What It Is
Rossini's comic opera, in which Rosina, watched over by an old guardian, exchanges notes with a young lover and ends up marrying him. In the book it is the opera to which the lodger takes Nastenka and the grandmother, the grandmother's youthful spectacle, when she played Rosina in a home theater, and the scene that the Dreamer and Nastenka recognize when she hands him the letter already written.
In The Barber of Seville, by Rossini, Figaro spells out for Rosina the name of the girl Lindoro is in love with, which is hers, and asks her for a note for him; Rosina hands over one she had already written.
Where It Appears
In Nastenka's story, Second Night, the lodger proposes taking Nastenka to the theater without the grandmother knowing; she refuses, and that same afternoon he offers the grandmother a spare box for The Barber. The grandmother cries out with joy, because in the old days she played Rosina, and accepts. Nastenka understands, during the opera, that in the morning he had put her to the test, and returns with a fever of joy. Afterward he appears only once a month, to invite them to the opera, and when the season ends, he stops coming.
On the Second Night, when Nastenka hands the Dreamer the letter she had already written, the two remember the opera and sing the scene:
R, o - Ro, s, i - si, n, a - na, R, o, Ro, s, i, si, n, a, na
On the Fourth Night, in the plans for life together, the Dreamer proposes that they go to The Barber, which will be staged again, and she refuses laughing:
нет, лучше мы будем слушать не «Цирюльника», а что-нибудь другое, No, let us rather listen not to «The Barber», but to something else.
What It Means
The Barber is the script Nastenka follows without having to say so: a watched young woman, a young man who frees her, a note already written. The grandmother brings it into the house out of longing for her own youth, and in doing so, without knowing it, plays the part of Figaro.
The opera belongs to the lodger, and Nastenka knows it better than the Dreamer does. He recognizes it on the Second Night and sings along with her without noticing that the part of Lindoro already has an owner and that he is playing Figaro, the go-between who helps the pair find each other. On the Fourth Night, in proposing The Barber again, he wants the other man's place, as he wants the other man's mezzanine, and it is she who refuses: the laughing refusal is the only moment in the plans when the lodger's shadow appears, and she is the one who sees it.
Relationships
- Standard themes: Love, Memory and the past.
- Themes of the work: Love, Memory and the past.
- Characters: Nastenka, the lodger, the grandmother, the Dreamer.
- Neighboring symbols: the letter, because Nastenka's sealed letter is Rosina's note.