The Guilty Mother
[citation needed] Like the earlier plays of the trilogy it has been turned into operatic form, but it has not entered the general opera repertoire.
Like Molière's original, he gains such influence over the head of the household that even when the latter finally understands the deception, the intruder is so firmly in control of the family's affairs that is only with difficulty that he is defeated.
[n 1] Bégearss is almost certainly based on one of Beaumarchais's enemies, a lawyer called Nicolas Bergasse, with whom the author had been embroiled in an acrimonious legal case in the last days of the Ancien Régime.
They made some changes to comply with the prevailing orthodoxy of the French Revolution: most particularly they suppressed the Almavivas' aristocratic titles "Count" and "Countess".
[3] The characters, as described by Beaumarchais's characterisations,[4] are: The action takes place twenty years after the previous play in the trilogy, The Marriage of Figaro.
As he lay dying, he wrote a final letter to the Countess, declaring his love and regrets, and making mention of all the things they had done.
The Countess did not have the heart to throw away the letter, and instead had a special box supplied by an Irishman called Bégearss, with a secret compartment in which to store the incriminating note, so the Count would never find it.
The Count has been suspicious all these years that he is not the father of Léon, the Countess's son, and so he has been rapidly trying to spend his fortune to ensure the boy won't inherit any of it, even having gone so far as to renounce his title and move the family to Paris; but he has nevertheless held some doubts, and therefore has never officially disowned the boy or even brought up his suspicions to the Countess.
Almaviva, overwhelmed by relief at seeing Florestine saved from marrying Bégearss, is ready to forgo his fortune; Figaro, on the other hand, has no intention of letting the villain get away with the Count's money.
[3] Darius Milhaud's La mère coupable (1966) was the first to be completed,[11] and Inger Wikström made an adaptation called Den Brottsliga Modern (1990).
[13] In April 2010, the opera L'amour coupable by Thierry Pécou to a libretto by Eugène Green based on the Beaumarchais play, received its world premiere at L'Opéra de Rouen.
[16] All three operas were staged, the earlier two pieces in new Icelandic translations, in succession in December 2024 - March 2025 with numerous singers taking part in more than one of them.
