The Marriage of Figaro
The Marriage of Figaro (, ), K. 492, is an opera buffa (comic opera) in four acts composed in 1786 by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, with an Italian libretto written by Lorenzo Da Ponte. It premiered at the Burgtheater in Vienna on 1 May 1786. The opera's libretto is based on a stage comedy by Pierre Beaumarchais, "La folle journée, ou le Mariage de Figaro" ("The Mad Day, or The Marriage of Figaro"), which was first performed in 1784. It tells how the servants Figaro and Susanna succeed in getting married, foiling the efforts of their philandering employer Count Almaviva to seduce Susanna and teaching him a lesson in fidelity.
London Figaro
Among those who contributed to it were William Archer (writing as "Almaviva", drama critic), Ernest Bendall, Faustin Betbeder ("Faustin", caricaturist), Percy Betts ("Cherubino", musical critic), Ambrose Bierce ("Passing Showman", "Town Crier"), Edward Bradley ("Cuthbert Bede"), Aglen Dowty ("Young and Happy Husband", "OPQ Philander Smiff"), John Baker Hopkins, Frank Marshall, Edwin Milliken, Clement Scott ("Almaviva", drama critic), and Edward Blanchard (drama critic). Mortimer was a chess master and so the Figaro had a chess column, which from 1872 until 1876 was contributed by Johann Löwenthal and from 1876 to 1882 by Wilhelm Steinitz.