Hero of our time comparison of Pechorin and Onegin. Comparative characteristics of Evgeny Onegin and Grigory Pechorin (Comparative analysis)

THE BARBER OF SEVILLE. A CRAZY DAY, OR THE MARRIAGE OF FIGARO. THE CRIMINAL MOTHER, OR THE SECOND TARTUFFE Trilogy Almaviva - the count, a clever gentleman, then the husband of Rosina, whom in the second play of the cycle love tricks made the laughing stock of his own servants. Came over the years life experience turns A. into an example of true virtue and wisdom of heart, shown by the old nobleman, when in “The Criminal Mother” the honor and reputation of Rosina, who forgave her husband’s past infidelity, is called into question. According to Beaumarchais (the author's introduction to the last part of the trilogy), the viewer, having laughed at stormy youth A., with his then courage and cunning, should have learned a lesson from his “mistakes” mature age... which we so often admit,” and observing a hero who has reached old age, I could make sure that the extinction of passions is rewarded by the consciousness of impeccability moral principles. The illustrativeness that this idea entailed deprived A. of the final episodes of the trilogy of the life-like persuasiveness and human charm inherent in him in the scenes of conquering Rosina with the help of very risky tricks, and even in “Crazy Day”. The infatuation with Figaro's fiancee Suzanna, which tempts the count to resort to the feudal right of a lord, although it was condemned by himself, is described not as lust, but only as a weakness that does not indicate the depravity of his heart. The Count, who sought to “deceive everyone,” turns out to be deceived himself, constantly complaining about the machinations evil genius, who “turns everything against me” and, in the end, making sure that his tricks turned out to be aimed at seduction his own wife, is experiencing a new love for the lovely Rosina.

Cherubino is Almaviva's page, in love with the countess, as with all women in the world, cherubino di amore, as one of the supporting characters expresses himself, teasing him, although K. is truly a cherub of love. Particularly stipulating that this role should be given to a young performer, Beaumarchais referred to the lack of suitable actors in the troupes of that time, but such a need was also caused by the undoubted presence of female traits in the character, habits, even the appearance of a teenager similar to an angel, whom both Rosina and Suzanne adore , - a circumstance that provoked reproaches to the author for the indecency of the entire plot associated with K. Defending himself, Beaumarchais argued that the feeling experienced by Rosina for the “charming child” is completely innocent, and only resentment towards her husband creates a danger for her to cross the line. But in reality, this is more than tenderness for the godson, and it is precisely the subtlety of psychological nuance in depicting a situation that is risky according to the canons officially recognized in the era of Beaumarchais that constitutes one of the merits of the play. The words “love” and “passion” that make K.’s heart tremble, the fury that seizes him at the mere sight of a woman, essentially exhaust his character, justifying both the nickname “little libertine” with which the count awarded him and Suzanne’s prediction about the “greatest rogue” in the world,” which after two or three years will begin to turn the heads of the ladies, no longer content with such innocent trophies as the countess’s ribbon, and not fearing the wrath of their husbands, even if they, unlike Almaviva, carry out the threat to send him away for mischief officer in the garrison.

Rosina is the pupil of the cracker and secret voluptuous Doctor Bartolo, who dreams of pleasures that he is not allowed to experience due to the intervention of Almaviva, who won the heart of a young Sevillan woman. Subsequently, she herself will have to return her husband’s faded passion, resorting to a daring and cunning trick. “A deeply unhappy woman and, moreover, of angelic meekness,” R. in “The Criminal Mother” must, destroying the evil plans of the intriguer who has gained the trust of the count, defend her good name and peace in own home. Next to Almaviva, R.’s character is even more static and strictly subordinated to the role of the heroine, in whom the charm of a girl in love is combined with the impeccability of a high soul, but also with the natural gift of innocent cunning, the ability to stand up for oneself, courage, and understanding of the secret incentives that drive people. The lack of “secularism”, which her guardian blames her for, for the enlightener Beaumarchais, with his belief in the indisputable truth of the dictates of the heart, which always have a higher meaning for R., turns out to be a self-evident argument in favor of her virtue, even if expressed in forms that can awaken indignation among purists and pedants. Staying in Bartolo’s house is perceived by R. as a “dungeon”, where she is being held “illegally,” that is, by forcibly suppressing the captive’s feelings and desires. The fulfillment of her desires is tantamount to gaining freedom and therefore does not require ethical justification for itself, even if for the sake of such a goal one has to resort to tricks and deceive the doctor who trusted her too much with his senile lusts. In the same way, the intrigue, crowned by the Count’s return to his bored marital bedroom, turns out to be completely moral, even morally instructive, even though R. is forced to act for this, shocking the audience and forcing the author to justify her by saying that she acts “out of kindness, condescension and sensitivity” ( Preface to The Marriage of Figaro).

Figaro - according to the author, “the most intelligent man of his nation”, throughout the action over and over again he proves Beaumarchais’s favorite idea that the fate of an individual is determined not by the force of circumstances that interfere with its full implementation, and therefore happiness, but by the strength of its resistance to bad circumstances , class restrictions and the power of prejudice. A representative of the third estate, to which Beaumarchais proudly considered himself even at the peak of his career, F. is endowed with the best, in the author’s understanding, traits of people of this circle: inimitable resourcefulness, humor and constant optimism, non-declarative, but strong feeling their human dignity and respect for property, but not for the privileges and rights granted simply by belonging to the aristocracy.

His never-failing sobriety, coupled with his wit and impeccable understanding human nature become a guarantee of success for F. even in situations that rudely remind him of his social disadvantage. Defeating Almaviva, who encroached on the honor of his bride, F. shows more than virtuoso ingenuity: he wins the fight, knowing that the stake in it is the rights of an ordinary person. That is why F. has reason to declare that he is “better than his reputation” as a servant, whom anyone who has a sonorous title from birth is free to humiliate. There are hardly any nobles who “can say the same about themselves.” The only one of the characters in the trilogy, F. undergoes not an imaginary, but rather instructive evolution throughout the actions, in the end he already bears little resemblance to the barber who demonstrated the wonders of invention when he helped Almaviva defraud the suspicious Bartolo, and acted with impudence, excused only by his cheerful disposition. True to his idea that “without acute situations, constantly generated by social discord, it is impossible to achieve either high pathos or deep moralizing on stage” (preface to The Marriage of Figaro), Beaumarchais led the hero through the tests of social institutions, which, in the opinion of educators, represent , relic of the wild medieval barbarism. Having tamed the count's whim thanks to his resilient nature, which is combined with a sharp mind, F., however, cannot simply consign to oblivion the “crazy day” of his wedding he experienced.

F.'s final monologue, which is the culmination of the entire trilogy, is pronounced not by a crafty and careless barber, whose love of life overflows, but by a kind of philosopher, endowed with the right and duty to formulate the main ideals of people of his class, which are in many ways identical to the ideals of the Enlightenment.

Bibliography

To prepare this work, materials from the site were used lib.rin.ru

Beaumarchais Castres Rene de

Chapter 18 GENESIS OF THE “BARBER OF SEVILLE” (1771–1772)

GENESIS OF THE BARBER OF SEVILLE (1771–1772)

A trial is akin to a military action and a theatrical performance at the same time, and during a performance, as during a battle, the intermissions or breaks are usually the longest, and boredom cannot be allowed to fill them.

The first trial against the Comte de Lablache seemed at first to be a very minor matter, initiated in order to return 15 thousand livres, a debt that, perhaps, it would be wiser to refuse for the sake of peace of mind on both sides. The insidious tricks of Master Caillard soon gave this process a completely different color: Beaumarchais found himself under suspicion of forging a document, which forced him to switch to active defense. This defense, which lasted for two years, although it took a lot of strength and energy from him, did not require much time. Pierre Augustin had more than enough left, and it needed to be filled with something.

While under investigation, Beaumarchais had no opportunity to resume financial activities, so it was completely natural that he turned to literature, or rather to drama. IN in this case he acted not only as a man thirsting for fame, but also as a writer who found himself broke and hoping to improve his financial situation with the help of the income that his copyrights could bring him. This is confirmed by a letter he sent on December 22, 1771 to the actor-shareholder of the “Théâtre Français” Dauberval:

“I ask you, sir, to convey to all the actors of the Comédie Française my sincere gratitude for the fact that they want to include “Eugenia”, my eldest daughter, and special thanks to those involved in this play for the zeal with which they try to present in the most favorable light the roles they have undertaken to perform. There is not a single weak work that talented performers they couldn’t play it in such a way that the public would like it. In this regard, I would like to note that many people are convinced that if the gentlemen actors of the Comédie Française tried to stage Two Friends, a play that in no theater in Europe had even a shadow of the success of Eugene, then soon the annoying impression, which at some point ruined interest in it, had long since dissipated, this play could have occupied public opinion the same place that the Comédie Française would have given her in advance. Such support would not be at all superfluous for a person who gave his all to this play free time, but whose very mediocre talent turned out to be almost buried under the burden of contradictions of various kinds.”

Oh, how dear his “Two Friends” was to him, and how deep down he believed in his extraordinary literary talent! But, scattering compliments to the actors of the Comedie Française, he was already thinking about a new theatrical experiment, he was going to make them all sing and, acting at the same time as a composer and playwright, he had already begun to work in this direction with the help of Julie and the friendly support of Guden.

When it comes to the Beaumarchais Theater, two things come to mind first: funny joke and Spain. Meanwhile, the influence of Spanish theatrical tradition on Beaumarchais's dramatic concept was very insignificant. Traveling through Spain, he wrote on December 24, 1764 from Madrid to the Duke de Lavalier:

“The Spanish theater is at least two hundred years behind ours both in the sense of decency and in the sense of acting: it suits them better to act in the plays of Ardi and his contemporaries. But their music can be put in second place, right after the beautiful Italian music, we are inferior to them in this. It has both genuine passion and cheerful interludes that punctuate the boring actions of their vulgar plays and which very often reward us for the boredom these plays evoke. They call them tonadilles or saynetes. They don’t know how to dance here at all, I mean ballet, because I can’t use this word to describe the funny and often even obscene body movements in Grenadian or Moorish dances that people like so much.”

So, it is clear that the Spanish theater seemed to Beaumarchais as outdated as the French classical tragedy: he said that the pangs of conscience of the Greeks or Romans worried him much less than the heartache or material difficulties of his contemporaries. And as for Spanish dances, then for Beaumarchais they were all on the same level as belly dancing, usually performed by odalisques and slaves from the East and North Africa.

Most in Madrid theatrical performances he liked the fact that, although they were not directly related to opera, they had a lot of music. He took this into account and decided to try his hand at musical comedy And comic opera. Critics so often repeated that he should not take on tragedies, but should write comedies, that he could not help but listen to their opinion: his first experiments with parades showed him his true purpose, in these short plays he already fully revealed his talent as a comedian. So, Beaumarchais decided to test himself in a new field, creating a work in which the actors, as in the Spanish theater, had to mainly sing. But this was the only thing that Pierre Augustin borrowed from the Spaniards for his play, from which grew the very “Barber of Seville” that continues to delight us two centuries after its birth. And if the action of this play, so French in spirit, takes place in Seville, it is only because the author thereby wanted to avoid censorship’s quibbles about the liberties that he allowed himself in this work. Beaumarchais remembered that "Eugenie" was able to make it onto the stage only after he transferred the action of the play from France to England; choosing Spain, he seemed to be ahead of events, taking the necessary precautions in advance.

Literary scholars have done everything conceivable research to identify the sources of the “Barber of Seville”, and never once did they bring them to Spain, but constantly to French parades. It appears that the plot of this play was drawn from the works of a certain French judicial official named Thomas Simeon Geulette (1683–1766), with whom Beaumarchais probably knew personally. The author of countless plays and parades, as well as a novel about the Middle Ages called “The History of Little Jean de Center”, in which critics saw the prototype of Cherubino, Goelette became the founder of the theater light genre, finally taking shape in the works of Beaumarchais.

The plot of Goelette’s play “Fashionable Medicine,” which was popular at the time, which he staged on stage amateur theater in Choisy, was very similar to the plot of The Barber of Seville. This, one might say, classic plot, used in both “The School for Wives” and “The School for Husbands”, which was based on the misadventures of an old man in love, left in the cold by his young rival, was updated with the help of the techniques of Italian and Spanish comedy, which had in their arsenal of dressing up, parodies and couplets. While Arnolf was simply a dullard, Cassander - Goelette's duped old man - had some of that insulted dignity that saved Bartolo from becoming a complete laughingstock. In "Fashionable Medicine" in the person of Gilles we already see the prototype of the two-faced and deceitful Basil, a master of slander. But the servant, who in the future turned into Figaro, was still the Italian Harlequin. One of the parades staged at one time in Etiol was, in our opinion, both summary"A Fashionable Medicine" and a sketch of "The Barber of Seville".

The deceived old man was already called Bartolo and was very similar to Gratiano Baloardo, who became the hero of the commedia dell'arte from the middle of the 16th century. Harlequin still retained his name, but was now a barber by profession. The handsome Leander turned into a count, thereby getting closer to the noble Almaviva. Isabella, or the Circabella of Italian parades, changed her too catchy name to the name Pauline, and this choice is easily explained, because that was the name of Mademoiselle Le Breton. In the real Barber, Polina will turn into Rosina.

Among Beaumarchais's papers, Lentilak discovered several fragments remaining from the first versions of The Barber of Seville, and a careful study of these unique documents confirmed the assumptions. From the original "Barber of Seville", then called simply " A futile precaution", several verses have reached us:

Like a real monk

From the monastery of Saint Antoine,

Having nothing in my soul.

Let's enjoy life;

Slowly

Early-early morning

To my Rosina (first - Polina)

We'll come often.

The hour of meeting is near,

And may my bell help me,

If the owner

Lounging in his marital bed,

Ding, ding, ding, ding,

I'm arranging a call back

Like a brownie

Until the morning.

Unhappy,

Who believes in the devil

He turns pale with fear.

Jumps out of bed

And the noise keeps growing,

He starts to thrash around

And finally leaves

Rosin to her monk.

The Bachelor, who alternately disguised himself as Satan, a monk, a pilgrim, and sometimes as a ghost, became the harbinger of the appearance of Lindor, Figaro and Almaviva on the stage.

The Barber of Seville was influenced by many authors. We find in it echoes of the works of Moliere and “The Lame Devil” by Lesage, whom Beaumarchais knew thoroughly and quoted almost unconsciously. And the title “Vain Precaution” was copied from Scarron’s novella, from which Moliere borrowed his “School for Wives.”

Beaumarchais offered his comic opera to the Italian Theater, but they refused to stage it because, according to rumors, the actor who sang the main roles on this stage was a barber in his youth and did not like it when anything reminded him of this time of his life. But official reason The reason for the refusal was that, in the opinion of the theater’s artistic council, the libretto of the opera was too reminiscent of the comedy “You Can’t Provide for Everything” by Seden and Monsigny, which had been successfully performed on the stage for ten years.

Be that as it may, Theater Italian comedy unwittingly rendered Beaumarchais an invaluable service. This is confirmed by the excerpts that have reached us from the libretto of “The Barber of Seville” when it was a comic opera. Despite some liveliness of the couplets, the level of the work as a whole, apparently, did not significantly exceed the level of the parades staged in Etiol, and the rhymes that Pierre Augustin composed on the spot for numerous family holidays. As for Beaumarchais’s music, it cannot stand any comparison with the music of Paisiello, and especially with the music of Rossini, written on the libretto of “The Barber” in 1780 and 1816, respectively.

Apart from the litigation with Lablache, the period in which this play was composed, rewritten and finalized was relatively calm in the turbulent life of Beaumarchais. The proceedings in the Racketeer Chamber, apparently, did not bother the author of “The Barber of Seville” too much, and the unrest associated with it did not affect his Creative skills, nor on his desire to bring his work to perfection.

There are many manuscripts of the original version of “The Barber of Seville,” which gradually turned into a play; from them one can judge how the author’s skill grew from text to text.

For two years, 1771 and 1772, during which Pierre Augustin not only worked on The Barber, but also, out of passion for tragedy, sketched fragments of the opera Tarar, which finally took shape only in 1787, he lived with his family in a mansion on the street Conde. After his brother was widowed for the second time, Julie took control of the household; Father Caron, despite his seventy years, continued to indulge in amusements more typical of green youths, and little Augustin learned to pronounce his first words.

News came from Spain: perhaps they also left their mark on the scenery of The Barber. Beaumarchais's son-in-law, the architect Guilbert, died of alcoholism, and no one began to mourn this death. His widow remarried one of her Spanish friends, a certain Mr. Salcedo, who very soon disappeared from her life, leaving her penniless. Madame Salcedo returned to Paris and brought with her a son and daughter - Gilbert's children, who for some reason bore the surname Salcedo. Apparently, their stepfather managed to adopt them. With his characteristic generosity, Beaumarchais took in support of his sister and nephews; he soon assigned the girl to a boarding school convent Holy Cross at Roy, in Picardy. It is possible that Clavijo’s ex-fiancée, Lisette, whom he abandoned, was in the same company, but by this time her trace in history had been lost, which seems somewhat strange to us.

“I would like everyone around me to be happy,” Beaumarchais liked to repeat, and partly this desire came true. Jeannot de Miron, on his recommendation, received the position of secretary to the Prince de Conti, and his wife, according to Julie, did everything so that “her hubby, rolling like cheese in butter, pampered, kissed, under her heel (but not horned) was happy with life." In this description, one can easily recognize the style of “The Barber,” to the creation of which Julie undoubtedly had a hand.

The Lepine family, based in the old Caron watch shop on the Rue Saint-Denis, prospered; Beaumarchais's son-in-law glorified his name and enjoyed well-deserved authority in the watchmaker's workshop.

This period of relative calm - clouds, however, had already begun to gather on the horizon - was overshadowed by a sad event: on October 17, 1772, little Augustin died. Beaumarchais bitterly mourned his son, the only thing he had left from his short marriage with Genevieve Watbled, the widow of Leveque. But it was not in his nature to grieve for a long time, and he could well have repeated after Montesquieu, who once said: “Teaching was for me the first cure for life's adversities; There was not a single grief that did not dissipate after an hour of reading.” Literary creativity, the dreams of glory that he gave birth to, as well as the pleasure that this pleasure-lover apparently received when he wrote plays, made him forget all his troubles and healed any wounds inflicted by fate.

Madams, if our jokes

Damaged your modesty

Don't be too strict

And forgive us this sin.

The ladies responded with pleasure to this frivolous appeal; if their modesty was hurt, they did not show it. Of the many amorous adventures of Beaumarchais, we know only a few. In particular, we know that little Dolinyi, who played the role of Eugenie and later Rosina, did not remain indifferent to the charms of their creator.

In 1773 one of his love adventures received publicity. About a year before this, Beaumarchais became the lover of the actress of the Italian Comedy Theater, Mademoiselle Menard. This connection, cemented more by sensuality than by deep feeling, was apparently also dictated by practical interests: with the help of his mistress, Beaumarchais hoped to push his “Barber of Seville” onto the stage of this theater in the form of a comic opera. Ironically, this love affair, on the contrary, became the reason that the production of “The Barber” was postponed for many years.

The beginning was encouraging: considering his comedy quite ready to go on stage, Beaumarchais brought it to the Comedie Française, where his first creations were released.

On January 3, 1773, the author was notified that the play had been accepted for production, that rehearsals would begin in the near future, and the premiere was scheduled for Maslenitsa. The censorship commission instructed journalist Maren to give an opinion on the text of the play; this man, destined to play a significant role in the life of Beaumarchais, was also the censor of Eugenie, and his comments were of a completely objective nature. Having demanded that some corrections be made, on February 13, 1773, Maren gave the go-ahead for the production of The Barber of Seville.

Alas! Just two days before, Beaumarchais's fate had made sharp turn, and Pierre Augustin, by no means of his own free will, found himself in critical situation: His good name was at stake.