Date of composition: 1785-1786
Premiere: 1st May 1786 at the Vienna Burgtheater cunducted by the composer
Duration: 4 minutes
Performances by the Berliner Philharmoniker:
First performed on 29 March 1888 conducted by Gustav F. Kogel
The legendary British conductor Sir John Barbirolli knew exactly how he liked his breakfast egg: “Do you know how I time it? I bring it to the boil and then conduct the overture to The Marriage of Figaro.” The prelude to the opera, first performed in 1786, lasts exactly four minutes. Count Almaviva, a notorious philanderer, is pursuing his servant Susanna, who is about to marry his valet, Figaro. With the Countess’s help, the two servants manage to outwit the lust-driven nobleman.
Mozart is said to have needed just six weeks to compose the opera’s three-and-a-half-hour score. In the overture, he does not – as was customary at the time – string together the work’s best melodies, but instead presents entirely new, self-contained music that brilliantly captures the comedy’s mood. The strings’ breathless opening really does sound like water coming to the boil. Then the full orchestra enters with a theme that could be the musical equivalent of the title of Beaumarchais’s original play: The Mad Day.