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The music is primarily introduced extra-diegetically, functioning as outside commentary to the scenes. Within their respective operas, the Mozart/da Ponte arias respond to specific dramatic contexts. Here, relating only to the general mood or theme of a scene, they are deprived of that agency and become generalities. “Porgi, amor,” for instance, is admittedly vague in its text. But within Figaro it is the lament of the Countess arising out of emotions driven by a sequence of events. Here, coming to us second-hand and voiced by an unidentified third party, the emotion, at which the preceding scene has already arrived, is all that remains. The aria becomes an extension of a moment, rather than the moment.
“Satyr is what closes on Saturday night”
This piece I wrote went up today.
