Social Network Complexity in Mozart’s Marriage of Figaro
In: Evolution and Popular NarrativeSearch for other papers by Tamás Dávid-Barrett in
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Abstract
Narrative representations of complex social networks in the performing arts are cognitively challenging, both for audiences and artists. This has been recognized in recent scholarship, where expositions have focused on social networks in (for instance) realist fiction (Carroll et al.: 2012), ancient and medieval epic (Mac Carron and Kenna: 2012), hyperlink cinema (Krems and Dunbar: 2013), and comic-book fiction (Carney et al.: 2014). Here, we contribute to this important research by way of a case study of Mozart’s opera The Marriage of Figaro, a rare combination of popular entertainment and intellectual complexity that has persisted as an audience favorite for nearly 230 years. We investigate the number and types of dyadic interactions in the libretto and analyze representations of the social network during the opera. Results show that the nine main characters of the opera are entangled in a social network that includes 36 different dyadic relationships pointing from one person to another. The entire social network, however, is never present or implied on stage simultaneously. The average number of persons singing or implied through a singing role at any specific time is 3.66 and seldom reaches above five. Only at the end of the second act, famous in history for challenging audiences to entertain several instances of dramatic tension, seven characters sing separate parts simultaneously. We suggest that part of this opera’s enduring appeal is its narrative and structural solutions to representing complex and ecologically valid social interactions onstage, and call for comparative studies of how social behavior is represented in the performing arts.