The Barber of Seville buffe". After two hundred years, it remains a popular work. Rossini's opera recounts the events of the first of the three plays by French playwright Pierre de Beaumarchais that revolve around the clever and enterprising character named Figaro, the barber of the title. Mozart's opera "The Marriage of Figaro," composed 30 years earlier in 1786, is based on the second part of the Beaumarchais trilogy. The first Beaumarchais play was originally conceived as an opéra comique, but was rejected as such by the Comédie-Italienne. The play as it is now known was premiered in 1775 by the Comédie-Française at the
Opera Pacific in the Festival of Opera." The first productions included such traditional repertory as "Madame Butterfly", "The Marriage of Figaro", and "The Barber of Seville"; "I Pagliacci" and "The Devil and Daniel Webster" were presented as a double billing during the 1965 season. In the early 1980s members of the "Opera Leaque", along with other opera aficionados throughout Orange County, combined to form the core audience for the anticipated opening of the Orange County Performing Arts Center in neighboring Costa Mesa, at which time Opera Pacific was incorporated. Opera Pacific has been host to many of opera's greatest living legends, including