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ACT
I.
A country estate outside Seville, late eighteenth century. While
preparing for their wedding, the valet Figaro learns from the maid
Susanna that their philandering employer, Count Almaviva, has
designs on her. At this the servant vows to outwit his master.
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. After Marcellina and Susanna trade
insults, the amorous page Cherubino arrives, reveling in his
infatuation with all women. 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. 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.
ACT
II.
In her boudoir, the Countess laments her husband's waning love 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.
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. Meanwhile, Susanna, having observed
everything from behind a screen, helps Cherubino out a window,
then takes his place in the closet. Both Count and Countess are
amazed to find her there. All seems well until the gardener,
Antonio, storms in with crushed geraniums from a flower bed below
the window. 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. 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.
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.
The nobleman, however, grows doubtful when he spies her conspiring
with Figaro; he vows revenge. 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. Finding a quiet moment, the
Countess recalls her past happiness, then joins Susanna in
composing a letter that invites the Count to the garden that
night. 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.
ACT
IV.
In the moonlit garden, Barbarina, after unsuccessfully trying to
find the lost hatpin, 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, 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. Susanna hides in time
to see Cherubino woo the Countess — 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. The Count
returns, seeing, or so he thinks, Figaro with his wife. 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.
Source: Metopera Website |
