MILHAUD : LA MÈRE COUPABLE

Radio New Zealand Concert Network
Sunday 20th of September 2015, 6 - 8 pm

INTRODUCTION
BACKGROUND
REVIEW 
FLORESTINE'S ARIA
MILHAUD: La Mère Coupable, an opera in three acts,
after the last play in Beaumarchais' Figaro trilogy,
'L'autre Tartuffe ou la mère coupable'
Begaers........................ Stephan Loges
Comte Almaviva.......... Markus Butter
Figaro........................... Aris Argiris
Florestine..................... Frederikke Kampmann
Leon............................. Andrew Owens
Regie............................ Herbert Fottinger
Rosine, Comtesse Almaviva..... Mireille Delunsch
Suzanne....................... Angelika Kirchschlager
Vienna Radio SO/Leo Hussain
(recorded at the Theater an der Wien, Vienna)

This is interesting: it is based on the sequel to the Marriage of Figaro by Beaumarchais (1792). Darius Milhaud composed it in 1966.
   The four main characters are there: Count Almaviva and his wife Rosine, Figaro and his wife Suzanne; but Cherubino is missing; he had finally gone soldiering and  had died in battle, after making the Countess pregnant, and this illicit coupling had produced a son named Léon. For his part, the Count has a ward named Florestine, and these two young people are in love.
   Figaro and Suzanne have to foil an Irish schemer (a blackguard named Bégearss, begorra) who wants to marry Florestine and inherit the Almaviva fortune (which is being squandered in Paris by the Count, because he does not wish Léon to inherit it).
   A happy ending ensues, with the lovers being united, since they were not brother and sister, as had been thought.