The Women's Room: or How the Countess and Susanna Triumph

By Kristi Brown-Montesano

“Come in, dear Susanna: tell me the rest of the story.” Such a simple invitation, yet with this line the Countess Almaviva introduces us to a unique relationship, one quite unlike any other in the operas of Mozart. Enthusiasts frequently praise Mozart’s sympathetic handling of female characters, but in Countess Almaviva and her lady’s maid, Susanna, we find the only example of genuine, consistent friendship between two women in the composer’s works. To be certain, there are other feminine alliances in his operas. The maid Blonde dutifully comforts her mistress Konstanze in The Abduction from the Seraglio, Donna Anna expresses compassion for Donna Elvira in Don Giovanni, and the sisters Fiordiligi and Dorabella giggle together about suitors in Così fan tutte. But those relationships do not come close to the understanding that exists between Susanna and the Countess.

Sitting together in the privacy of the Countess’s boudoir, the two women converse about a highly sensitive issue, one that could easily have driven them apart: the amorous indiscretions of the Count, who has now turned his roving eye toward Susanna. The maid speaks openly, though she wisely leaves out the mortifying details of the Count’s latest attempt at arranging a sexual tryst. When the Countess asks, “So, he wanted to seduce you?” Susanna answers dryly, “Oh, my lord the Count does not give such compliments to women of my station. He came with a money arrangement in mind.” As her mistress’s closest servant and companion, Susanna is keenly attuned to the Countess’ hurt and wants to reassure her. But Susanna’s self-effacing reply also highlights what may be the only real limitation of their friendship, at least for an eighteenth-century audience: a significant difference in social class. Opera buffa may push against the societal constraints of its time, but not usually enough to break them, even in Mozart’s operas.

Still, the customary partition between noblewoman and maidservant bends more than usual with their rapport, perhaps because ultimately both characters lie so close to the social margin that divides them. Before her marriage — in The Barber of Seville — the Countess was Rosina, Dr. Bartolo’s harassed ward, who possessed just enough nobility of blood to make her a legitimate wife for Count Almaviva. She is genteel, but not without mettle — when Bartolo insinuates, for instance, that his pretty ward might be up to something scandalous with Figaro, Beaumarchais’s Rosine snaps back, “But, sir, if we [women] are pleased by anyone who is a man, why do I find you so displeasing?” Susanna, though not nobility, is not a lower-rank chamber servant, cleaning floors and other such manual labor. She is educated and polished enough to serve as a lady’s maid, whose duties would include dressing her mistress, arranging her hair, keeping her company, and entertaining her with reading or music at times. Susanna’s situation resonates with that of the younger Rosina: happy in love, she must resist the advances of the Count, who, as her master and guardian, should be safeguarding her honor and happiness, but instead is causing her strife.

Even the casting history of these two roles argues for a bond that goes beyond class — and vocal — stereotypes. Today, productions often emphasize the differences between the two roles, often by casting the maid Susanna with a lighter voice, the better to contrast with the noblewoman’s more dramatic and weightier vocals. However, the cast of Figaro’s premiere performance in Prague in 1786, as well as that of the 1789 Viennese revival, suggests a more complicated dynamic. In 1783 the first Viennese production of Paisiello’s The Barber of Seville (written thirty years before Rossini’s version) featured the celebrated English-Italian soprano Anna “Nancy” Storace — then only 18 years old — in the role of Rosina. Paisiello’s opera would occupy the Viennese stage again in 1785, with Luisa Laschi as the noble orphan. With these two productions fresh in the minds of the opera public of the imperial capital, Mozart wisely brought both sopranos together for the premiere of The Marriage of Figaro, with Laschi continuing as Rosina — now the Countess Almaviva — and Storace singing as the irrepressible Susanna.

There was no reason for Storace to fear losing the limelight — Susanna is hardly a supporting role. She is, in fact, the hub of the dramatic action, singing with all the major characters in an extraordinary collection of six duets, two trios, and a sextet. A born mimic, Susanna also shows her skill at adopting almost every type of vocal style. Though Mozart started to sketch a true prima-donna rondo for Storace, he changed his mind in the end, settling on the more modest, though arguably more fetching, aria “Deh vieni non tardar” (“Come now, do not delay”) from Act IV. Mozart was lucky to be working with the versatile and relatively accommodating artist, who apparently understood better than many of her soprano peers that the strength of Susanna’s characterization was not enhanced by virtuosic display. Their bargain certainly paid off, as “Deh vieni” remains one of Mozart’s most beloved opera arias, holding its own with the Countess’ gorgeous solo numbers.

Some of the modifications that Mozart made to the autograph score and performance parts further complicate the question of who the “first lady” of Figaro really is. While working on Act II, the composer began to switch the two vocal lines, giving Susanna what had originally been the Countess’s melody. By the time he started on Acts III and IV, Mozart consistently assigned the higher part to Susanna. The exact reasons for this shift are not known. But whatever the logic for these changes, they are found in almost all of the manuscript and printed scores, and are generally honored in modern productions.

Vocally and dramatically, these two women have a deep rapport, unusual for characters of their types. Musically, the bond between the two women becomes radiantly clear in the Act III scene featuring the duet “Che soave zeffiretto” (“What a soft, gentle breeze”). Attempting to bring the Count to his senses, Susanna and the Countess compose a letter in the form of a song, indicating Susanna’s sham consent to a twilight rendezvous. Most of the other duets in the opera are generally bustling or prickly affairs: Susanna and Figaro occupied with their pre-wedding activities, the same pair arguing about the Count’s choice of their rooms, Marcellina and Susanna engaged in poisoned politesse, Susanna and Cherubino panicking about discovery in the Countess’s room, and Susanna feigning compliance with the Count’s salacious overtures.

In terms of its subject, “Che soave zeffiretto” captures another round in this day of intrigue and dissimulation. Yet the music tells us something different. Together Susanna and the Countess create a leisurely pastorale, abating temporarily the opera’s frenetic pace and dramatic tension. For a few minutes, there is harmonious calm. There is no proper love duet in The Marriage of Figaro, yet “Che soave zeffiretto” radiates with love, both the Countess’s longing for her faithless husband and Susanna’s warm affection for her fiancé, Figaro.

As they craft their letter to the Count, the two ladies also draw closer to one another, each adopting the other’s inflections in the way that women friends do in conversation, until it is difficult to distinguish one from the other. Countess Almaviva, demonstrating the spirit and resourcefulness of her former self, assumes the lead, dictating the letter; Susanna repeats the words with her own melodic lilt. For instance, while the Countess’s initial phrase, “Che soave zeffiretto…” falls to the lower part of her range, Susanna’s murmured echo “Zeffiretto…” hovers appealingly like the breeze itself. The Countess seems to appreciate what she hears; a few measures later she will use Susanna’s musical phrase herself (“sotto i pini del boschetto” / “Under the pine groves”).

More definite melodic echoing occurs when the women nod to one another, knowingly — the Count “will surely understand” the rest of the letter’s implications. One can easily imagine the Countess sitting down next to Susanna or perhaps resting her hands on her maid’s shoulders as they survey their handiwork. Their vocal lines, too, converge; phrases that were once separate during the dictation now overlap. In the concluding section of the duet, the soprano lines mirror one another and then unite in parallel thirds, both soaring with hopefulness for a happy ending.