In the morning I went through Figaro, the ensembles and some of the recitatives preceding the arias. Rehearsal at two o'clock, which today went not at all badly and presages a good performance. The only place where things went seriously awry was in the difficult ensemble in the second act, where the singers answer one another and the orchestra provides a background like a sort of indistinct rustling. The singer taking the part of the gardener [Antonio] is the idiot Mandelbaum. He has no concept of rhythm, loses his place, never looks at the conductor and altogether threatens to bring the whole ensemble crashing down.