28
PA RT ISAN REVIEW
Beaumarchais' play had social significance in its day, and Mo–
zart's opera too, it
is
said, sets forth a cunning criticism of the
ancien
regime
in its exaltation of the servant classes. But surely Mozart
intended nobility of station as the clear symbol for nobility of spirit;
the court may smirk, but the Count and Countess interest us more
profoundly than any court intrigues. She is not strong, he is not good,
and even their servants can show them up as pathetic or ludicrous–
with the help of Mozart's and Da Ponte's instinct for comedy. But
the Count and Countess are conscious; they feel their feelings through,
and there is a ground of sympathy between them which Figaro and
Susanna cannot ever comprehend . Cruelty and shame have their
place in Mozart's picture of human fallibility; particularly in this
context, his drama reveals a view of life that is realistic, unsentimental,
optimistic, and humane. Probably no one has left a performance of
Figaro
without reflecting that the Count wiII soon be philandering
again. But just as surely there will be another reconciliation, another
renewal as genuine on both sides, as contrite and as beautiful. Clever
Figaro and Susanna are not actually so secure.
Finally, it should be emphasized that the drama of
Figaro
is
Mozart's, not Beaumarchais' or Da Ponte's. Music here does not
merely decorate what playwright or librettist had designed; Mo–
zart's music creates a drama that they never suspected. In his serious
treatment of the Countess, Mozart transcends anything in Da Ponte's
verse or in operatic tradition as he knew it; and with the Count,
Cherubino, and Susanna he performed famous miracles of charac–
terization (I have not said much about this, only because I believe
that it is better understood than Mozart's central dramatic idea).
Then at the reconciliation between Bartolo and Marcellina, Mozart
actually departed from Da Ponte and Beaumarchais, rather than
simply expanding on them. The original Bartolo chafes at the awk–
ward turn of events, and this feeling is even left in Mozart's recita–
tive; but in opera we trust what is musically forceful, and Bartolo's
tender joy in the Sextet is instantly, unshakeably convincing. Most
crucial, of course, is Mozart's transformation of the ending of th"
play. With Beaumarchais, the reconciliation
is
nothing-worse than
nothing, it suggests fatally that the intricate plot had beaten the
author, and that clemency was the only way he saw to unravel it. As
