It is completely understandable that Louis XVI would be upset by the Marriage of Figaro: the world that was coming, that of the servants, questioned a little too vigorously the world of the masters whose power was wavering. Beaumarchais had to wait three years until his play was first performed in 1784. It was a European triumph.
Mozart was thrilled and suggested to Lorenzo Da Ponte that they turn it into an opera. It was their first collaboration. The emperor demanded some cuts. At the première on 1 May, 1786, the reception from the local nobility was lukewarm, but the work triumphed everywhere else.
Olivier Assayas, filmmaker and music lover, emphasises "the dizzying humanity that emanates from Mozart's music, which is never without grace". He sees in the work the end of an outdated world, brought back to its savage state by nature itself, a necessary destruction and the promise of a new world. This is his first opera production.