Not even the success of ‘Die Entfuehrung’ could permanently establish German opera in Vienna.  The musical sympathies of the aristocracy were entirely Italian, and Mozart had to bow to expediency.  His next work, ‘Le Nozze de Figaro’ (1786), was written to an adaptation of Beaumarchais’s famous comedy ‘Le Mariage de Figaro,’ which had been produced in Paris a few years before.  Da Ponte, the librettist, wisely omitted all the political references, which contributed so much to the popularity of the original play, and left only a bustling comedy of intrigue, not perhaps very moral in tendency, but full of amusing incident and unflagging in spirit.  It speaks volumes for the ingenuity of the librettist that though the imbroglio is often exceedingly complicated, no one feels the least difficulty in following every detail of it on the stage, though it is by no means easy to give a clear and comprehensive account of all the ramifications of the plot.

The scene is laid at the country-house of Count Almaviva.  Figaro, the Count’s valet, and Susanna, the Countess’s maid, are to be married that day; but Figaro, who is well aware that the Count has a penchant for his fiancee, is on his guard against machinations in that quarter.  Enter the page Cherubino, an ardent youth who is devotedly attached to his mistress.  He has been caught by the Count flirting with Barberina, the gardener’s daughter, and promptly dismissed from his service, and now he comes to Susanna to entreat her to intercede for him with the Countess.  While the two are talking they hear the Count approaching, and Susanna hastily hides Cherubino behind a large arm-chair.  The Count comes to offer Susanna a dowry if she will consent to meet him that evening, but she will have nothing to say to him.  Basilio, the music-master, now enters, and the Count has only just time to slip behind Cherubino’s arm-chair, while the page creeps round to the front of it, and is covered by Susanna with a cloak.  Basilio, while repeating the Count’s proposals, refers to Cherubino’s passion for the Countess.  This arouses the Count, who comes forward in a fury, orders the immediate dismissal of the page, and by the merest accident discovers the unlucky youth ensconced in the arm-chair.  As Cherubino has heard every word of the interview, the first thing to do is to get him out of the way.  The Count therefore presents him with a commission in his own regiment, and bids him pack off to Seville post-haste.  Figaro now appears with all the villagers in holiday attire to ask the Count to honour his marriage by giving the bride away.  The Count cannot refuse, but postpones the ceremony for a few hours in the hope of gaining time to prosecute his suit.  Meanwhile the Countess, Susanna, and Figaro are maturing a plot of their own to discomfit the Count and bring him back to the feet of his wife.  Figaro writes an anonymous letter to the Count, telling him that the Countess has made an assignation with a stranger for that evening