Met streams Corigliano’s “The Ghosts of Versailles”

Though  Beaumarchais’ trilogy of Figaro plays appeared in 1775, 1781 and 1792, it took until 1991 for the third, La mère coupable (The Guilty Mother) to be translated into opera, when John Corigliano and William M. Hoffmann’s The Ghosts of Versailles premiered at the Metropolitan Opera. The opera more elaborate liberties with the original plot than Rossini’ Il barbiere di Siviglia or Mozart’s Le nozze di Figaro. Beaumarchais is in love with Marie Antoinette, and the guillotine and French revolution both pay their parts. Even Wagner gets a major nod in this extravagant and sometimes gleefully silly production starring Teresa Stratas, Håkan Hagegård, Gino Quilico, Graham Clark, Marilyn Horne, and Renée Fleming, conducted by James Levine in a performance from Jan. 10, 1992.  (Smaller productions at Chicago Lyric, Glimmerglass Festival, Opera Theatre of Saint Louis, LA Opera, Wolf Trap and Versailles itself have since then helped Ghosts gain real traction.) (Photo: Metropolitan Opera)