The Count is admitted, and finding the Countess in confusion insists upon searching the closet.  He goes out to find some means of breaking in the door, and Cherubino improves the opportunity to jump out of the window, while Susanna takes his place and confronts the puzzled Count.  Antonio, the gardener, comes in and complains that some one has jumped from the window and broken his flower-pots.  Figaro at once asserts that he did it.

A ludicrous side plot unfolds at this point.  Marcellina appears with a contract of marriage signed by Figaro, bringing Bartolo as a witness.  The Count decides that Figaro must fulfil his contract, but the latter escapes by showing that he is the son of Marcellina, and that Bartolo is his father.  Meanwhile the main plot is developed in another conspiracy to punish the Count.  Susanna contrives a rendezvous with the Count at night in the garden, having previously arranged with the Countess that she should disguise herself as the maid, the latter also assuming the part of the Countess, and arrive in time to surprise the two.  The page also puts in an appearance, and gets his ears boxed for his attentions to the disguised Countess.  Figaro, who has been informed that Susanna and the Count are to meet in the garden, comes on the scene, and in revenge makes a passionate declaration of love to the supposed Countess, upon which the Count, who is growing more and more bewildered, orders lights and makes his supposed wife unveil.  The real wife does the same.  Covered with confusion, he implores pardon of the Countess, which is readily given.  The two are reconciled, and Figaro and Susanna are united.

The whole opera is such a combination of playfulness and grace that it is a somewhat ungracious task to refer to particular numbers.  In these regards it is the most Mozartean of all the composer’s operas.  The first act opens with a sparkling duet between Figaro and Susanna, in which she informs him of the Count’s gallantries.  As she leaves, Figaro, to the accompaniment of his guitar, sings a rollicking song ("Se vuol ballare, Signor Contino"), in which he intimates that if the Count wishes to dance he will play for him in a style he little expects.  In the second scene Bartolo enters, full of his plans for vengeance, which he narrates in a grim and grotesque song ("La Vendetta").  The fourth scene closes with an exquisite aria by Cherubino ("Non so piu cosa son").  After an exceedingly humorous trio ("Cosa sento? tosto andate”) for the Count, Basilio and Susanna, and a bright, gleeful chorus ("Giovanni lieti"), Figaro closes the act with the celebrated aria, “Non piu andrai.”  Of the singing of this great song at the first rehearsal of the opera Kelly says in his Reminiscences:  “I remember Mozart well at the first general rehearsal, in a red furred coat and a gallooned hat, standing on the stage and giving the tempi.  Benucci sang Figaro’s aria, ‘Non piu andrai,’ with the utmost vivacity and the full strength of his voice.  I