Pierre Beaumarchais
In 1786, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart composed an opera, "Le Nozze di Figaro", based on "The Marriage of Figaro", with a libretto by Lorenzo Da Ponte based on the play. Several composers including Paisiello in 1782 wrote operas based on "The Barber of Seville". Rossini's 1816 version is his most successful work and still often performed. In 1966, Darius Milhaud composed an opera, "La mère coupable", based on "The Guilty Mother".
L'amor coniugale
Like Beethoven's "Fidelio", the libretto of "L'amor coniugale" is based on Jean-Nicolas Bouilly's French libretto for Pierre Gaveaux's 1798 opera "Léonore ou L'amour conjugal". Unlike "Fidelio" which focuses on the struggle for political liberty, Mayr's opera, also known as "Il custode di buon cuore" (The Good-hearted Jailer) and described in its libretto as a "farsa sentimentale", focuses more on the interpersonal relationships between the protagonists and contains comic elements. Rossi condensed Bouilly's two-act libretto into one act containing 19 scenes and changed the setting from the Napoleonic wars to 17th century Poland.