World Premiere: L'Amour Coupable by Thierry Pécou

 Monument to Corneille in front of Theatre des Arts (Opera House) in Rouen

L'Amour Coupable,  Opéra  de Rouen, April 25, 2010

 Conductor Jean Deroyer
Director Stephan Grögler

Comte Almaviva Edwin Crossley Mercer
Comtesse Almaviva Jacqueline Mayeur
Suzanne Gaëlle Méchaly
Figaro Matthieu Lécroart
Léon Almaviva Mathias Vidal
Honoré Béjart Arnaud Marzorati
Florestine Natacha Kowalski

Beaumarchais's Figaro plays: third opera this week in Rouen-France

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).