(Note: I’ve added a category for this opera)
Though I had to leave early, I thoroughly enjoyed being able to attend Le Nozze di Figaro–especially in such good company.
I am always struck by not only the splendor of opera, but at how often the story being told is relevant to a contemporary world. I am familiar with Beaumarchais’s plays, though I greatly prefer the operatic versions. The plays were written during a time of immense upheaval in France — the country was building towards revolution (indeed the last of the trilogy was written during the revolution that began in 1789). At this time, immense tension had built between the ruling nobility and the poor commoners. The Sun King (Louis XIV) had run the country financially into the ground and the people were starving.
Though not entirely the same, this tension between economic classes in France during the 1780s and 90s resonates for me with the current national conversation about the disappearing middle class and the increasing number of citizens living below the federal poverty level. I appreciate Mozart’s opera so much because the struggle between classes is clearly present in the tale.
I’m pleased I got to hear “Voi che sapete” during act II, and bummed I missed one of the other pieces I enjoy immensely:
I’ve already made plans to see Carmen next week with a friend. A fantastic opera if you have the chance to get affordable student tickets!
I am a sample reply.
Thank you for the sample reply. (I always clicked on the edit post, debating for hours if i should just type in my reply on the bottom of the post. Now I know. Yay:)
Here’s where I was slightly confused about the political statement of this opera.
I was thinking of a play by Moliere, called “Scapino”. According to the play, like many Italian commedia dell’arte style, the witty servant outsmarts nobles and basically does what Figaro/Susanna do in the Barber of Seville.
The problem this poses is that there are two work of art that propose similar theme, but one is plainly a well known comedy while the other is a political challenge. Does this mean that the meaning of the art will change drastically depending on the society, and that people will never be able to appreciate art in its purest form: as art itself? Or is art so intertwined with the time and place, that without it, art cannot be art?
You raise some very interesting questions! As for the literary aspects, there’s a lot happening beneath the surface of both works you’ve mentioned. For Molière, there is most certainly some social commentary happening beneath the comical in his farces. I have plenty of thoughts on meaning and context (and relativism). But, I’d turn around and ask you more questions (which you can either think about or take as rhetorical to your liking). Do you think certain works of art are (or can be) rooted in the context of a time? (Take politically motivated art like Italian Futurism, Surrealism, or Dada). Does art have a pure form that is divorced from context? and if so… does -all- art have this form? Is it, or can it be, a matter of perception? As for your last question- we have not lived through any wars that prompted a Triumph Arch, but can we appreciate them when we see them? (Take Washington Square in Manhattan, Grand Army Plaza in Brooklyn, L’arc de Triomphe in Paris http://www.arcdetriompheparis.com/)
Thank you for the response. I guess it really depends on the artist, if the artist is radical enough to wish not to incorporate the world perceived into the art, but even that does not completely divorce the art from its context in that if the artist is expressing him/herself, part of the world is to come no matter how detached it is. It is just like the way how even if I were to paint the most illustrious and abstract creature that no one has ever imagined, I would still be forced to use the colors of this world, and therefore, fail to be completely abstract. Like so, history seems to come with the art, whether intended or not.