As you all know, the
Beaumarchais's Figaro plays
Le Barbier de Séville and
Le Mariage de Figaro became arguably the most famous operas of all time. There is a third play though, called
La Mère coupable [
The Guilty Mother] that never became a good opera in spite of a couple of
nice tries:
Darius Milhaud composed one in 1966 but it wasn't a success (most probably because Milhaud wasn't really what you'd call a talent for composing an opera). The second one was by a Swedish composer
Inger Wikström, but that opera didn't survive either.
From L'amour Coupable by Pécou in Rouen (photo Jean Pouget)
In 2007, a French-American writer,
Eugène Green, was asked to write a libretto inspired by the Beaumarchais's
The Guilty Mother, and an excellent composer,
Thierry Pécou, to compose a corresponding opera. The collaboration of these two will be crowned this week when the world's premiere of
L'amour coupable [The Guilty Love] will take place at the
Opéra de Rouen in Normandy (France).
