to the lovers.

I have told the story of "Il Barbiere di Siviglia" as it appears
in the book. It has grown to be the custom to omit in performance
several of the incidents which are essential to the development
and understanding of the plot. Some day--soon, it is to be
hoped--managers, singers, and public will awake to a realization
that, even in the old operas in which beautiful singing is supposed
to be the be-all and end-all, the action ought to be kept coherent.
In that happy day Rossini's effervescent lyrical arrangement of
Beaumarchais's vivacious comedy will be restored to its rights.



CHAPTER II

"LE NOZZE DI FIGARO"


Beaumarchais wrote a trilogy of Figaro comedies, and if the tastes
and methods of a century or so ago had been like those of the
present, we might have had also a trilogy of Figaro operas--"Le
Barbier de Seville," "Le Mariage de Figaro," and "La Mere coupable."
As it is, we have operatic versions of the first two of the
comedies, Mozart's "Nozze di Figaro" being a sequel to Rossini's
"Il Barbiere," its action beginning at a period not long after the
precautions of Dr. Bartolo had been rendered inutile by Figaro's
cunning schemes and Almaviva had installed Rosina as his countess.
"Le Nozze" was composed a whole generation before Rossini's opera.
Mozart and his public could keep the sequence of incidents in view,