ABSTRACT
In Le nozze di Figaro, the various marriages between the servant Susanna and the butler Figaro, the lawyer Bartolo and his old housekeeper Marcellina, the aristocrat Cherubino and the servant Barbarina. In the second-act finale, Susanna, in a politically dangerous tryst with the Contessa, takes on moral power in the libretto, and indeed in the music. Immediately before the Act II finale the Count forced his wife to confess that it is Cherubino who is hiding in her locked cupboard. Zerlina's is by far the smallest role among the three soubrettes in Da Ponte operas. She is presented as little more than a victim of Giovanni's lust, and her music is firmly within the feminine sub-style. 'Vedrai carino' is another simple song with, once again, much local repetition of melodic cells and ornate woodwind decorations. 'In uomini, in soldati' is the most motivically integrated and transparently and concisely structured aria in all three Da Ponte operas.
