Le Barbier de Seville, ou La Précaution Inutile

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Le Barbier de Seville, ou La Précaution Inutile is a comedy in four acts by Pierre-Augustin Caron de Beaumarchais (usually referred to simply as "Beaumarchais", 1732-1799)[1]. (The texts of the Beaumarchais play and the popular Rossini opera based on it, are both often both referred to simply as Le Barbier de Seville or The Barber of Seville)

The original text

Written in 1772 as the first of a trilogy of plays entitled Le Roman de la Famille Almaviva, with the others being Le Mariage de Figaro (1778) and L'Autre Tartuffe ou La Mère coupable (1792).

First performed in Paris on 23 and 25 February, 1775 at the Comédie-Française and was published by Ruault, Paris, in the same year.


Translations and adaptations

Translated into Dutch as De Barbier van Seville, of De Onnutte Voorzorg, published in 1793.

It was twice adapted into an opera:

Il Barbiere di Siviglia, ovvero La Precauzione Inutile by Paisiello (1782).

Il Barbiere di Siviglia by Gioachino Rossini (1816).


Performance history in South Africa

1783: According to travel-writer Le Vaillant a good production of Beaumarchais's play was done in French in the Cape in 1783. Performed (wholly or in part) in the Cape Town Barracks Theatre during the occupation by French troops sent to defend the Cape against the British Fleet (1781-1795), it was possibly the first production by them and it counts as one of the first documented performances in South Africa.

1824: Performed in Dutch on 31 July in the African Theatre by the amateur company Honi Soit Qui Mal Y Pense, apparently with the overture of Rossini's opera and other music provided by Charles Etienne Boniface. It was accompanied by the one act play Jérome Pointu by Beaunoir (but wrongly accredited to "D'Orvigny" by F.C.L. Bosman (1928, p. 279) or his source).

Sources

http://www.dbnl.org/tekst/worp001gesc02_01/worp001gesc02_01_0019.php

https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Le_Barbier_de_S%C3%A9ville

F.C.L. Bosman, 1928. Drama en Toneel in Suid-Afrika, Deel I: 1652-1855. Pretoria: J.H. de Bussy. [2]: pp. 279-80,


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