The Barber of Seville * The Marriage of Figaro * The Guilty Mother Eighteenth-century France produced only one truly international theatre star, Beaumarchais, and only one name, Figaro, to put with Don Quixote or D'Artagnan in the ranks of popular myth. But who was Figaro? Not the impertinent valet of the operas of Mozart or Rossini, but both the spirit of resistance to oppression and a bourgeois individualist like his creator. The three plays in which he plots and schemes chronicle the slide of the ancien regime into revolution but also chart the growth of Beaumarchais' humanitarianism. They are also exuberant theatrical entertainments, masterpieces of skill, invention, and social satire which helped shape the direction of French theatre for a hundred years. This lively new translation catches all the zest and energy of the most famous valet in French literature.Beaumarchais[title should link to the catalogue entry][insert cover image 2804138]
- ISBN10 0192804138
- ISBN13 9780192804136
- Publish Date 9 October 2003
- Publish Status Out of Print
- Out of Print 27 May 2008
- Publish Country GB
- Imprint Oxford University Press
- Format Paperback (B-Format (198x129 mm))
- Pages 342
- Language English