Performing the Fandango in Mozart's Le nozze di Figaro1

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Given the trouble the fandango was certain to create, why did Mozart
write it? True, Beaumarchais had specifi ed a fandango in the corresponding
scene in the play, but the dance could easily have been omitted
from the opera, for its only function in the play is to provide local
color and to permit the introduction of a ballet for the dance-obsessed
Parisians. As a comparison of the corresponding scenes in the play and
the opera will show, however, Mozart departs from Beaumarchais by
giving the fandango a dramatic function and thereby making it essential
to the scene.
Like many other plays staged by the Comédie Française, Le Mariage
de Figaro was performed with incidental music made up of popular
songs arranged by the theater’s house composer and included in the
fi rst edition of the printed play. Beaumarchais made the wedding scene
into an elaborate opera-like tableau by adding continuous music and
dancing, all fully explained in extremely detailed stage directions. 13
The count and countess, seated; the “Folies d’Espagne” is played in
the tempo of a march [musical insert], to which the bridal couples and
guests fi le in and take their places. The peasants and their wives, having
lined up in two columns on either side of the room, dance one statement
of the fandango [musical insert] with castanets. Then the instrumental
introduction to the ensuing duet is played, during which the
bride’s father leads Suzanne to the count. She kneels before him. While
he places the bridal crown and veil on her head and gives her the bouquet,
two girls sing a duet [musical insert]. During the fi nal lines of the
duet, Suzanne, still on her knees, tugs at the count’s coat and shows
him the note she is holding. She then raises the hand nearest the audience
to her head, where the count appears to adjust her bridal crown,
and gives him the note. The count furtively tucks it into his breast
pocket. The duet comes to an end. Suzanne rises and makes a deep
curtsey. Figaro comes forward to receive her from the count’s hand
and withdraws with her to the other side of the room, next to Marceline.
Meanwhile the fandango is danced again. The count, eager to
read the note, moves to one side of the stage and takes it from his
breast pocket. As he does so, he makes the gesture of someone who
has just pricked his fi nger. He shakes, squeezes, and sucks it, and look-
three performances with the phrases “for the fi rst time,” “for the second time,” and “for the
third time,” with no emphasis on the fi rst performance. The composer of a new opera conducted
the fi rst three performances. In the case of plays, the playwright received the boxo
ffi ce receipts of the third performance. All works were normally given three chances to establish
themselves before being withdrawn. Finally, the fi rst three performances were given
in as close a succession as possible on three consecutive playing nights of the company.
13 Act 4, scene 9, of Pierre-Augustin Caron de Beaumarchais, Le Mariage de Figaro, in
Oeuvres, ed. Pierre Larthomas with Jacqueline Larthomas (Paris: Gallimard, 1988), 459–60;
my translation.