Je me presse de rire de tout, de peur d'être obligé d'en pleurer.
Figaro Trilogy Series
This dramatic trilogy follows the adventures of a cunning barber whose schemes and wit manipulate both the aristocracy and common folk. Set against a historical backdrop, the stories are brimming with humor, romance, and social satire. These works are renowned not only as stage plays but primarily as the foundation for famous operatic adaptations.
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Le Mariage de Figaro
- 286 pages
- 11 hours of reading
Prenez un chateau en Espagne pour moquer les abus francais. Entre un matin ensoleille et l'ombre tombee sur les grands marronniers, croisez les desirs amoureux, les ages, les sexes, les conditions sociales. Multipliez les intrigues, les rebondissements, les mots d'esprit. A la fin de cette Folle Journee au rythme endiable, un comte libertin redecouvre son epouse, un valet devient un mythe, et les femmes liguent leurs talents pour defendre leur droit au bonheur. Book jacket.
The Figaro Trilogy
- 352 pages
- 13 hours of reading
Originally published: Oxford World's Classic paperback, c2003.
A French courtier, secret agent, libertine and adventurer, Beaumarchais (1732-99) was also author of two sparkling plays about the scoundrelly valet Figaro triumphant successes that were used as the basis of operas by Mozart and Rossini. A highly engaging comedy of intrigue, The Barber of Seville portrays the resourceful Figaro foiling a jealous old man's attempts to keep his beautiful ward from her lover. And The Marriage of Figaro condemned by Louis XVI for its daring satire of nobility and privilege depicts a master and servant set in opposition by their desire for the same woman. With characteristic lightness of touch, Beaumarchais created an audacious farce of disguise and mistaken identity that balances wit, frivolity and seriousness in equal measure
The Figaro Plays
- 320 pages
- 12 hours of reading
[Beaumarchais'] fame rests on Le Barbier de Seville (1775) and Le Mariage de Figaro (1784), the only French plays which his stage-struck century bequeathed to the international repertoire. But his achievement has been adulterated, for 'Beaumarchais' has long been the brand name of a product variously reprocessed by Mozart, Rossini, and the score or so librettists and musicians who have perpetuated his plots, his characters, and his name. The most intriguing question of all has centered on his role as catalyst of the Revolution. Was his impertinent barber the Sweeney Todd of the Ancien Régime, the true begetter of the guillotine? . . . Beaumarchais' plays have often seemed to need the same kind of shoring up as his reputation, as though they couldn't stand on their own without a scaffolding of good tunes. Yet, as John Wells' lively and splendidly speakable translations of the Barber, the Marriage, and A Mother's Guilt demonstrate, they need assistance from no one. [Beaumarchais] thought of the three plays as a trilogy. Taken together, they reflect, as John Leigh's commentaries make clear, the Ancien Régime's unstoppable slide into revolution. --David Coward in The London Review of Books