ACT I: A country estate outside Seville, late eighteenth century.
While preparing for their wedding (2), the valet Figaro learns from the
maid Susanna that their philandering employer, Count Almaviva, has
designs on her (3). At this the servant vows to outwit his master (4).
Before long the scheming Bartolo enters the servants' quarters with
his housekeeper, Marcellina, who wants Figaro to marry her to cancel
a debt he cannot pay (5). After Marcellina and Susanna trade insults (6),
the amorous page Cherubino arrives, reveling in his infatuation with
all women (7). He hides when the Count shows up, furious because he
caught Cherubino flirting with Barbarina, the gardener's daughter.
The Count pursues Susanna but conceals himself when the gossiping
music master Don Basilio approaches. The Count steps forward,
however, when Basilio suggests that Cherubino has a crush on the
Countess. Almaviva is enraged further when he discovers Cherubino in
the room (8). Figaro returns with fellow servants, who praise the
Count's progressive reform in abolishing the droit du seigneur - the
right of a noble to take a manservant's place on his wedding night.
Almaviva assigns Cherubino to his regiment in Seville and leaves
Figaro to cheer up the unhappy adolescent (10).
ACT II: In her boudoir, the Countess laments her husband's waning
love (11) but plots to chasten him, encouraged by Figaro and Susanna.
They will send Cherubino, disguised as Susanna, to a romantic
assignation with the Count. Cherubino, smitten with the Countess,
appears, and the two women begin to dress the page for his farcical
rendezvous (13). While Susanna goes out to find a ribbon, the Count
knocks at the door, furious to find it locked. Cherubino quickly
hides in a closet, and the Countess admits her husband, who, when he
hears a noise, is skeptical of her story that Susanna is inside the
wardrobe. He takes his wife to fetch some tools with which to force
the closet door (14). Meanwhile, Susanna, having observed everything from
behind a screen, helps Cherubino out a window, then takes his place
in the closet (15). Both Count and Countess are amazed to find her there (16).
All seems well until the gardener, Antonio, storms in with crushed
geraniums from a flower bed below the window (17). Figaro, who has run in
to announce that the wedding is ready, pretends it was he who jumped
from the window, faking a sprained ankle (18). Marcellina, Bartolo and
Basilio burst into the room waving a court summons for Figaro, which
delights the Count, as this gives him an excuse to delay the
wedding (19).
ACT III: In an audience room where the wedding is to take place,
Susanna leads the Count on with promises of a rendezvous in the
Garden (1). The nobleman, however, grows doubtful when he spies her
conspiring with Figaro; he vows revenge (2). Marcellina is astonished
but thrilled to discover that Figaro is in fact her long-lost
natural son by Bartolo. Mother and son embrace, provoking Susanna's
anger until she too learns the truth (3). Finding a quiet moment, the
Countess recalls her past happiness (4), then joins Susanna in composing
a letter that invites the Count to the garden that night (5). Later,
during the marriage ceremony of Figaro and Susanna, the bride
manages to slip the note, sealed with a hatpin, to the Count, who
pricks his finger, dropping the pin, which Figaro retrieves (7).
ACT IV: In the moonlit garden, Barbarina, after unsuccessfully
trying to find the lost hatpin (8), tells Figaro and Marcellina about
the coming assignation between the Count and Susanna. Basilio
counsels that it is wise to play the fool. Figaro inveighs against
women and leaves (9), missing Susanna and the Countess, ready for their
masquerade. Alone, Susanna rhapsodizes on her love for Figaro, but
he, overhearing, thinks she means the Count (10). Susanna hides in time
to see Cherubino woo the Countess (11) - now disguised in Susanna's dress
- until Almaviva chases him away and sends his wife, who he thinks
is Susanna, to an arbor, to which he follows. By now Figaro
understands the joke and, joining the fun, makes exaggerated love to
Susanna in her Countess disguise (12). The Count returns, seeing, or so
he thinks, Figaro with his wife (13). Outraged, he calls everyone to
witness his judgment, but now the real Countess appears and reveals
the ruse. Grasping the truth at last, the Count begs her pardon. All
are reunited, and so ends this "mad day" at the court of the
Almavivas (14). |
