A Moment In Time

It's taken longer than I would have liked, but I completed my listen-through of Le Nozze di Figaro this morning followed by reading the requisite chapter in David Cairns's Mozart and his Operas. Focusing intensely on individual acts is definitely the way to go for me. I can sustain my attention reasonably easily for the length of time involved and this way of doing things gives me a strong sense of the dramatic architecture of each act and, surprisingly, doesn't seem to detract that much from my overall sense of the opera in question. In fact, having to keep in mind what has transpired in the earlier stages of the work helps add to my sense of the functioning of the whole. What I do lose sight of, I suppose, are musical connections and continuities, but I'm such an unsophisticated listener that I'm not sure I would really pick up on these if I tried to take in a full opera in one sitting. Cairns is excellent, by the way, for pointing out those aspects of the works.

I also like the way in which, despite his massive enthusiasm for Mozart, he's prepared to address what might be regarded as the weaknesses of the operas. His judgement calls on these are very convincing, I must say. His defence of the fourth act of Figaro against the charge that it fails to sustain the dramatic momentum of the first three, or even that it prolongs a work that is really over by then is spot-on. Yes, the drama needs to move from the Count's house to the garden, in the same way that we need to leave Shakespeare's interiors for the enchanted forests, and the crazy day of the action of the opera needs to conclude in the shadow world of the nocturnal - like The Merchant of Venice needs the enchanted romance of its fifth act to fill out its real shape and achieve balance.

Funnily enough, on my first exposure to Figaro I think I felt the final act was a bit of a let-down as it doesn't have the fireworks of the Act 2 finale. But I now see that that's the point. As we move to the various reconciliations, the somewhat more subdued atmosphere, even as the farcical elements still have their place, works perfectly. The other thing that really hit me today was the absolute perfection of what I'd previously thought of as a bit of a rushed final reconciliation after the Countess gives her forgiveness to her errant husband. Cairns notes that the denouement has been criticised as failing to ring true - I suppose because of the instant sense of generosity of spirit that falls on every character on stage. Yes, we know that the Count's sudden reformation isn't likely to last, but isn't this Mozart's great insight: the human understanding manifest in the glorious music by its very nature cannot last long - we are basically the fools we've been shown to be throughout the opera and we can only transcend our deep folly for transiently fragile moments. The magic lies in the fact we can transcend it at all.

We are wiser only for as long as the music lasts. But the wisdom is readily available since the possibility of an encounter with the opera is always there for us.