The popularity of The Marriage of Figaro (1786), Mozart's opera with a libretto by Lorenzo da Ponte, may have overshadowed too much the play by Pierre Caron de Beaumarchais that gave rise to it, premiered a couple of years earlier after several episodes of censorship. However, this second part of what became known as the “Figaro trilogy” (which includes The Barber of Seville, also widely known through Rossini's opera, and concludes with La Mère Coupable) became a landmark in French theater, especially due to the biting satire it undertakes against the privileges of the aristocracy and royalty — it is said that Louis XVI considered it detestable —, a precursor of many of the signs that announced the French Revolution. More than two centuries later, director António Pires and the company of Teatro do Bairro acknowledge that The Marriage of Figaro “may no longer even be in fashion”, but bringing it to the stage today manifests “a practice of freedom that theater in Portugal can still be”. For that very reason, let us return to this timeless comedy of manners where one learns that “an intelligent servant always knows how to serve his master well, especially with a good lesson”. The chosen translation is that of Luís Miguel Cintra, who directed this same play in 1999 to mark the 25th anniversary of Teatro da Cornucópia. [text: Frederico Bernardino/ACL, October 2026]. Technical sheet: Ar de Filmes/Teatro do Bairro. Text by Pierre-Augustin Caron de Beaumarchais; translation by Luis Miguel Cintra; direction by António Pires; with Alexandra Rosa, Carolina Campanela, Dinis Gomes, Francisco Vistas, João Araújo, João Maria, Mário Sousa, Sofia Marques and Vera Moura.