The Second Life of Moztrot

by CrackedInkWell

Chapter 32: Le nozze di Figaro (Act 1)

Author's Note:

Okay a few things before you begin: First, from now on, I will place my focus entirely on this story. Since I got that other story done and out of the way, I can work on this.

Secondly, the original opera (while having an original plot) is roughly about three hours long. So from here, I'll try to not only summarize each act the best I can while including what I consider to be the highlights of the opera, I'll even throw in the translated dialogue much like how I did here.

So with that in mind: enjoy the show.

Even before opening day, I had been flooded with letters from posh ponies in Canterlot to as far away as Applewood, asking for seats to the opera. Not only that, but those said letters came with bits enclosed. In return, we sent them the tickets that acted as their temporary pass through the gated walls of the street. So many requests for seats came in that I was forced to extend my original nine-day performance by an extra two days. If anything, I was rather surprised at not only the turnout but by the number of ponies that came from beyond the boundaries of Canterlot.

On the morning of the performance, Wilfred directed the cast in setting up the chairs along the outer ring of the ground floor of the foyer, the second-floor tier as well as the third for the orchestra. Heavy instruments were hoisted up to the very top; luckily, the orchestra had donated an expensive electrical keyboard with control over its sound, volume, and pitch. Small and compact, it was loud enough to be heard all throughout and still give the rest of the orchestra room to play in.

For the audience, on each chair, a new type of magical scroll was placed; this wonderful thing was able to simultaneously translate the performer’s Istallion into Equestrian. That way, even if they don’t know the language, they would still be able to follow what was going on, much to my delight.

The Opera company went to and fro in modern servant uniforms, assisting the orchestra as they left their cases behind and make the climb to the third floor. “Mr. Moztrot,” the cellist Octavia said as she and another member of the chorus placed the cello down against the iron railing. “How are you today?”

“Ms. Melody, glad that my essential cellist is here. Oh, I’m really excited,” I smiled as I looked out the window to the front lawn. As expected, ponies that had purchased their tickets were waiting on the grass. “It’s not every day that you get to hold an opera inside your home.”

“Especially in a mansion,” she replied. “I’m afraid this might start a trend in Canterlot.”

“Ooh! Maybe I can conduct all of them.”

“Moztrot!”

I chuckled, “Kidding. Though I must say, this is turning out better than I thought, and we haven’t even started yet.”

The cellist looked over my shoulder, “This is going to be an interesting crowd.”

“How so? Do you know some of them?”

“For one, do you see that unicorn stallion over there,” she pointed to one that had a blue mane, darker blue suit and a lens in his eye, freely gossiping with those around him. “I believe that’s your neighbor and head patron of the arts.”

“We haven’t spoken much since his welcoming party, if anything, I was surprised to see him here.”

“That might be because he’s the biggest patron of our orchestra.”

This caught me by surprise, “Really? I thought that Celestia pays your salaries.”

She shook her head, “She stopped doing that a long time ago. Nowadays we rely on rich patrons to keep us going. Like him for example. Outside of the royal family, he’s pretty much the king patron for any artist, not just in music but art and fashion too. If you catch his attention and praise, you’re set for life.”

“Do you know him personally?”

“A little, he’s a total gentlecolt. And speaking of influential ponies,” she pointed out the window to which I spied Princess Twilight walking up the street. Not only her but her student and the orange wizard following right behind.

“Oh, I didn’t expect them to come today,” I beamed. “Still, I think we’re in for a good audience today.”

Then lagging behind came the most important audience member. It was the stallion who had lost my bet from a few months ago. It’s so good to see that Star Swirl did keep his promises. I won’t lie that, even as the crowd expressed surprise to see them there, I myself was rather curious. With Star Swirl, in particular, I couldn’t help but wonder, that since this might be his very first opera, what would he think of it?

---

Wilfred looked up from the ground floor, “One minute ‘til three sir,” he said. This was an exciting moment. High up above the rings of chairs, the Philharmonic, while they had some new faces, still give me the same attention as their predecessors did. Their bows at the ready, sheet music spread open, winds lips on the reeds while brass at their mouthpieces. All of them were ready on me to conduct; I stood before the keyboard, counting backward. Behind me at the windows facing the street, were a few of the chorus waiting for my signal while those at the front door waiting for theirs. Raising my hooves, I cued those at the three windows to open them wide. When I heard the lively chatter from outside, I waved my forelegs and set the beat, thus leading the orchestra into the overture.

The fleeting discussion of everyday things gave way to confusion as they heard the opening bars of the music. At the crescendo, the front doors were flung open. The excitement and anticipation flowed from the strings, winds, horns, and percussion as the audience from below entered with the chorus ushering them in. Watching from above, the audience was taken aback at the arrangement of it all while some were at awe at the simple grandeur of the foyer as the violins cascaded upon them. If anything, I could tell that they were expecting this to be a traditional setting to see an opera. So, imagine my amusement to see them react to the setting of it all. Actors and actresses intertwining with the audience that, frankly, if I didn’t know who they were, I would say that they look just like the ponies that they’re seating. Oh, what a novel experience to witness!

It was rather fitting for me to see all of this as if the overture was perfectly accompanying the ballet that was happening below. Flutes with polite conversation. Frantic debates on where to sit with trembling violins. Polite hellos and respectable acknowledgment went hoof in hoof with horns and violas.

While I conducted, I spied how the Princess of Friendship, along with Starlight and Sunburst, tried to find a seat on the second floor. Disappointingly, they chose a spot right beneath me so that I could not see them. However, the bearded wizard did take his seat on the ground floor. While it was right where I could see him, I couldn’t make out his expression from underneath that hat of his.

Yet, for the others in my heaven’s eye view, I could see nearly everything. Such as, soon as most of them were in, the “servants” brought in some of the essential things to be placed in the center of the foyer. A stand-up mirror here, a nightstand there, some clothes on the floor, an armchair in the very center, and a measuring stick. By the time the final bars of the overture, only two stood there in the center.

One was a Pegasus stallion that had on a white shirt and a black vest. He had a yellow coat and a trimmed copper beard; one hoof held the measuring stick. The other was an earth pony mare in a standard maid’s uniform. A pretty creature of a light blue complexion, with a silky, lamp black mane. She stood before the mirror with a white veil in hoof.

The overture came to an end and there was an earthquake of applause. After letting them settle down as many unraveled their translation scrolls, we began the opera with the two ponies below. The stallion paced about the floor, stopping every so often to put the measuring stick upon the marble ground. Meanwhile, the maid put on her veil, adjusting it this way and that in the mirror.

While the stallion muttered the numbers, the mare beamed about the new room. Very pleased indeed as if it were made for the couple, as well as her tailored veil. The Pegasus, playing the role of Figaro, agrees with his wife-to-be. “On this morning of our wedding,” the couple sang together at one point. “How delightful my dear one, is this pretty little hat, which Susanna made herself.”

At the end of the duet, the couple sang a short conversation.

“What are you measuring, Figaro?” the maid playing Susanna inquired.

“I’m seeing if the bed the Count has put aside for us will go well here.”

“In this room?”

“Yes, his Lordship’s generously given it to us.”

Susanna looked uneasy at the mentioning, “Keep it,” she replied.

“Why?”

“I’ve my reasons…” she rubbed a foreleg over the other before tossing him a piece of clothing. “Here.”

“Why can’t you tell me?”

“Because I choose not to,” the mare responded defensively but reprehended herself as she went over to stroke his cheek. “Are you my slave, or not?”

“I don’t understand why you so dislike the most convenient room in the palace.”

“Because I’m Susanna, and you’re a dolt.”

“Thanks, you’re too flattering,” Figaro rolled his eyes before muttering to himself. “Just see if it could go better anywhere else.” Thus, leading into the next song in which he thinks of how convenient it would be to set the bed just so, when his employer, the Count, and the Countess should ring the bells to call up upon them. That as soon as they heard it, one of them would be able to answer them quickly.

“And suppose one morning the dear Count should ring,” she sang uneasily. “Ding, ding. And send you three miles away? Dong, dong, and the demon should lead him to my door? And in three bounds…”

Figaro tries to soothe her, but something is clearly troubling her, bidding him to listen. For a moment while she asks him to banish his doubts, his fear dreads to hear what truth she may speak. “The Count,” she confesses, “tired of scouting the countryside for fresh beauties, wants to try his luck again in his own palace, though it is not his wife who whets his appetite.”

“Who then?”

“Your little Susanna.”

“You!”

“The very same. He hopes that being so close be useful to his ‘noble’ plan.” Figaro asks her to go on. “This is the gracious favor, this is the care that he bestows on you and your precious wife.”

“Have you seen such arrogance!”

“There’s better to come. Don Basilio, my singing teacher, and his go-between repeat the same theme daily when he gives my lessons.” While his fiancé was disgusted, she added: “Do you think he gave me a dowry because of your good looks? He intends me to obtain from me certain half-hours which feudal privileges…” Outraged, Figaro thought that the count had abolished such a practice. “He did, but now regrets it, and he wants to bring it back for me.”

While she was singing this, I couldn’t help but notice something rather interesting at the angle that I and Ms. Melody were carrying on the conversation. From high above, I noticed how that when the more richly looking ponies were reading the translation of it, some of them looked more uneasy than the actors before them. It’s rather curious to see how some of them were giving death glares to the other while the rest were either following the plot or looked somewhat guilty.

Ah infidelity, even centuries later, you’re still relevant today – more than ever before!

Back to the story. A set of bells were rung, summoning Susanna to the Countess. Figaro wishes her to have courage before she leaves him to be with all of us.

“Well done, my noble master!” he sang, his face boiling with anger. “Now I begin to understand the secret and to see your whole scheme clearly. To Trottingham, isn’t it? You go as a minister, I as a courier and Susanna… confidential envoy. It shall be, Figaro has said it.”

Picking up the measuring stick, holding up like a sword, the violins plucked out a noble pizzicato as Figaro sang out. “If, my dear Count, you feel like dancing, it’s I who’ll call the tune! If you come to my school, I’ll teach you how to caper.” As he sang and repeated these lines, going from calculated cool to explosive anger, the actor masterfully used the stick to convey this conflicting change of mood from dancing with it to using it as a sword.“I’ll know, I know, I know how…” He was about to charge up the stairs when he stopped halfway. “But wait – wait, wait, wait, wait, wait…” Pausing on the steps and the measuring stick under his chin, he pondered.“I can uncover his secret design more easily by dissembling.” With his wings spread, he rose into the air as his mind concocted his plan at a higher tempo. “Acting stealthy, acting openly, here stinging, there mocking, all your plots I’ll overthrow.” But getting his two hind hooves on the ground he danced with the stick. “If, my dear Count, you feel like dancing, it’s I who’ll call the tune. If you come to my school, I’ll teach you how to caper.” At the end of his aria, a bell was heard. He had to set aside his stick and fly up to the second floor and down a hallway.

After their applause for such a wonderful voice, the opera continued with two figures entering through the front door. One was the oldest stallion of the opera company, the other was a modest looking mare that seemed to be a few decades younger behind him. These two were portraying Dr. Bartolo and his old housekeeper, Marcellina. Through their singing, the mare had hired him to act as her legal consultant because, years ago, Figaro had promised her once that he would marry her if he should default on a loan that she had made to him – and hopes to have him enforce that promise. While the Doctor explains that he’s doing this for revenge, to get back at Figaro for derailing his plans of marrying Rosina, the current Countess.

Susanna comes in from the staircase, the mare below takes notice of her and says to the doctor, “And that’s the pearl of virtue he intends to marry!... One can’t hope for anything better from Figaro: money is everything.”

“Spiteful tongue!” the maid from the stairs tells the audience. “Lucky everyone knows the worth of her words.”

“Brava! Such canniness!” The mare boasted,“And those modest eyes and demure expression, as well as…”

The two of them see one another and before she and the doctor could go out the front door, Susanna rushes over to try to open it for her. These actresses, while letting the other try to leave first, exchanged in giving insults while making their words sound polite at the same time. One duet later, the mare and the doctor departed, leaving the maid alone to voice her thoughts.

“You old frump! Putting on high airs because you read two books and bored my lady in her youth.”

Thankfully, this got a snicker out of the audience that read the translation. Even I noticed that Star Swirl was chuckling underneath his hat.

Meanwhile, popping his head out from one of the wings on the ground floor, the colt playing young Cherubino cautiously looked about and spotted Susanna. While the lad was not a castrato like the original actor that played this role, he did manage to carry a tune and had a clear singing voice. An Earth Pony, he came into a suite that was much like the adults that seated above.

The maid asked why he seemed so frazzled. “Yesterday the Count found me alone with Barbarina and dismissed me. If the Countess, my lovely godmother, doesn’t get me pardoned, I’ll have to leave, I’ll never see my dear Susanna again!”

This gave a smile to her face, “Never see me again? Good! But doesn’t your heart secretly sigh any longer for the Countess?”

The page boy replied that the Countess respects him so, adding how he considers her lucky that she is able to see her whenever she wished. To help her get dressed and undressed, fixing her hairpins and such. He then noticed that the maid has something with her – it was a ribbon that was part of the nightcap of his godmother. Cherubino wanted to trade the ribbon for a song he wrote, but the maid asked that even if she accepts the song, what would she do with it.

“Read it to my lady,” he replies. “Read it for yourself, read it to Barbarina, Marcellina, read it to every mare in the palace.”

“Poor Cherubino, have you gone mad?” Susanna asked as she unfolded the sheet music, reading part of it while the lad quotes it by heart. “‘No longer know who I am, now I’m burning, now I’m ice, every mare makes me change color, every mare makes me tremble. At the very word love or beloved my heart leaps and pounds, and to speak of love fills me with a longing I can’t explain! I speak love when I’m awake, I speak love in my dreams, to stream, shade, and mountains, to flowers, grass, and fountains, to the echo, the air, the breezes, which carry away with them the sound of my fond words. And if I’ve none to hear me, I speak of love to myself.’”

After the applause from the duet, the Count comes in from the top of the staircase. The baritone was a unicorn who was a few years older than myself, but with an air of regality. His ember mane pulled back, he wore a black overcoat with a white cravat around his neck. At the very sight of him, the colt scurried off to hide behind a curtain.

The count descended the stairs and began to tenderly woo a rather uncomfortable Susanna. She tried to get him to leave so that they wouldn’t get caught, but after kissing her, he begged her to listen. The unicorn told her that since she gives him more joy than his wife if she gives him but a few minutes in the garden at night, he will pay her for life. As this exchange was going on, the mares in the audience (many of whom I assumed to be wives) gazes at their stallions became ever so more intense.

To add to the maid’s stress, another stallion came calling at the front door. After the count hid behind the armchair, she opened the door to receive a rather slimy music teacher. More like a predator, he too tried to woo her but got caught by the Count who tells him to leave. While this conflict is happening, the colt tries to hide in the pile of clothing and inches his way out of the foyer. The teacher tries to tell the Count that he has suspicions of the page colt, but the count says that he already has suspicions about him becoming rather lusty towards mares as he found him hiding underneath a tablecloth – as he lifts some clothing to reveal the very colt himself!

Of course, for the Count, this complicates things as the colt has heard and seen everything. He tells Basilio, the music teacher, to go fetch Figaro at once; but not before he asks the maid about the lad and what he was doing here. However, before they could get Figaro, the chorus comes in as his subjects to bless the Count for his nobility, generosity and chaste purity before the foals gave him flowers. As this is going on, Figaro slips in.

The Count demands to know what was going on. The clever Figaro replies, “My lord, do not disdain this humble expression of our affection. Now that you’ve abolished a privilege so painful to lovers.”

“That privilege exists no more,” the unicorn raised an eyebrow. “What now?”

“Today we’ve come to gather the first fruit of your generosity. Our wedding is already arranged. Please crown her, whom this gift of yours has preserved spotless, with this white veil, the symbol of virtue.”

Thinking fast, the Count replies with a humble mask that he doesn’t deserve such praise. And the abolishment of the privilege in his domain was to restore to nature and the rights of those under his rule. Furthermore, he promises that he will perform the ceremony, but he wants to do it before his friends in style. After dismissing the chorus, all was left was Figaro, Susanna, the Count and Cherubino in the foyer.

After telling Figaro why the lad looks unhappy, and his wife-to-be convinces the Count to pardon him, the unicorn gets an idea. “Nay, I’ll do more: there is a vacancy for an officer in my regiment. I nominate you; go at once, goodbye.” While the couple asked if he could stay for tomorrow, the Count insists that he leave at once.

Figaro congratulates him but whispers that he wants a word with him before he goes. “Goodbye, master Cherubino! How your fate changes in a moment!”

Thus, he sings the final aria of the act as he takes hold of the clothing on the floor to give him a uniform of rags. “No more, you amorous butterfly, will you go fluttering round, disturbing the peace of maids, you Narcissus, you Adonis of love. No more will you have those fine feathers, the light and dashing cap, those curls, those airs, and graces, that roseate mareish color. No more, you amorous butterfly, will you go fluttering round, disturbing the peace of maids, you Narcissus, you Adonis of love. You’ll be among warriors, by Bacchus! Long mustaches, knapsack tightly on, crossbow on your shoulder, saber at your side, head erect, bold expression, a great helmet, a head-dress, lots of honor, a little money, and instead of the fandango, marching through the mud. Over mountains, through valleys, in snow and days of heat, to the sound of blunderbusses, shells, and cannons, whose shots make your ears sing on every note! No more, you amorous butterfly, will you go fluttering round, disturbing the peace of maids, you Narcissus, you Adonis of love!”

Figaro gives a salute to him while the Count makes his exit. “Cherubino, on to victory, on to the military glory!”With him and his fiancé, they too walked off as the poor colt, with tears and shock still on his face, ran up the stairs while the orchestra plays out the fanfare to end this act. The audience applauded as they set their translation scrolls aside.

I got out of my seat and went over to the railings to shout over, “Act two will commence in ten minutes!”

Comments

[Liger43]

This story keeps getting better and better. can't wait to read Moztrot's final act for the opera.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_C_clUdklfs