The choice of a libretto based upon Beaumarchais’ Le mariage de Figaro must be understood within the context of the reign of Emperor Joseph II of Austria whose interest in the arts, theatre and music during Mozart’s lifetime made for a rich but not always helpful environment for the composer. Joseph was a reformer and a staunch believer in the tenets of the Enlightenment. This was a ruler who rarely dressed the part, often mingling unknown amongst his subjects. He was responsible for limiting the power of the aristocracy, working towards their full subjugation under the law along with all other citizens. One of his first acts was to provide complete religious freedom within the empire, something that came as a real boon to Jewish citizens. He also worked towards the limitation of ecclesiastical power, particularly the financial power held by Austrian monasteries, something which often put him in conflict with the pope and local church authorities. But Joseph was also an autocratic despot. Because he was a ‘reformer’ doesn’t mean that he was interested in democracy, for instance. And his reforms were pushed forward without regard to the feelings or criticisms of his subjects.
Joseph was intimately involved in theatrical and operatic entertainment in the capitol, Vienna. Without his agreement as de facto director of the royal opera theatre and National Theatre, no work would come to production. It is interesting then that the librettist Da Ponte and Mozart were able to persuade him to allow the production of Le nozze di Figaro for the Hofoper (at the Burgtheater, later known as the Nationaltheater) despite the fact that he had forbidden any production of the original Beaumarchais comedy. Volkmar Braunbehrens, in his groundbreaking book Mozart in Vienna, suggests that the Emperor’s decision was an adroit political calculation meant to hold up a mirror to the Austrian nobility whose families all held boxes in the Nationaltheater. A comedy about a servant’s one-upmanship of a nobleman, while not entirely revolutionary (in fact the Austrian state censors acted as a strong deterrent to Da Ponte’s retaining any of the more ‘dangerous’ elements of the original play) was certainly provocative and that was surely what Joseph had in mind.
It must be remembered as well that Giovanni Paisiello’s version of the previous Beaumarchais comedy, Le barbier de Séville was a triumph in Vienna during the 1783 opera season as Il barbiere di Siviglia. Figaro deals with many of the same characters, so Mozart and Da Ponte hoped that the memory of Barbiere would assure them with a modicum of success if not a succès de scandale.
Composition of Le nozze di Figaro probably began in the winter of 1785, composer and librettist working closely together. At their disposal in residence at the Nationaltheater was possibly the finest company of opera buffa singers in Europe, many of whom had been involved in the great success of Paisiello’s Barbiere two years before. Of special note in the original cast were Nancy Storace, an English soprano of Italian descent who sang the first Susanna, and Michael Kelly, the Irish tenor who created the roles of Basilio and Don Curzio and whose written reminiscences of Mozart are a key factor in our understanding of the composer today. Though it may have taken Mozart and Da Ponte only six weeks to draft the opera it took considerably longer to get it produced. But it finally found its way to the stage on May 1, 1786 at the Nationaltheater where it had nine performances. In a 1789 revival at the same theatre it received twenty-six performances and was deemed such a success that the Emperor commissioned Così fan tutte.