a totally different kind that they could not have departed from it without serious injury to that harmony of the whole which none knew better than Mozart how to preserve. The little cavatina (Act IV., 1)
for Barbarina, (Fanchette in Beaumarchais) is very significantly not exactly caricatured, but drawn in stronger colours than is elsewhere the case. This little maid, in her liking for Cherubino, and with an open-hearted candour which makes her a true enfant terrible to the Count, is altogether childish, and not only naïve but unformed. It is, therefore, natural that she should express her grief for the lost pin, and her fear of punishment, like a child; and when we hear her sobbing and crying over it we receive the same ludicrous impression which grown-up people rarely fail to feel at the sight of a child expressing the sorrow of his heart with an energy quite out of proportion to the occasion. The fact that the strong accents which Mozart here multiplies to produce the effect of the disproportion of childish FIGARO. ideas are afterwards made use of to express real emotion does no injury to the truth of his characterisation. In a similar way the expression of sentiment is exaggerated when it is represented as feigned; as, for instance, the last finale, when Figaro makes love to the supposed Countess, whom he has recognised as Susanna, and grows more and more vehement in order to excite the Count's jealousy. Here we have a parody of the accents of strongest passion (Vol. II., p. 427). How differently does the same Figaro express his true feelings! How simple and genuine is the expression of his love in the first duet (Act I., 1), when he interrupts his measurements to exclaim to his pretty bride, with heartfelt joy: "Si, mio core, or è più bello!" and in the last finale, when he puts an end to pretence and, in an exalted mood, with the feeling of his newly won, safely assured happiness fresh upon him, exclaims: "Pace! pace, mio dolce tesoro!" Equally true is Figaro's expression of the jealousy which results from his love. At first indeed this feeling is a curiously mingled one. Warned by Susanna herself, he has full confidence in her, and feels all his intellectual superiority to the Count; he contemplates his situation with a humour which is admirably rendered in the celebrated cavatina (Act I., 3). Cheerfully as it begins, the expression of superciliousness and versatility has a tinge of bitterness and resentment, betraying how nearly he is touched by the affair which he affects to treat so lightly. Afterwards, when he believes himself deceived, grief and anger are strongly expressed in the recitative preceding his air (Act IV., 4). But his originality asserts itself even here. The consciousness of what his situation has of the ludicrous never forsakes him, and his anger against the whole female sex, which he works up more and more, involuntarily assumes a comic character. Here we have one of the many points which Mozart added to the text.
The somewhat unflattering description of womankind runs—
Queste chiamate dee
Son streghe che incantano per farci penar,
Sirene che cantano per farci affogar,
Civette che allettano per trarci le piume,
Comete che brillano per toglierci il lume—