Music 334MF - Music Analysis: 'Mozart's The Marriage of Figaro'

In conjunction with the Five College Opera's Spring 2026 production of Mozart's 1786 opera Le Nozze di Figaro, this course will give students a thorough grounding in the adaptation of plays into operas, and the analysis of opera. We will undertake a close reading of Beaumarchais' play (in translation), da Ponte's libretto, Mozart's settings, and a number of historic and contemporary productions, in order to explore how operas work with and against their source texts, and also how opera analysis and dramaturgy can inform creative choices about music and staging. By the end of the course, students will be equipped to decode text and music in opera, to critically engage with the analyses of other scholars, and to comprehend some of the challenges and drawbacks of opera analysis.

Prereq: one of the following: MUSIC-231, MUSIC-281, MUSIC-282, MUSIC-283, MUSIC-284.