Die Hochzeit des Figaro by Mozart, Ab (2022/2023), Unter der Regie von Jasmina Hadziahmetovic,, Dirigat Johannes Zurl, Staatstheater Cottbus, Cottbus, Deutschland

In one crazy day everything goes upside down. The servant tricks his master, an old nemesis turns out to be his own father and the women triumph over the men. The fact that the whole thing does not end in a revolution is due to the power of reconciliation, which is able to abolish all differences of status, gender, class or origin for a brief, utopian moment. Mozart's first collaboration with librettist Lorenzo Da Ponte in 1786 was nothing short of scandalous. The play by Beaumarchais, which served as a model for the composer and his poet, had already been banned by the censorship authorities. The play negotiated the ideals of the French Revolution all too clearly: liberty, equality, fraternity – the overthrow of the nobility and the victory of the so-called little people. First performed three years before the storming of the Bastille, Mozart's FIGARO was not just a piece of contemporary art, it was a political issue. In the opera, many of the political audacity of the original are softened into something human. The decisive moment has the most beautiful music: the Countess forgives her remorseful husband for his infidelities and shameless abuse of power. The revolution has been averted, it has already taken place. Neither master nor servant are on the stage. Here, in their great vulnerability, people sing about the ephemeral pursuit of happiness.