The Figaro Trilogy: The Barber of Seville, The Marriage of Figaro, The Guilty Mother (Oxford World's Classics)
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Was the barber of Seville really a threat to aristocratic heads, or a bourgeois individualist like his creator? The three plays in which he plots and schemes chronicle the slide of the ancien régime into revolution but they also chart the growth of Beaumarchais' humanitarianism. They are exuberant theatrical entertainments, masterpieces of skill, invention, and social satire which helped shape the direction of French theater for a hundred years. This lively new translation catches all the zest and energy of the most famous valet in French literature.
This is a pretty good new translation, although it does have some grammatical errors. So, have a pencil in hand when you read it if you want to touch up the missing conjunction words and misused words. I'm sure translating from the old French is not easy, so I don't hold it against Mr. Coward. But he should have not been a coward when it came to proofreading...his editor should have been reading more carefully as well.
Enjoy!
The Figaro Trilogy (Oxford World's Classics)
For any Mozart/Rossini opera fan who wants to read the book from which
the "Barber or Seville" and the "Marriage of Figaro "came from, this
book is for you. It is a good background to understanding these works.
Best of all, the concluding play in the Trilogy "The Grieving Widow"
brings to close the story of these beloved opera characters. It's light
reading and fun.
List Price:
Price: $6.83
You Save: $6.12 (47%)
Product Details
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- Fit out: New
- ISBN13: 9780199539970
Description
Eighteenth-century France produced only one truly international theater star, Beaumarchais, and only one name, Figaro, to combine with Don Quixote and D'Artagnan in the ranks of popular myth. But who was Figaro? He was quickly appropriated by Mozart and Rossini who tamed the original impertinent, bustling servant for their own purposes. On the eve of the French Revolution Figaro was seen as a threat to the establishment and Louis XIV even banned The Marriage of Figaro.Was the barber of Seville really a threat to aristocratic heads, or a bourgeois individualist like his creator? The three plays in which he plots and schemes chronicle the slide of the ancien régime into revolution but they also chart the growth of Beaumarchais' humanitarianism. They are exuberant theatrical entertainments, masterpieces of skill, invention, and social satire which helped shape the direction of French theater for a hundred years. This lively new translation catches all the zest and energy of the most famous valet in French literature.
Customer Reviews
Gets the message acrossThis is a pretty good new translation, although it does have some grammatical errors. So, have a pencil in hand when you read it if you want to touch up the missing conjunction words and misused words. I'm sure translating from the old French is not easy, so I don't hold it against Mr. Coward. But he should have not been a coward when it came to proofreading...his editor should have been reading more carefully as well.
Enjoy!
The Figaro Trilogy (Oxford World's Classics)
For any Mozart/Rossini opera fan who wants to read the book from which
the "Barber or Seville" and the "Marriage of Figaro "came from, this
book is for you. It is a good background to understanding these works.
Best of all, the concluding play in the Trilogy "The Grieving Widow"
brings to close the story of these beloved opera characters. It's light
reading and fun.
KCTribune.comMay the Farce Be With You: - A Flea in Her Ear at the KC RepThe three-act play, first produced in 1907, was an immediate hit with French audiences for whom Feydeau was a smooth conduit between the traditional humor handed down by Molière and Beaumarchais and the metaphorical modernist styles presented by the