How to Listen to and Understand Opera Season 1 Episode 13 The Rise of Opera Buffa and Mozart's The Marriage of Figaro, I

We see how comic opera, with its roots in popular folklore, developed separately from the opera seria of the aristocracy. We learn how the more accessible, populist opera buffa was championed by Enlightenment progressives. Opera buffa character types and conventions are discussed, and one of the greatest examples of opera buffa, Mozart's The Marriage of Figaro (1786), is examined.