SOURCE: “The Play,” in Beaumarchais: “Le Mariage de Figaro,” Grant & Cutler Ltd., 1983, pp. 32-66.

In the following excerpt, Niklaus explains the structure of The Marriage of Figaro, commenting on past literary criticism and seeking to explain the unique importance of the play.

A. the Plot and the Action

We do not know all the stages in the composition of [Le Mariage de Figaro.] Ratermanis has provided us with the text of three manuscripts side by side with that of the first published edition, of the preface, of different versions of the Préliminaire de lecture, the Programme du Mariage and extracts from the opéra comique which was to constitute the last stage of the play. The stemma of the manuscripts preserved in the Bibliothèque Nationale, the archives of the family and the Comédie Française, is not immediately apparent. The manuscript in the Bibliothèque...