Le Barbier de Séville de Beaumarchais, ou le « bonheur dans le crime »

Since its creation, ­Beaumarchais’s theatrical œuvre has been able to surprise audiences with its unexpected swerves between serious and ­comic genres. The Barbier de Séville appears to be his lightest ­comedy, but an attentive study reveals a thematic ­consistency internal to the work and the didactic necessity, in order to entice the public, of using ­comic threads to ­conduct an in-depth treatment of a subject as political as it is moral.