The marriage of Figaro at Den Norske Opera & Ballett

“What we are not allowed to say these days, we’ll have to sing”, wrote a Viennese newspaper in 1786, the year The Marriage of Figaro had its premiere. It is easy to be bedazzled by the festivities in what is perhaps Mozart’s best-known opera, although The Marriage of Figaro is much more than a comedy of masquerades and mistaken identities.The opera is based on the controversial play Le mariage de Figaro by Pierre Beaumarchais, which in its time was banned for asserting that nobility and servants stood equal, and indeed went so far as to claim that a servant could be better than his master. In The Marriage of Figaro, the “high” and “low” of society are also portrayed as equals in a rich musical universe, and Mozart shows clearly his sympathies with Beaumarchais' revolutionary message. In The Marriage of Figaro, Mozart’s incarnate ability to create memorable, vivid, three-dimensional characters through music is elevated to a masterly level. This production marks the return of Thaddeus Strassberger’s popular The Marriage of Figaro from 2010.