"Largo al factotum" (Make way for the factotum) is an aria (cavatina) from The Barber of Seville by Gioachino Rossini, sung at the first entrance of the title character, Figaro. The repeated "Figaro"s before the final patter section are an icon in popular culture of operatic singing. The term "factotum" refers to a general servant and comes from Latin where it literally means "do everything".
Because of the constant singing of eighth notes in 6
8 meter at an allegro vivace tempo, the piece is often noted as one of the most difficult baritone arias to perform. [1] This, along with the tongue-twisting nature of some of the lines, insisting on Italian superlatives (always ending in "-issimo"), have made it a pièce de résistance in which a skilled baritone has the chance to highlight all of his qualities. [2]
The aria is written in C major. The voice range covers D3 to G4 (optional A4), with a very high tessitura. [3] For this reason, a few dramatic tenors have also sung the aria, notably Mario Del Monaco [4] and Plácido Domingo. [5]
The libretto to the opera was written by Cesare Sterbini.
Original lyrics
Largo al factotum della città.
Presto a bottega che l'alba è già.
Ah, che bel vivere, che bel piacere
per un barbiere di qualità!
Ah, bravo Figaro! Bravo, bravissimo!
Fortunatissimo per verità!
Pronto a far tutto, la notte e il giorno
sempre d'intorno in giro sta.
Miglior cuccagna per un barbiere,
vita più nobile, no, non si da.
Rasori e pettini, lancette e forbici,
al mio comando tutto qui sta.
V'è la risorsa, poi, del mestiere
colla donnetta ... col cavaliere ...
Tutti mi chiedono, tutti mi vogliono,
donne, ragazzi, vecchi, fanciulle:
Qua la parrucca ... Presto la barba ...
Qua la sanguigna ... Presto il biglietto ...
Figaro! Figaro! Figaro!, ecc.
Ahimè, che furia! Ahimè, che folla!
Uno alla volta, per carità!
Ehi, Figaro! Son qua.
Figaro qua, Figaro là,
Figaro su, Figaro giù.
Pronto prontissimo son come il fulmine:
sono il factotum della città.
Ah, bravo Figaro! Bravo, bravissimo;
a te fortuna non mancherà.
Sono il factotum della città!
Literal translation
Make way for the city's servant.
Off to the shop soon. It is already dawn.
Ah, what a beautiful life, what lovely pleasure
For a barber of quality!
Ah, worthy Figaro! Worthy, superb!
Most fortunate for sure!
Ready to do anything, night and day,
Always around and about.
A better Cockaigne for a barber,
A nobler life, there is none.
Razors and combs, lancets and scissors
Are all here at my command.
There is also resourcefulness, in the trade,
With the young lady, with the young man.
Everyone asks for me. Everyone wants me:
Women, boys, the elderly, girls.
Here this wig; quickly this beard;
Here this bleeding, quickly this note;
"Figaro! Figaro! Figaro!" etc.
Alas, what a fury! Alas, what a crowd!
One at a time, for charity's sake!
"Hey, Figaro!" Here I am!
Figaro here, Figaro there,
Figaro up, Figaro down.
Swift, swifter, like lightning I am.
I am the city's servant.
Ah, worthy Figaro! Worthy, superb;
Fortune will not fail you.
I am the city's servant!
Singable translation [6]
I'm the factotum of all the town, make way!
Quick now to business, morning hath shown, 'tis day.
Oh, 'tis a charming life, brimful of pleasure,
that of a barber, used to high life.
No-one can vie with the brilliant Figaro, no, none.
Always in luck where good fortune is rife. Well done!
Early and late, for all who require me,
Nothing can tire me.
Of all the professions that can be mentioned,
That of a barber is best of all.
Scissors in hand, 'mongst my combs and my razors,
I stand at the door, when customers call.
Then there are cases, quite diplomatic,
Here damsel sighing, there swain ecstatic.
I am in such request, nor night nor day I've rest,
old men and maidens, matrons and gallants.
"Have you my wig there?" "Quick here and shave me."
"I've got a headache." "Run with this letter."
Figaro, Figaro, Figaro, etc.
No more this clamor! I'll bear no longer!
For pity's sake, speak one at a time!
Eh Figaro! I'm here.
Figaro here, Figaro there,
Figaro high, Figaro low.
I'm indispensable, irreprehensible,
I'm the factotum of all the town.
Ah bravo, Figaro, bravo, bravissimo,
thou art a favorite of Fortune.
I'm the factotum of all the town.
Beyond its frequent operatic and orchestral performances, the aria has appeared in cartoons and live-action films. The first example of the song appearing in an animated cartoon is Notes to You , released in 1941, where a cat annoys Porky Pig out of his slumber. The most popular examples in animation are The Barber of Seville (a 1944 film with Woody Woodpecker acting as a mischievous barber), the final segment from the 1946 Disney film Make Mine Music , "The Whale Who Wanted to Sing at the Met", Long-Haired Hare (1949), Magical Maestro (1952), One Froggy Evening (1955), and The Cat Above and the Mouse Below (1964). In the opening animated sequence by Chuck Jones of Mrs. Doubtfire (1993), Robin Williams plays a canary singing the song. Examples in film are For the Love of Mary (1948, by actress/soprano Deanna Durbin), [7] Hopscotch (1980), Oscar (1991), and Luca (2021). [8] [9] [10]
The Marriage of Figaro, K. 492, is a commedia per musica in four acts composed in 1786 by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, with an Italian libretto written by Lorenzo Da Ponte. It premiered at the Burgtheater in Vienna on 1 May 1786. The opera's libretto is based on the 1784 stage comedy by Pierre Beaumarchais, La folle journée, ou le Mariage de Figaro. It tells how the servants Figaro and Susanna succeed in getting married, foiling the efforts of their philandering employer Count Almaviva to seduce Susanna and teaching him a lesson in fidelity.
The Barber of Seville, or The Useless Precaution is an opera buffa in two acts composed by Gioachino Rossini with an Italian libretto by Cesare Sterbini. The libretto was based on Pierre Beaumarchais's French comedy The Barber of Seville (1775). The première of Rossini's opera took place on 20 February 1816 at the Teatro Argentina, Rome, with designs by Angelo Toselli.
Titta Ruffo, born as Ruffo Cafiero Titta, was an Italian operatic baritone who had a major international singing career. Known as the "Voce del leone", he was greatly admired, even by rival baritones, such as Giuseppe De Luca, who said of Ruffo: "His was not a voice, it was a miracle", and Victor Maurel, the creator of Verdi's Iago and Falstaff. Maurel said that the notes of Ruffo's upper register were the most glorious baritone sounds he had ever heard. Indeed Walter Legge, the prominent classical record producer, went so far as to call Ruffo "a genius".
Hermann Prey was a German lyric baritone, who was equally at home in the Lied, operatic and concert repertoires. His American debut was in November 1952, with the Philadelphia Orchestra and Eugene Ormandy, and his American recital debut took place in 1956, at New York's Carnegie Hall. As a Lieder singer, he was a gifted interpreter of Schubert, including his song-cycles Die schöne Müllerin and Die Winterreise and the collection of songs Schwanengesang, as well as of Robert Schumann, Richard Strauss and Gustav Mahler. He also appeared frequently as a soloist in Bach's Passions and Brahms' A German Requiem.
Graziella Sciutti was an Italian soprano opera singer and later vocal teacher and opera producer.
The Aria di sorbetto, or "sorbet aria", was a convention of Italian opera in the early nineteenth century. It comprised a short solo performed by a secondary character in the opera.
"Dove sono" is an aria in Italian for lyric soprano from the third act of Mozart's 1786 opera Le nozze di Figaro. Countess Almaviva laments, in an initial recitative, that her husband has become a philanderer, and that she must rely on assistance from her maid to manipulate him. In the aria, she calmly remembers moments of love, and hopes, with increasing agitation, that her persistence may make him love her again. It is frequently performed in recitals and featured in anthologies of vocal music for lyric soprano.
Factotum may refer to:
Il barbiere di Siviglia, ovvero La precauzione inutile is a comic opera by Giovanni Paisiello to a libretto by Giuseppe Petrosellini, even though his name is not identified on the score's title page.
The Barber of Seville is the tenth animated cartoon short subject in the Woody Woodpecker series. Released theatrically on April 22, 1944, the film was produced by Walter Lantz Productions and distributed by Universal Pictures.
Renato Capecchi was an Italian baritone, actor, and opera director.
The DuPage Opera Theatre (DOT) is one of three professional opera companies located in the Chicago area, along with the Lyric Opera of Chicago and the Chicago Opera Theater. Founded in 1977 as a resident, professional ensemble at the McAninch Arts Center at the College of DuPage in Glen Ellyn, Illinois, DuPage Opera has mounted several hundred performances since its inception.
Richard Bonelli was an American operatic baritone active from 1915 to the late 1970s. Although he sang predominantly on stage in both light and grand operas, he also performed at various times on radio, in concerts and films, as well as on television.
The Barber of Seville is a 1947 Italian opera film directed by Mario Costa and starring Ferruccio Tagliavini, Tito Gobbi and Nelly Corradi. It is an adaptation of Gioachino Rossini's 1816 opera The Barber of Seville.
Michele Mariotti, born in 1979 in Urbino, near Pesaro, is an Italian conductor, the direttore musicale since 2014 of Teatro Comunale di Bologna. A graduate in composition of Pesaro's Conservatorio Rossini, where he also studied orchestral conducting, he made his professional opera debut with Il barbiere di Siviglia in Salerno on Oct. 12, 2005. As of April 2017, his repertory included nine Rossini and eight Verdi operas, an extraordinary achievement, as well as symphonies of Beethoven, Bruckner and Schubert, the Rossini Stabat mater, the Mozart Requiem and the Verdi Requiem.
Frederica von Stade sings Mozart & Rossini Arias is a 52-minute studio album of operatic arias performed by von Stade and the Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra under the direction of Edo de Waart. It was released in 1976. A second, 69-minute version of the album, Frederica von Stade: Haydn, Mozart & Rossini Arias, released by Philips on CD, adds bonus tracks derived from von Stade's contributions to Antal Doráti's recordings of Joseph Haydn's operas La fedeltà premiata and Il mondo della luna. A third, 52-minute version released on SACD by PentaTone in 2005 reverts to the contents of the first version, but presents the music in quadraphonic surround sound.
The Rossini Bicentennial Birthday Gala is a live album of operatic and sacred music by Gioachino Rossini, performed by Rockwell Blake, Craig Estep, Maria Fortuna, Thomas Hampson, George Hogan, Marilyn Horne, Kathleen Kuhlmann, Mimi Lerner, Chris Merritt, Jan Opalach, Samuel Ramey, Henry Runey, Frederica von Stade, Deborah Voigt, the Concert Chorale of New York and the Orchestra of St. Luke's under the direction of Sir Roger Norrington. It was released in 1993 as a 119-minute video album and in 1994 as a 78-minute CD.
The Metropolitan Opera Gala 1991 was a four-hour concert staged by the Metropolitan Opera on 23 September 1991 to celebrate the 25th anniversary of its opening night in its second home at Lincoln Center. It was televised by Cablevision, and issued by Deutsche Grammophon on Laserdisc and VHS videocassette in 1992 and on DVD in 2010.
Paolo Bordogna is an Italian operatic baritone and bass. He is particularly associated with buffo (comic) roles.
Mario Cassi is an Italian baritone.
| National | |
|---|---|
| Other | |
