Premiere: March 11, 2023

Production: Barrie Kosky

It was probably a risk that Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and Lorenzo Da Ponte took right from their first collaboration, but in any case a completely unusual approach in the Vienna of the later 18th century: To begin a new opera project without having been commissioned for it beforehand, without any assured prospect of a performance or even remuneration. In Mozart's case, the situation was aggravated by the fact that, although he had an excellent reputation as an instrumental composer at the relevant authorities - not least at the imperial court - he was considered to have little experience in the field of theater. In addition, the composer's choice of subject matter, Beaumarchais's comedy Le Mariage de Figaro, cast additional doubt on the realization of the planned opera on a public stage - Joseph II had shortly before forbidden the performance of the play, which was charged with revolutionary dynamite, on the grounds that »the play contains much that is offensive«. With a great deal of diplomatic skill and the indication that he had not created a pure translation of the French original, but a new version of the material purified of all questionable content, Da Ponte succeeded, however, in dispelling the emperor's reservations, even convincing him of the project and finally persuading him to personally order the premiere of Le nozze di Figaro at the Hofburg Theater on May 1, 1786.