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As a dramma giocoso, it treads the line between comedy and tragedy, making it harder for Mozart to employ the same effects he applied to Count Almaviva without undermining the work’s seriousness.

Other scenes, though, were well-drawn, especially the Act I finale — a three-ring circus where the eyes and ears were pulled every which way — and the cemetery scene, which in its blending of terror and silliness encapsulated Mozart’s enigmatic subtitle for the opera, a “Dramma Giocoso.”

Photograph: Robert Workman Premiered in January 1775, just before the composer's 19th birthday, Mozart's dramma giocoso has never been accepted into the canon of his great operas, which starts with Idomeneo, first performed six years later.

Mozart called his masterpiece a “dramma giocoso” -- a comic tragedy.

He had hardly caught sight of me when he held out two volumes to me: the orchestral score of Le Nozze di Figaro, dramma giocoso in quarti atti.