In the late 18th century, opera was the most prestigious musical genre in Vienna, and Mozart had the luck to team up with one of the best librettists of all time, Lorenzo da Ponte (1749-1838). Born in Italy of Jewish parents and converted as a child to Catholicism, da Ponte wrote the librettos for three of Mozart’s greatest operas: Don Giovanni, The Marriage of Figaro and Cosi fan tutte. A wheeler dealer by nature, da Ponte got into trouble – not for the first time – with the authorities in Vienna and, after a stint in London, where he was involved in theatrical intrigues that left him headed for debtors’ prison, he ended his long life as the first teacher of Italian at Columbia University in New York. Unfortunately, the three da Ponte operas met initially with only limited success in Vienna. It was only after Mozart’s death that their true value was appreciated.

The Marriage of Figaro is one of the oldest operas in the standard repertoire and one of the most youthful in spirit. When Pierre de Beaumarchais’s play, on which the opera is based, was published in 1782, it’s unflattering portrait of the aristocracy understandably caused an uproar and horrified Louis XVI. Like any scandal, it proved irresistible and must have spread rapidly, because Mozart’s opera to Lorenzo da Ponte’s libretto was premiered only four years later on the cusp of the French Revolution. Nor did sit well with Hapsburg Emperor, Joseph II, brother of Marie Antoinette.

As is customary for most opera overtures of the eighteenth century, this one contains no music from the opera itself. Nevertheless, the overture captures the spirit of the opera in its opening bars, a sequence of rapid notes on the strings scurrying like whispering conspirators. It is answered by the whole orchestra with festive trumpets, and these alternating moods continue throughout the ebullient overture.