Overture to The Marriage of Figaro, K. 492
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart)

[1786]

Mozart’s lucrative run as a freelancer in Vienna began to crumble in 1786, when a war with the Ottoman Empire scattered the aristocrats who flocked to his concerts. It was just then that a welcome invitation from the court of Emperor Joseph II rekindled Mozart’s ultimate ambition: to compose operas.

Mozart paired with Lorenzo da Ponte, an Italian librettist then based in Vienna, for the first of what turned out to be three immortal collaborations. Their 1786 adaptation of The Marriage of Figaro was based on the French play from 1778 that Pierre Beaumarchais wrote as a sequel to his earlier hit, The Barber of Seville. It was banned in Vienna at the time for its unflattering view of that era’s ruling class, but the Italian libretto scrubbed away just enough of the political agenda to get it past the emperor’s censors.

The Marriage of Figaro transpires over the course of “one crazy day,” when Figaro, the head servant to Count Almaviva, is due to wed the maid Susanna, who must first scheme her way out of the count’s lecherous grasp. The music of the overture has no major presence later in the opera, but its frenetic Presto tempo and insistent eighth-notes set the scene for the mayhem that ensues.

Two flutes, two oboes, two clarinets, two bassoons, two horns, two trumpets, timpani, strings