MOZART AS DRAMATIST
25
all without the sugar-coat of music.
Opera buffa
was gingerly turning
towards adult themes, libertarianism, genuine wit, and humanity;
Mozart and Da Ponte must have half-realized that they were creating
living comedy out of the traditional simple farce of Pergolesi, Piccini,
and Paisiello. Goldoni had done something similar with the
comme–
dia dell' arte.
Everything about
Figaro
is exceptional, advanced, bril–
liant, alarmingly real; it was much too clever to succeed in Vienna.
Mozart's sense of cleverness, power, and exhilaration remains an
actual aesthetic quality of the piece, one that will always fascinate
the connoisseur. Most recently, Siegmund Levarie has performed an
exhaustively wrong-headed analysis of the opera, glorifying its every
musical detail; the principal glory of
Figaro,
however, is the central
drama which binds the details.
Writing
Figaro,
Mozart first grasped the dramatic force of the
ensemble, and more generally, the dramatic possibilities of the Classic
musical style. In a word, he found his characteristic dramatic stride.
The way Mozart transformed the rather simple-minded technique
of the
opera bufta
is absolutely astonishing; PaisieIIo's
Il Barbiere di
Siviglia-one
of Mozart's models-may stand as a superior example
of the genre, but its dramaturgy seems childish next to that of
Figaro.
The dramatic strength of
Figaro
stems directly out of Mozart's reali–
zation of values latent in the Italian comic-opera style. This fact
is clearest of all from the opera's resolution, the reconciliation be–
tween the Count and Countess before the final curtain.
Mozart built this into a large Finale; so would any other com–
poser, but no other would have turned the peculiarities of the form
to so trenchant a dramatic end. In this Finale, complexity of plot
becomes almost painful, and is heightened by complexity of musical
structure: the sections flow into one another with elaborate musical
conflicts, parodies, and asides, rapidly developing the action on vari–
ous planes within the musical continuity. The intensity of intrigue
is matched to the intensity of musical feeling. Even the decor is
strained: the darkness, the summer-houses where everybody hides,
the sardonic formality of the rococo garden. Count Almaviva, who
has made an assignation with the maid Susanna, makes love to his
own wife dressed in the maid's clothes; Figaro pretends to make
love to "the Countess," actually his Susanna in disguise. When the
Count overhears this last manoeuvre
(f<Ah, sen?:! arme son io!"),
he
