Acts 1 & 2
Before the opera started, Count Almaviva used Figaro to help him elope with Rosina, the ward of Dr Bartolo, who had hoped to marry her himself. Rosina is now the Countess, and Figaro has become the Count’s valet and is planning to marry Susanna, the Countess’ maid.


Unfortunately the Count has tired of his wife and is keen to seduce Susanna. To this end, he announces that he aims to reinstate his ancient feudal right to claim the first night with any female servant who marries.


Figaro and Susanna naturally want to prevent this outrage from happening, but there is a further complication: Figaro has rashly agreed to marry Bartolo’s housekeeper Marcellina if he cannot pay back the debt he owes her. Bartolo, who wants vengeance on Figaro for the part he played in Rosina’s elopement, is determined to see this agreement enforced.

Cherubino, the Count’s page, who is wildly in love with the Countess, overhears the Count making a pass at Susanna, but is discovered hiding in her room, much to the delight of the scandal-mongering singing teacher Don Basilio. The Count thinks he be rid of Cherubino by giving him a commission in his regiment, but Cherubino manages to avoid leaving the palace and gains an audience with his beloved Countess, who is smarting over her husband’s neglect of her.


The Countess and Susanna dress Cherubino as a girl as part of a plan devised by Figaro to make the Count look foolish by substituting the page for Susanna at an assignation. The Count returns unexpectedly and Cherubino hides in a wardrobe. In a scene of frenzied farce, Susanna succeeds in hiding in the cupboard herself after Cherubino has jumped out of a window, bemusing the drunken gardener Antonio, so the Count is obliged to apologise for suspecting his wife of being unfaithful with the page.

Act 3
The Count still has the upper hand, siding as he does with Bartolo in his bid to marry Figaro off to Marcellina. This cannot happen though, for when the bumbling lawyer Don Curzio presides over a hearing of the case it emerges that Marcellina and Bartolo are in fact Figaro’s long-lost parents.
The Count is furious that the main obstacle to Figaro’s and Susanna’s wedding has been removed, but he is delighted to receive a letter from Susanna confirming that she will meet him that night.


Figaro is bitter when Barbarina, the gardener’s daughter, inadvertently gives the game away, but soon twigs that the Countess and Susanna have swapped dresses, so that the Count is deceived in the darkness into making a pass at his own wife.


When the Count finally discovers the truth he again has to beg for forgiveness from the Countess and the opera ends on a note of reconciliation…