Dove sono i bei momenti

W A Mozart
"Le Nozze di Figaro"
Recitativo & Aria - E Susanna non vien! - Dove sono i bei momenti
Gundula Janowitz (La Contessa di Almaviva)

Conductor: Karl Böhm
Orchestra: Der Deutschen Oper Berlin
Recording: Hamburg 1968

The action of The Marriage of Figaro is a continuation of the plot of The Barber of Seville several years later, and recounts a single "day of madness" (la folle giornata) in the palace of the Count Almaviva near Seville, Spain. Rosina is now the Countess; her husband, the Count (a scheming middle-aged baritone, rather than the romantic youthful tenor of Rossini's Barber) is seeking the favors of the Countess' maid and confidante, the young Susanna, who is about to wed her fiancé, Figaro, the Count's valet. In an effort to pursue his amorous designs towards Susanna, the Count keeps finding excuses not to perform the civil part of the wedding of his two servants, which is arranged for this very day. When the Count detects the interest of the adolescent page, Cherubino (a breeches role), in the Countess, he tries to get rid of Cherubino by giving him an officer's commission in his own regiment. Figaro, Susanna, and the Countess conspire to embarrass the Count and expose his scheming. Meanwhile Figaro has been caught up in a dispute with Bartolo and Marcellina, which ends when he is revealed to be their long lost, out-of-wedlock son. The Count and Don Bartolo are being aided by Don Basilio, the music teacher, who constantly intervenes spreading gossip. Evening comes and all find themselves in the palace gardens, among the pines under cover of the night, where a comic series of cases of mistaken identity and several misunderstandings, some intended and some not, result in the Count's humiliation and then forgiveness by the Countess.