ROH_Figaro_WebReadyDocument

Figaro’s
Act 1
Aria
‘Now just how does a plot
get furthered by music? Well
there are a number of ways;
there’s ballet, underscoring,
choral devices and so on, but
certainly the most common
technique for telling your
story musically is the device
known as recitative...’
Leonard Bernstein, Conductor
In The Marriage of Figaro, characters sing both recitatives and arias.
In a recitative, passages of dialogue are performed in a semi-sung,
semi-spoken way using the rhythms and features of ordinary speech.
While represented on the page in traditional musical notation,
performers are free to interpret phrases at will, assisted by skeletal
chordal accompaniment from a keyboard instrument. Recitatives
are often where the action happens – quarrels occur, stories are told,
characters confess secrets – and so their purposes are varied; to further
the storyline, to present conversations between characters or even to
enable a harmonic transition to a new key.
The action and forward momentum generated by recitatives contrast
with the more reflective and lyrical arias with which they are typically
alternated. In these formalised songs, solo characters reflect on their
situation, emotions and motives, often with much repetition of text
and phrasing. Arias give singers the chance to demonstrate the extent
of their vocal capabilities, and are accompanied by the full orchestra.
The nature of operatic story-telling means that characters sing both
recitatives and arias, often in a seamlessly flowing musical progression.
The audience can connect with characters at a more literal, dialoguelevel
while empathising with their emotional situation at significant
points in the storyline.
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Erwin Schrott in Le nozze di Figaro
© 2015 ROH. Photograph by Mark Douet
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