W.A. Mozart - Waiting for Figaro (The Impresario, The Deluded Bridegroom and The Cairo Goose)

Libretti by Gottlieb Stephanie the Younger anonymous, and Giambattista Varesco
English translations by Gilly French and Jeremy Gray

Cast

Synopsis - Cast
Waiting for Figaro - two abandoned operas and a singspiel
back to top

Synopsis

The Impresario and The Deluded Bridegroom
The Impresario Frank (speaking part) is anxious because music for a forthcoming performance of the Marriage of Figaro has not arrived, and rehearsals need to commence. When the music is delivered, they discover that an alternative has been supplied: The Deluded Bridegroom. Their deliberations are interrupted by the arrival of Madame Goldentrill (booked by Angel) who has come to audition, followed quickly by Miss Warblewell (booked by Frank). Both women sing their audition pieces, and take a firm dislike to each other. The company starts to rehearse the music from The Deluded Bridegroom, and in the opening quartet both new sopranos have to share the role of the servant Bettina, a situation which can only add to their rift. Meanwhile, a Work Experience Girl - a student from the Academy - reminds Frank that she has also been promised a part, and sightreads her way through Eugenia's aria with great aplomb; a New Tenor, to whom the Work Experience Girl has taken a fancy, also shows off his musical skills as Don Asdrubale. A trio, "This is dreadful! Tribulation!" seems to echo Frank's own dilemma. The warring divas return and develop their feud, whilst Angel tries to calm them down and effect a truce. The plan to perform the Deluded Bridegroom comes to an abrupt end however, when Frank discovers that Mozart had never written more than four numbers. Examining the music parcel again they discover further music, for the Cairo Goose - with three soprano parts, and something for the tenors as well, everyone can be kept happy. Work Experience Girl and New Tenor slip away to practise their love scenes, whilst the remainder, joined by the director Bluff, celebrate the joys of music with some degree of equanimity.

In The Deluded Bridegroom a misunderstanding has separated the lovers Eugenia and Don Asdrubale. As Eugenia assumes the Don to be dead, she has been persuaded to marry the elderly, stupid, but very wealthy Bocconio, whom she has not seen. In the opening trio, Bocconio is teased about his wedding plans by the misogynist Pulcherio, the maid Bettina, and by Asdrubale, who in fact is his friend. Eugenia, like Laura in I due baroni complains about the poor reception she receives when she arrives at her fiancé's home. Pulcherio teases the betrothed couple. From later in the first act Asdrubale, who by now is being pursued by two other women, encounters Eugenia, causing consternation to themselves as well as to Bocconio.

The Cairo Goose
The old Marquis Don Pippo, who believes his absent wife Donna Pantea to be dead, has shut up his daughter Celidora and her companion Lavina in a tower. He intends to marry Lavina that very day, even though she pines for Calandrino, and he is forcing Celidora to marry Count Lionetto di Casavuoto instead of her lover Biondello. During the overture the chambermaid Auretta flirts with a sequence of tradesman to avoid paying their bills. In the opening duet she boasts of her coquettish arts whilst he lover Chichibio is miserable about them. They make up their quarrel during the course of the duet. In a recitative Don Pippo’s nephew Calandrino asks if his uncle is still asleep. Chichibio goes off to find out, and Calandrino flirts with Auretta. They notice that Chichibio has seen their embrace; Calandrino pretends to be in the middle of an anecdote: Like this they stood caressing, Apollo and Daphne…Auretta sings a teasing aria about jealousy and Chichibio complains that beautiful women, despite their insistence to the contrary, are rarely faithful. However, Biondello has a wager with Don Pippo: if he can rescue Celidora within a year of her incarceration her hand will be his reward. It is the eve of the anniversary of this wager; the marquis is confident that Biondello’s rescue plans are failing and sings a jolly buffo aria about his forthcoming wedding. Later Biondello sings that true love, with a little help from Cupid and Venus, will win him the wager, and looks forward to Don Pippo’s fury at his success. The two girls and their lovers sing a moving quartet, Auretta and Chichibio discuss their role in the rescue and workmen arrive to build a bridge. Auretta and Chichibio re-appear, panic-stricken as they have lost sight of Don Pippo, who indeed soon appears with a chorus of policemen and guards. The girls make lame excuses for being on the balcony but he is furious. The lovers are defiant but afraid, and the act ends with the assembled company being marched off to prison.

The rest of the story
In Act II a ship arrives at Ripasecca carrying Donna Pantea, wife of Don Pippo, who was believed dead. Disguised, she is carrying a large mechanical goose, which she says is from Cairo. Don Pippo is fascinated by the goose, particularly when he is tld that, if left alone at night in a walled garden, it will talk. In this way the goose – with Biondello in it – gets inside the tower garden. Pantea’s true identity is revealed, Pippo is humiliated and all the lovers are reunited.

Synopsis - Cast
Waiting for Figaro - two abandoned operas and a singspiel
back to top

Waiting for Figaro - two abandoned operas and a singspiel

After the enormous success of the singspiel Die Entführung aus dem Serail in July 1782 (despite the Emperor's famous quibble 'too many notes, my dear Mozart'), Mozart was on the lookout for a good Italian libretto. The director of the Imperial Court Theatre, Count Orsini-Rosenberg, had requested an 'opera buffa', but the hunt was to prove problematic. Recently married, Mozart was in the mood for further work in German, and toyed with the idea of Goldoni's Servant of Two Masters in translation. However Italian opera was clearly in vogue, and there were fine singers in Vienna, including the buffo bass, Francesco Benucci, who later was to create the roles of Figaro and Guglielmo. In May 1783, Mozart complained to his father 'I have looked through easily a hundred libretti – even more – single-handedly – but I have found scarcely a single one which pleases me'. He hoped to work with a certain Abbate da Ponte, but as he was already contracted to Mozart's great rival Antonio Salieri, it seemed unlikely that a new libretto would be forthcoming. In the end Mozart asked his father to contact Abbate Varesco in Salzburg, despite the negative reaction to his libretto for Idomeneo.

By June 1783, Varesco had sent a draft of L'oca del Cairo (The Cairo Goose). Mozart deemed this satisfactory but claimed the composer's prerogative to demand alterations as much as he wished because Varesco 'has not the slightest knowledge or experience of the theatre'. Over the next six months, Mozart worked extensively on Act I, but soon began to have doubts about the libretto and its dramatic potential. The main reason was the incarceration of the two girls in a tower until the last moments of the opera – Mozart thought the audience might tolerate the women singing from the ramparts for one act, but felt strongly that the second act needed to be set inside the tower itself to give them more freedom. But, more fundamentally, he did not approve of the whole idea of the goose – a kind of Trojan horse used to mount a rescue of the imprisoned girls – and only went along with the idea because it was approved by his father and Varesco, 'two men of greater penetration and judgment than I'. By February Mozart had laid the music aside, albeit with the intention of a temporary delay, having written the vocal parts and bass lines to most of the first act, with some indications of orchestrations: as it turned out neither L'oca nor its librettist were heard of again.

The substantial fragment which Mozart completed has received a number of orchestrations and completions. Erik Smith's, made for the Philips Complete Mozart Edition in 1991, refrains from adding any additional music (the libretto to the whole act survives complete) other than sufficient recitative to relate the story. Lacking an overture, the 45 minute work nevertheless stands up as a performable and coherent opera, and throws particular light on Mozart's progress towards Figaro. The character and relationship of the servants, the flirtatious Auretta and her at times bewildered lover, Chichibio, whose teasing duet opens the opera, anticipate very closely the mood and character of Susanna and Figaro, a similarity reinforced by their subsequent arias. Like Bocconio in Lo sposo deluso (and, for that matter, the barons in Cimarosa's I due baroni), the boorish Don Pippo does not reach the more humane and equivocal character of Count Almaviva, but provides a conventional and appealing comic focus to the plot, especially in the relish with which he looks forward to his wedding with Lavina (Trio: 'Preparations for my marriage, a double marriage!'). This, which begins as a solo aria before the introduction of the other voices, as well as the lovers' expressive quartet (reminiscent of the concluding Act II quartet in Die Entführung) and the extended episodic finale, all indicate that this was to be an ensemble-based opera, and Mozart's experiences in writing these were to stand in good service for his Da Ponte collaborations. The constantly varied finale, involving all seven singers and introducing a chorus of Pippo's henchmen to forestall the elopement, shows the composer's response to the dynamic conclusions of Cimarosa and the Italian school; with its many shifts of tempo, ensemble and mood put to brilliantly comic and dramatic effect, we see Mozart's new ability to control complex groupings of characters which he was to explore to the full in Figaro.

The performance history of L'oca del Cairo is interesting. It was given a concert performance at Frankfurt in 1860, and a staged performance to a French libretto in Paris in 1867, with music interspersed from Lo sposo deluso and some concert arias. It was staged in Italian at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane, in 1870, and there were a number of new versions made in the twentieth century. Recent significant staged versions were given in 1991 at Batignano, Italy (arranged by Stephen Oliver) and at Illinois (completed by Nicholas Temperley). Erik Smith's version was performed at Sao Paolo, Brazil, in 2001, Bampton having given its first public performance in 1994.

By the time the work was abandoned early in 1784, Mozart already had in his hands a further libretto, by 'an Italian poet here [in Vienna]'. Although hopefully attributed to Da Ponte by many scholars, it is more likely that Lo sposo deluso (The Deluded Bridegroom), an adaptation of a two-part intermezzo set by Cimarosa (as Le donne rivali) in Rome in 1780, must be considered to be by a Viennese author. Like L'oca, Lo sposo deluso conformed to Mozart's preference for seven characters, and thus expanded the typically five-character cast (as I due baroni) of Cimarosa's original. The subtitle La rivalità di tre donne per un solo amante (The rivalry of three women for a single lover) indicates a standard buffa theme of amorous intrigue and deception. The action is fast and entirely comic, with little opportunity for sentimentality or reflection but allowing great scope for lively ensemble, a challenge which Mozart was increasingly able to meet. A dating to 1784 is virtually proven by the availability of the singers Mozart had in mind and listed: amongst others, the great Benucci was intended for the 'rich and stupid' Bocconio, Francesco Bussani (later Bartolo and Antonio, the Commendatore and Masetto, Don Alfonso) was to be the misogynist Pulcherio, and the darling of Vienna, Nancy Storace (later Susanna), sister of the English composer Stephen, was to be the noble Eugenia: the fact that Mozart gives her married surname Fischer apparently indicates a date after May 1784 for the composition.

Mozart appears to have tackled the project with initial but short lived energy, composing a complex opening in which a cheerful three-part overture runs directly into an extended quartet ensemble, with significant and effective thematic links (he only wrote the wind parts for the first page, and the subsequent orchestration was made for a concert put on by Mozart's widow in 1797). A trio from late in Act I is fully scored, but two arias for Eugenia and Pulcherio have voice and bass parts only, with occasional hints of additional instrumentation. The missing orchestrations were made by Erik Smith in 1974.

Lo sposo deluso survives as a tantalising fragment of what could have become a great opera, one which, with its buffissima character, would surely have satisfied Viennese taste with alacrity. It is not known for certain why Mozart abandoned it, as there are no direct references to it in his correspondence. Like L'oca it appears that the libretto did not satisfy, and since May 1783 Mozart had set his heart on a collaboration with Lorenzo da Ponte. Nevertheless he continued to dabble with possibilities, composing a trio for Il regno delle Amazoni to words by Giuseppe Petroselli, and two notable ensembles to be inserted into Francesco Bianchi's opera La villanella rapita performed at the Burgtheater in Vienna on 28 November. By that time, however, as his letters show, he was already hard at work on Da Ponte's brilliant adaptation of Beaumarchais' controversial play Le marriage de Figaro.

Despite having at last found his ideal libretto, Mozart interrupted Figaro to write not only the great piano concertos K482, K488 and K491, but also the music for Der Schauspieldirektor (The Impresario), written between 18 January and 3 February 1786. Der Schauspieldirektor was an imperial commission from the Emperor Joseph II for an entertainment to be presented at a reception to celebrate the visit of Duke Albert of Sachsen-Teschen and the Archduchess Marie Christine (the Emperor's sister) on 7 February 1786 in the huge Orangery at Schönbrunn palace. The commission to Mozart, for which he was paid 50 ducats, was for what amounted to a Singspiel – a set of musical numbers to punctuate a comic play by Gottlieb Stephanie the Younger, who had previously written Die Entführung for Mozart. The evening's entertainment was completed with another work, this time an Italian opera buffa by Mozart's rival Salieri, Prima la musica poi le parole: Salieri's fee was 100 ducats.

The idea of the plot of Der Schauspieldirektor was said to have been given to Stephanie by the Emperor himself. The plot, not an original one, dealt, to Mozart's great appeal, with the difficulties of an impresario in assembling a theatrical company in Salzburg. The work proved immensely successful but ran the gamut of continual adaptation, being combined, for example, with Cimarosa's L'impresario in angustie for a production by Goethe in 1791, and rewritten in 1845 by Louis Schneider as Mozart and Schikaneder.

Some modern performances still present the pairing with Salieri's Prima la musica, but nearly always the lengthy and complex play of Stephanie is rewritten, and most non-singing roles are cut. Mozart only wrote five numbers, but each is masterful and very funny, and reveal the composer's mature grasp of his comic dramatic art at this critical stage of his career. A scintillating overture is one of Mozart's warmest and most energetic. Two rival sopranos are characterised in contrasting audition arias: Madame Goldentrill (originally Madame Herz) reveals both pathos and passion in her ariette, whilst the younger Mlle Warblewell (originally Mlle Silberklang) invites her love with coquettish directness. The comic heart of the piece lies in a delicious and episodic trio in which the tenor Angel attempts to calm the tempers of the rivals. Somehow a truce is effected, and the buffo singer Buff completes a lively, if slightly less inventive, quartet of reconciliation.

Three months after the première of Der Schauspieldirektor, came the triumphant first performance of Le nozze di Figaro, at the Burgtheater on 1 May. Mozart had at last the inestimable benefit of working with a librettist whose appreciation for drama, comedy and timing equalled his own. Nevertheless, the experience he had gained through these shorter projects was critical to the quality of Figaro, and its genius must justify the demise of both Goose and Bridegroom.

Synopsis - Cast
Waiting for Figaro - two abandoned operas and a singspiel
back to top

• Home
• Current season
  • Performances
  • Singers
  • Supporters
• Booking information
• Venues
• Newsletter
• Friends
• Repertory
• Conductors
• Directors
• Singers
• Reviews
• Editions
  & translations
• Education
• Contact us
• Acknowledgements
• Links