Le Nozze di Figaro. Die Hochzeit des Figaro. Eine Comische Oper in 4. Aufzügen...fürs Clavier eingerichtet von C. G. Neefe.

Bonn: N. Simrock. [1795]. First Edition, third issue. . [1] (title printed within oval decorative border), 2-228 pp., 1f. (recto publisher's catalogue, verso blank). Oblong 4to (c.21.5 x 30cms). Engraved throughout. [PN] 28. Text in Italian and German. Includes as No. 30, Mozart's aria "Al desio di chi t'adora" (k. 577). Worn green paper boards, cloth to spine heavily worn, 3 page corners repaired with old tape, scattered light stains, but overall a clean and very good copy. Haberkamp page 258, plates 218-220; Hoboken 259; RISM M 4343. 


Early issues of the first edition of Mozart's best-loved opera are very scarce. Haberkamp records only two copies of the first issue and one of the second: in Dresden and Salzburg. The copies in the British Library and the Austrian National Library are of the third issue.


First performed in Vienna at the Burgtheater on May 1, 1786, with libretto by Lorenzo da Ponte after Beaumarchais. "Figaro is generally agreed to be the most perfect and least problematic of Mozart's great operas... In the great finales of Acts 2 and 4, Mozart reached a level which he could never surpass; indeed, he was hardly to equal the Bb Allegro of the second act finale for its mercurial motivic play and the subsequent Andante in 6/8 for the synchronization of dramatic revelation with the demands of musical form." Grove Opera Vol. 3 p. 634. (15393)

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