• Media type: E-Article
  • Title: Sentimental and Anti-Sentimental in "Le nozze di Figaro"
  • Contributor: Castelvecchi, Stefano
  • imprint: University of Chicago Press, 2000
  • Published in: Journal of the American Musicological Society
  • Language: English
  • ISSN: 0003-0139; 1547-3848
  • Origination:
  • Footnote:
  • Description: <p>The article explores the complex relationship between Le nozze di Figaro (1786) and aspects of eighteenth-century sentimental culture. On the one hand, the opera parodies recognizable elements of that culture, thus joining a well-established anti-sentimental trend (an attitude largely inherited from its literary source, Beaumarchais's comedy Le Mariage de Figaro). In other respects, however, Le nozze di Figaro can be seen to make a direct appeal to sentiment. The tension between the sentimental and the anti-sentimental is one of the driving forces behind this work, and one of the most fascinating aspects of an entire epoch in European culture.</p>