Video: THE MARRIAGE OF FIGARO Act II Finale Quartet at Royal Opera House
The clip highlights the tangled confrontation between Figaro, Susanna, Count Almaviva, and Marcellina.
The Royal Opera House has posted a video excerpt from its production of Mozart's THE MARRIAGE OF FIGARO, spotlighting the Act II finale quartet, a scene that brings together several of the opera's central characters at a pivotal moment of confusion and confrontation.
THE MARRIAGE OF FIGARO follows the valet Figaro, who has been pursued since the start of the opera by the housekeeper Marcellina, to whom he has promised marriage should he fail to repay a longstanding debt. Marcellina presses her claim on the very day of Figaro's wedding to his fiancée Susanna, spurred on by Figaro's old enemy Bartolo and by Figaro's master, Count Almaviva, who wants to claim Susanna as his mistress. As the description notes, Mozart and his librettist Lorenzo da Ponte deploy their skills to the full in what is called 'a devilish display of musical and poetic wit.'
The quartet captured in the video represents one of the score's most technically demanding ensemble passages, requiring the characters to voice conflicting motives and emotions simultaneously as the plot's farcical machinery clicks into place.
