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prominence in the first act (which afterwards diminishes considerably) is that he rattles about the household like a little inferior shadow of the Count's own weakness, drawing attention to it: which is precisely why the Count cannot stand him. And the chief effect of the first of the opera's three episodes of multiple misunderstanding (as characters hide behind the furniture, overhearing what they are not meant to hear) is to bring the Count's hatred for Cherubino to a head. First the Count learns that Cherubino loves the Countess (which is what the Count himself ought to be doing). Then he thinks, erroneously, that Cherubino also loves Susanna (which is what the Count would like to be doing). We even learn that the Count has designs on Cherubino's own girl friend, Barbarina. Having worked himself up all round into a jealous fury, the Count tries to put an end to Cherubino's `days of philandering' altogether by packing him off to be a soldier, little realising that by getting rid of his `little shadow' he will do nothing to solve the real problem of the household which lies in himself.

If the point of the first act is to lay bare in a peculiarly subtle way the hidden source of everyone's troubles, the second opens with the beginning of an elaborate attempt to do something about it. For the first time we meet the Countess, and see the desperate state of misery to which she has been reduced by the Count's heartlessness. She is the ultimate helpless victim, consigned to the shadows by the state of darkness which has possessed him. Now with the aid of the much more `active' Susanna and Figaro she is at last beginning to hatch a plot to trap the Count and expose him. This is just the sort of line-up we recognise from Moliere: the dark and obsessed head of the household, representing a sick `ruling order', being opposed by an `inferior' alliance between wife, servants and lovers (except that here servants and lovers are the same).

The chief effect of the opera's second episode of multiple misunderstanding (with characters now hiding in cupboards and jumping out of windows) is, like that of the first, simply to get the Count into a greater state of angry confusion than ever. He is still looking for anyone other than himself to blame for the fact that everything seems to be going wrong. Only now his rage focuses on Figaro. For all sorts of dark and twisted reasons he determines to use his authority to thwart Figaro's plans to marry Susanna: and he thus passes obliquely into the familiar position of the `unrelenting parent, bent on standing in the way of young love.

Act Three sees Figaro's problems coming to a head. It seems that there is nothing he can do to prevent the elderly Marcellina claiming her right to marry him - now with the full support of the Count. Confusion and darkness seem about to win their ultimate victory: when suddenly, to everyone's astonishment, it is revealed by way of a birthmark (the equivalent of `tokens') that Figaro is in fact the long-lost son of Marcellina and Dr Bartolo. He has just been on the verge of being drawn into marriage with his own mother. This dramatic revelation of Figaro's true identity (totally improbable in any sense but that of psychological symbolism) has such a stunning effect on everyone that it completely pulls the rug from under the Count's feet. We are confronted with that potent image familiar from the end of so many comedies where suddenly everything comes right: a long-separated family is miraculously brought together; long-hidden identities are suddenly brought to light; the young lovers are finally free to get married; and preparations are made for Figaro's wedding to Susanna at once.

At this point, however, even while the wedding celebrations are in full swing, we are forcibly reminded of how far the story's title is misleading as to what it is ultimately about. The marriage of Figaro, at the end of Act Three, is by no means the end of the drama. The real problem overshadowing the whole story has yet to be brought to its head, and such is the theme of the fourth and