BEAUMARCHAIS, ROSSINI, AND THE BARBER OF SEVILLE

All too often in opera we put up with silly stories and laughable texts because the music is so grand. But once in a great while we are given a work in which the music and the drama are both at the highest level, and perfectly matched. One of those few is The Barber of Seville.

In its first form, Le barbier de Séville was a play by Pierre-Augustin Caron de Beaumarchais, one of the most colorful figures in the history of French letters.  Despite his imposing name, Beaumarchais came from a humble background.  His father was a watchmaker, and Beaumarchais made his first mark in the same business.  In his twenties he gained entry to the French court as a maker of unique timepieces for the king and Madame de Pompadour.  A few years later he became harp teacher to the king’s four daughters.  He made a fortune in business, and then lost it all in legal disputes arising after the death of his business partner.  He served two French kings as secret agent on missions to London, Amsterdam, and Vienna. He set up a company to provide arms and supplies for the American Revolution. He led a wildly colorful personal life, had innumerable affairs, was twice jailed, and was suspected of poisoning two wives. 

Le barbier de Séville, produced in 1775, was designed to be the first in a series of plays which would follow the same characters through the various stages of their lives.  In the first play, they are all young.  Count Almaviva falls in love with the charming Rosina, and enlists the aid of the wily barber, Figaro, to engineer their marriage.  It is an innocent comedy, but in it are hints of the darker episodes to follow.  Such was its popularity that it was set to music by at least four opera composers before Rossini.*

Rossini was 22 years old when he turned his attention to the Barber. He already had some 15 operas to his credit, of which two had been major successes. A recently concluded agreement with two opera houses in Naples paid a generous salary, and the young composer enjoyed an unusual degree of comfort and security. But Rossini’s decision to set Barber was controversial. Among the several earlier Barber operas, one of them, by the now largely forgotten composer Paisiello, had become a beloved staple of the repertoire. Hoping to avoid giving offense, Rossini originally called his version Almaviva. But the gesture wasn’t sufficient; as Rossini conducted in the pit, Paisiello’s supporters broke up the premier with whistles and catcalls. Rossini was outraged; he refused to direct any of the subsequent performances.

After the opening night fiasco, things went far better.  The second performance was a rousing success, and the opera soon took the world by storm.  In the next few seasons, it played in London, Paris, Berlin, and St. Petersburg. In 1825 it became the first opera to be sung in Italian in New York.

It is astonishing that the music of Barber is of such uniformly high quality, considering how quickly it was written.  Rossini was always a fast worker, but the Barber must have been a strain even for him. The contract was signed only two months before opening night, and it is reported that the score was written in thirteen days. (Rossini did take a few short cuts. The famous overture which fits the opera so beautifully was not composed for Barber; Rossini borrowed one he had actually used twice before. The well-known storm music in the last act was lifted from an earlier piece as well.) Still, no matter how quickly it was put together, the music of Barber is a miracle of wit, lyricism, and comic invention.

But to appreciate Barber fully, one must look at what each of its creators has given us, and how together they have made a whole greater than the parts. Beaumarchais gave us a parade of unforgettable comic characters; Rossini found music to capture perfectly the rambunctiousness of Figaro, the sauciness of Rosina, and the pomposity of Bartolo. Beaumarchais gave us a series of delicious comic scenes; Rossini made them immortal with one brilliant ensemble after another. Opera is, after all, words and music. Never have they gone together better.

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*Le marriage de Figaro, second of the three Figaro plays, takes place several years later.  Figaro is now the Count’s valet, and is planning his own wedding. But the Count has become an incurable philanderer, and is determined to exercise his traditional droit de seigneur with Figaro’s financée. Beaumarchais’ barbed depiction of a foolish nobleman unworthy of his hereditary rights made the play controversial, and for several years its production was banned by Louis XVI.  When it was finally produced, just five years before the French Revolution, it became immensely popular even with the very aristocrats who were its target.

The last play of the trilogy is called La mère coupable (The Guilty Mother).  It is a dark, anguished drama. Twenty years have gone by. The Countess (Rosina) has an illegitimate son, now fully grown, fathered by the page boy Chérubin. The Count has also strayed, and has a daughter who lives in the household as his “ward”.  In the strangest turn of all, the two half-siblings become romantically involved with each other. An unscrupulous intriguer hopes to marry the daughter and inherit the Count’s estate, and once again Figaro is called on to expose the plot and save the day.  The play enjoyed only modest success, and was set to music unsuccessfully in the 20th century by Milhaud.