On May 1, 1786 – on what was also a Monday, 237 years ago today – a miracle was heard for the first time: Wolfgang Mozart’s opera The Marriage of Figaro received its premiere at the Burgtheater in Vienna.   Some 100 years later, Johannes Brahms (1833-1897) wrote this about The Marriage of Figaro:  “Every number in Figaro is for me a marvel; I simply cannot fathom how anyone could create anything so perfect.  Such a thing has never been done, not even by Beethoven.” Herr Brahms, when you’re right, you’re right, and this case you are so right!  237 years after the premiere, Brahms’ awe of Mozart’s The Marriage of Figaro mirrors our own.  For many of us – myself included – it is, simply, the greatest opera ever composed.  Composing an Italian Language Opera for the Viennese On May 7th, 1783 – some three years before the premiere of The Marriage of Figaro – Mozart wrote the following in a letter to his father back in Salzburg: “The Italian opera buffa [here in Vienna] is very popular.  I have looked through more than a hundred libretti [meaning literally “little book,” the script of an opera] but I have […]

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