Mozart Figaro at Met Opera: free video stream thru Mar 22

[Bob Stern]

Act 2 from a 1998 video of Mozart's Marriage of Figaro is available for free streaming through March 22 from the New York Metropolitan Opera's website.

 

Cast includes Bryn Terfel, Renee Fleming, Cecilia Bartoli and Dwayne Croft, conducted by James Levine.

 

Le Nozze di Figaro

[astrotoy]

Thanks, Bob. I'm watching it now. Figaro is my favorite opera. I heard Levine conduct it in 1987 at the Salzburg Festival (my only attendance there.) Ruggerio Raimondi was the Figaro and Marie McLaughlin was Susanna. Interestingly in this production, they substitute an alternative aria for Susanna.

 

In the movie Amadeus, Mozart explains to the Emperor how he constructs the end of the act, with a continuous stream of music with weaving and interweaving of characters. It marks the exact middle of the opera, where everything is at its most confused and the plot is most unresolved. Mozart also has moved the key from D at the beginning of Act I to its most distant Eb at the end of Act II. By the end of the opera when all the issues are resolved - Mozart is back in the original D.

 

Larry