Digging Deeper
Recommendations for further reading, watching, and exploring from John Conklin, BLO Artistic Advisor
BACKGROUND on THE FATHERS of FIGARO
BEAUMARCHAIS: A BIOGRAPHY
By Maurice Lever
Translated by Susan Emanuel
Farrar, Strauss and Giroux, 2009
As many commentators have pointed out, Beaumarchais led a varied and complicated life, not unlike his most famous creation, Figaro. He was a highly successful playwright, a politician, a publisher, a reckless (but brilliant) entrepreneur, a speculator, spy, important supporter of the American Revolution, early champion of the rights of artists and intellectual property, and more. This biography delights in these exploits…a well-told story of adventure, enterprise and wit.
THE FIGARO TRILOGY: THE BARBER of SEVILLE, THE MARRIAGE of FIGARO, THE GUILTY MOTHER
By Pierre-Augustin Caron de Beaumarchais
Translated by David Coward
Oxford World Classics Oxford University Press, 2008
Of course, Beaumarchais is best known as a playwright (at least for the first two Figaro plays…the third of the trilogy is a somewhat weird oddity). Highly theatrical, exuberant, “masterpieces of skill, invention, wit and social satire,” the plays are interesting not only on their own, but also as the source for masterpieces by Rossini and Mozart. “Coward’s translations cope admirably with Beaumarchais’ wide range of tone and registers in three very different plays.” His comprehensive introduction, weaving information and interpretation “into a compelling narrative,” (Times Literary Supplement) is excellent and has much to say about the operatic incarnations of Figaro.
MEMOIRS OF LORENZO DA PONTE
By Lorenzo da Ponte
Introduction by Charles Rosen
New York Review Books Classics, 2000
Perhaps Beaumarchais’ only 18th-century rival for most amazing life trajectory is the librettist of The Marriage of Figaro (not to mention Don Giovanni and Così Fan Tutte) is Lorenzo Da Ponte. At one time or another, he was a priest, proprietor of a brothel, grocery store clerk, and the first professor of Italian at Columbia University. Da Ponte’s own account is entertaining, vivid, untrustworthy…and somewhat disappointing in the short shrift given to his work with Mozart. But energetically gossipy and fun!
THE LIBRETTIST OF VENICE: THE REMARKABLE LIFE OF LORENZO DA PONTE, MOZART’S POET, CASANOVA’S FRIEND AND ITALIAN OPERA’S IMPRESARIO IN AMERICA
By Rodney Bolt
Bloomsbury Press USA, 2006
“Bolt skillfully relates broader cultural history to Da Ponte’s activities to provide quite a glimpse into turbulent times on both sides of the Atlantic. Da Ponte affected and was affected by many events and those help to make the fast paced story of a poet whose overwhelming optimism always prevailed a joy to read.” – Booklist
MOZART’S LETTERS, MOZART’S LIFE: SELECTED LETTERS
By Robert Spaethling, editor and translator
W. Norton & Company, 2000
Spaethling writes in his introduction that his goal was “to provide a complete account of Mozart the musician, Mozart the individual and Mozart the writer,” and he has accomplishes this with insight and nuance.
MOZART: A CULTURAL BIOGRAPHY
By Robert W. Gutman
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 1999
Exhaustive (and somewhat exhausting tome of some 900 pages) but eminently worth exploring—a work which brilliantly places Mozart’s life and music in the context of the intellectual, political and artistic currents of 18th-century Europe, including an excellent analysis of The Marriage of Figaro.
MOZART: A LIFE
By Peter Gay
A Penguin Life Series
Penguin Books, 2006
As brief (177 pages) as the Gutman biography is comprehensive, this book is lucid, clear-eyed and eloquent.
BOOKS ABOUT MOZART’S OPERAS
Of course there are shelves and shelves of books analyzing the overall specific musical qualities and cultural backgrounds of Mozart’s operas. Here are two of my favorites:
MOZART AND THE ENLIGHTENMENT: TRUTH, VIRTUE, AND BEAUTY IN MOZART’S OPERAS
By Nicholas Till
W. Norton, 1996
“… a triumphant study of Mozart’s supreme masterpieces … few books provide such a satisfying exploration of the thoughts and feelings from which great art is born … a feast for the intellectually adventurous.” – Kirkus Review
MOZART THE DRAMATIST: The Value of His Operas to Him, to His Age and to Us
By Brigid Brophy
Da Capo Press 1990; Libris, 2nd edition, 1998
A novelist and a committed Freudian, Brophy’s insightful views and analysis are often controversial (at times exaggerated) but never less than stimulating, personal and witty.
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