"Hai già vinta la causa!"
You've won the case already!
The Count is enraged to find that his servants are plotting to trick him and vows to wreak vengeance on Figaro by thwarting his marriage to Susanna.
You've won the case already!
What’s that I hear?
What trap have I fallen into?
Scoundrels! I'll punish you in such a way
The ruling will be how I want it.
But if he pays off the old claimant?
Pay her! How?
And then there's Antonio,
Who refuses to give his niece
in marriage to that nobody Figaro.
To nurture that half-wit's pride…
Everything's useful for the plot…
The die is cast.
Shall I, while I'm sighing,
See one of my servants happy?
And something good I want in vain,
Shall he have it?
Shall I see, by the hand of love,
this woman united with a vile creature,
she, who woke in me
A love she doesn't have for me?
Ah no! I won't let go
This happiness,
You weren't born, you brazen man,
To torture me,
And maybe to laugh again
At my unhappiness.
Now only the hope
Of my revenge
Consoles my spirit
And makes me rejoice.
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart composed The Marriage of Figaro, an opera buffa, or comic opera, in four acts in 1786. The story, complicated by many plot twists and characters in disguise and at cross purposes, tells how the servants Figaro and Susanna are eventually able to wed despite the efforts of their employer, Count Almaviva, to seduce Susanna.
At the start of Act 3, Susanna (plotting with the Countess to help her win back her husband) gives a false promise to meet the Count later that night in the garden. The Count then overhears Susanna telling Figaro – who is seemingly obliged to marry an older woman, Marcellina to settle a debt – that his legal troubles will soon be over. The Count is furious at Susanna’s deception and in this aria swears that he will seek revenge by forcing Figaro to marry Marcellina.
As it turns out that Marcellina and her lawyer, Doctor Bartolo, are Figaro’s long-lost parents, this threat is avoided. After further confusions and misunderstandings throughout Act 4, there is a happy ending for everyone, and Almaviva is also finally reconciled with his neglected wife, the Countess.