More About Figaro

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31109, 12 July 1966, Page 12

More About Figaro

About 1770. when Beaumarchais started writing plays about Count Almaviva and his valet Figaro, he probably did not suspect that he would be leaving an operatic backlog for many years to come. The first two operas based on Beaumarchais's plays, “The Barber of Seville” and "The Marriage of Figaro,” are now, of course standard operatic pleasures. A third opera “La Mere Coupable,” he now joined them. Some of the same characters appear in all three works, but there is no other similarity. Rossini’s “Barber of Seville” bears no musical resemblance to Mozart's “Marriage.” And this new work by Darius Milhaud is, musically, very far from either of the other two writes a correspondent of “The Times."

"La Mere Coupable." which was given its world premiere in Geneva, is, actually, a strange hybrid. The story, the characters, the setting, are all old-world, courtly, full of frills and fancies. As were the two earlier operas. But Milhaud has provided it with an atonal score that makes no concessions. Everyone at the Grand Theatre de Geneve worked very hard to give credibility to the work, which was performed by an exceptionally notable cast of singers, but it was clear that though the total is a failure the various elements are notable.