Figaro's Aria from "Barber of Seville"

So I watched/listened to this clip from the “Barber of Seville” (Figaro’s Aria). I have to admit that the thing that stood out most for me the first time I watched it was Figaro’s fantastic mustache, but that didn’t fall into the scope of this assignment so I had to watch it a couple more times.



Musically, a couple of things from the piece really caught my attention. First, the pitch modulation was nearly constant- there were rarely two consecutive notes of the same pitch, and if there were they were part of a repeating ascension of pitches to a climactic peak. With the exception of the end, pitch was used for emphasis- high pitch equaled high emphasis, while lower pitches were usually less stressed. Also beat-you-in-the-face obvious is the vibrato in the voice. It was so strong that I could barely understand what the vocalist was saying (hooray for subtitles!).

The speed of the piece was relatively quick the whole time. It slowed slightly for a while, in the cantabile section of the aria (at about 2:15), but even here it wasn’t especially slow, just less fast. Volume modulation was used a lot in the piece for emphasis; beginnings and endings of sections were louder, with a lot of the parts in between being quieter.

The aria was set in a marketplace presumably, with Figaro’s barber cart being the center of the action. Figaro was the only vocalist, but the others around him helped act out the scene and provide background information for it, as well as being foils for Figaro. However, he and his sweet polka-dot vest were undoubtedly the center of the show.