I noticed that a decent amount of our songs are from The Marriage of Figaro. Funnily enough, The Marriage of Figaro is one the of plays I saw in drama for a Theater Critique--way back in 8th grade. I say play, not opera, because I very distinctly recall it as not being musical. I guess I saw a different version. It was very funny though. I chose it because my critique was due and it was the only show I could find (oops) but I ended up really liking it because it was so hilarious (it was also in English, not Italian, which helped). Anyways, when we talked about it as an opera in class I was confused. The storyline is essentially the same: a creepy sleazy count is hitting on Figaro's fiance. So Figaro, his fiance, and the count's wife trick the count into thinking his wife, the countess, is having an affair. Lots of love triangles and dramatic irony ensue, as Figaro finds his long lost parents, a page boy is dressed up as a girl for the ruse, and eventually the count and countess stay together (they love one another after all?) and Figaro and his fiancee Suzanne get their happily ever after.
I looked up the opera on youtube because I wanted to see how they did this all through singing. It's hard to really imagine all these jokes being told through song for me. The language barrier of course is a big deal, you can't really get a joke in another language if you don't speak it. I watched a few minutes to compare and it was pretty different than the production I saw, but if the people who were watching it originally did speak Italian, it's totally understandable why this opera is so famous and well liked-- it's an intricate comedy that's funny throughout the whole story.
I think this is something good for everyone to watch a few minutes of, since both Callista Chorale and Bella Voce are singing songs from it. I also believe some of our soloists will be doing pieces from it.
Here's the link:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fef03047ZX8
That story sounds really interesting. I wonder how many of the jokes changed from Italian to English and from the opera format to the theater format. Especially since there's cultural context to think about. Jokes might've even changed in the Italian opera version from it's original format, since, as time goes on, people's sense of humor tend to shift. It's a cool thing to think about.
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