How did Lorenzo Da Ponte make Beaumarchais’s play acceptable for an opera in Vienna?

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To make Pierre-Augustin Beaumarchais’s play The Marriage of Figaro acceptable for the Viennese stage, the librettist Lorenzo Da Ponte removed the original work's political content, which had previously led Emperor Joseph II to ban theatrical performances of the play in Vienna due to concerns over its revolutionary themes and criticism of aristocratic corruption.12

Da Ponte then translated the remaining material into Italian, the standard language for the opera buffa genre that Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart intended to compose. By stripping away the "political sting" while maintaining the core narrative of love, betrayal, and social tension, Da Ponte successfully secured the Emperor's permission for the project to proceed.12