Radical Democracy Colloquium with David Armitage (Harvard):

Mozart's 'Marriage of Figaro' and the Perfect Ambassador

Tuesday, May 14 2024 | 18:00

Conference Room, Department of Political Science Universitätsstraße 7, 1010 Vienna

Abstract

The virtues of the ideal diplomat have been a central concern of diplomatic manuals since the seventeenth century. This lecture approaches the literature on the “perfect ambassador” from an unusual angle: the history of opera, more specifically Mozart’s Marriage of Figaro (1786). Early in the drama, we learn that the king of Spain has chosen Count Almaviva to be his ambassador to London in the wake of the American Revolution: this revelation provides the key to understanding legal pluralism, sexual libertinism and the inversion of power relations in the opera. By examining the overlap between the worlds of music and diplomacy in the Marriage of Figaro, I show how opera became a significant vehicle for representing, debating and judging international relations and international law from Mozart’s time to our own.