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The Boors

(I rusteghi)

Carlo Goldoni - 1760.

Masterpiece of naturalism depicting the conflict of the generations and the puritanical intolerance of the Venetian middle class.

Lunardo, basically kind but boorishly intolerant, demands complete obedience and faultless conduct from his wife and daughter. Both rebel when he betrothes his daughter to the son of Maurizio, a man as boorish as himself, and then forbids the young people to meet before the wedding. Aided by Felicita, a spirited woman, the couple arrange a rendezvous. This so enrages Lunardo that he cancels the marriage. Felicita, however, finally convinces both fathers that their uncouth and barbarous ways have brought them only mockery and that they must abandon their tyrannical behavior.