The garden, before all the lunacy hits it.

Marcellina [Allison Upshaw Spragin] and Figaro [Scott Beckom] quiz Barbarina [Courtney Wynn] about the pin she says she was carrying from the Count to Susanna.

We're pretty sure this is not what Mozart had in mind for the entrance of Antonio [Lamar Payne], Bartolo [Craig Humphrey] and especially Basilio [Matthew Bailey, Jr.], but hey, he's dead and we're not.

And for this, Amadeus, we apologize. Well, okay, no we don't. If you had thought of a movable stinger, you'd have written music for it.

It's three hours into the show, and what does Mozart do? He makes time stand still in Susanna's aria, "Come quickly, do not wait..."

Susanna [Rachel Gordon] stands over Figaro, singing of her ardent desire for him. He believes she is singing about the Count.

Cherubino [Andrew Kreeger], mistaking the Countess [Brenda Barry-Weaver] for Susanna in her shepherdess costume, comes on strong with "Kiss me quick, babe!"

"I should grab you just like the Count does," Cherubino sings, as the Countess tries to get away and the Count and Susanna watch.

The Count [Dale Lyles] sings of his beloved's "dainty little fingers," never realizing it's his own wife, while Figaro hides and watches.

"How's this, sir?" screams Susanna, furious at Figaro, who has tumbled to the fact that it's his wife in disguise and has jerked her around by pretending to woo the Countess.

Susanna reaches the climax of her fury, while Figaro gleefully sings of the "blow bestowed so lovingly from one whom I adore!"

Having caught whom he believes to be his wife in flagrante delicto, the Count refuses to forgive her, even when begged by the entire company. However, from the back of the garden comes "one more voice" which he cannot ignore: the Countess.

"All together, celebrate!" the entire cast rejoices.

Go to Act I • Act II • Act III • A family portrait