Theatrical Politics in Ancien Regime France: Music, Genre, and Meaning

Home , Adrien (opera), Alceste (Lully), Alcyone (opera), Armide (Lully), Atys (Lully), Ballad opera

THEATRICAL POLITICS IN ANCIEN RÉGIME FRANCE:

MUSIC, GENRE, AND MEANING

AT THE PARISIAN FAIR THEATERS, 1678–1723

A dissertation submitted to

The Graduate School of the University of Cincinnati

in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of

DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY

in the College-Conservatory of Music

2020

Erik Matthew Paffett

B.Mus., West Chester University of Pennsylvania, 2009

M.M., West Chester University of Pennsylvania, 2011

M.M., University of Cincinnati, 2019 ABSTRACT

The theatrical genre comédie en vaudevilles, comprising newly-written texts set to pre- existing popular songs, enjoyed tremendous popularity at the Parisian trade fair theaters in the early eighteenth century. Because of problems stemming from its historiography, the comédie en vaudevilles has not always been clearly distinguished from the later (post-1760) genre opéra- comique. Inclined to understand French theatrical genres within evolutionary frameworks amid largescale nationalist efforts to rediscover France’s cultural past, scholars in the nineteenth century began to consider the comédie en vaudevilles as a primitive or lesser form of opéra- comique. François-Joseph Fétis sought opéra-comique’s origins in medieval theatrical traditions, while others turned to the comédies-ballets of Molière and Lully. Others still pointed to the farcical, acrobatic comedies of the fair theaters in the seventeenth century.

In the first part of this study, I demonstrate how the comédie en vaudevilles and other works of the fair theaters have been considered a lesser theatrical form, tracing misconceptions about the genre back to nineteenth-century writings. Here, I also examine an overlooked set of librettos and other primary sources to suggest that the seventeenth-century repertory of the fair theaters does not foreshadow, anticipate, or resemble the comédie en vaudevilles of the early eighteenth century. Instead this repertory functions similarly to that of the contemporaneous genres of the royal theaters in seeking to reinforce the authority of the monarchy and to glorify its accomplishments. I also argue that the first comédies en vaudevilles were not the creation of a singular author’s hand, but rather were the result of a gradual process of appropriating and adapting pre-existing theatrical traditions. Prior to Lesage’s debut at the fair theaters in 1713, the sung vaudeville form had already emerged in the early repertory of the fair theaters during the years 1709–1712. The theatrical legacy of the Italian commedia dell’arte also left an indelible

ii imprint on the repertory of the fair theaters. The stock characters, comic lazzi routines, obscene humor, and comic violence were an integral feature of the fair theater repertory throughout the eighteenth century.

In the second part of this study, I demonstrate that by the time of the Regency (1715–

1723) the comédie en vaudevilles was definitively not a primitive or lesser form of opéra- comique nor a simplistic genre for an uneducated class. On the contrary, it was a complex, intertextual genre intended for an audience well-versed in theatrical politics, current events, music, literature, and a range of different subjects. It is in these works that the traditions of satire and parody are combined with theatrical polemics. As case studies, I analyze the satirical commentary, techniques of parody, theatrical polemics, and processes of musical borrowing in two comédies en vaudevilles from the years 1718–1721, to show how these works may have been received by audiences.

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To my wife,

C O U R T N E Y L Y N N,

And our son,

M A T T H E W F R E D E R I C K

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I first wish to thank the primary adviser of this project, Stephen Meyer. Dr. Meyer’s insights have been invaluable to my dissertation, especially in these final stages of writing it.

Moreover, his guidance and feedback have immensely improved the end result. I would also like to thank Mary Sue Morrow who vitally helped shape the direction of this project from its beginning stages. She has also helped me understand eighteenth-century music beyond traditional paradigms and, importantly, instilled the ideas that have greatly improved my research and writing over the years. I would also like to thank the musicology and ethnomusicology faculty at the University of Cincinnati’s College-Conservatory of Music for granting me the opportunity to pursue my doctoral work here. I am especially grateful to Jonathan Kregor and

Stefan Fiol for serving as readers on this project. I also wish to thank Sterling Murray and Julian

Onderdonk for their continued mentorship over the years.

Finally I want to express my fullest gratitude to my family. I would like to thank especially my parents, Edward and Eileen Paffett, who always supported my education and emphasized its value and importance throughout my life. I am indebted to my wife, Courtney, who has been a constant source of support and has made many sacrifices along the way. I am also especially grateful for my son, Matthew, who despite his seemingly endless demands on my time, is a continual source of personal joy and happiness.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

ABSTRACT ...... ii

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ...... vi

TABLE OF CONTENTS ...... vii

LIST OF TABLES ...... ix

LIST OF MUSICAL EXAMPLES ...... x

LIST OF FIGURES...... xi

INTRODUCTION ...... 1 THE COMÉDIE EN VAUDEVILLES IN SCHOLARLY LITERATURE ...... 2 POLITICAL HISTORICAL BACKGROUND ...... 6 THEATRICAL BACKGROUND ...... 8 TERMINOLOGY ...... 12 THE PARISIAN FAIRGROUND THEATERS ...... 13 AIMS AND OUTLINE OF THIS PROJECT ...... 19

CHAPTER 1. INSCRIBING THE ORIGINS OF OPÉRA-COMIQUE ...... 23 THE TERM “OPÉRA-COMIQUE” IN EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY FRANCE ...... 25 HISTORIES OF THE FAIR THEATERS IN THE EARLY EIGHTEENTH CENTURY ...... 30 HISTORIES OF THE FAIR THEATERS 1730–1760 ...... 37 HISTORIES OF THE FAIR THEATERS IN THE LATE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY ...... 40 POSITIVISM AND NEW SOURCES IN THE 1870S ...... 45 HISTORIES OF OPÉRA-COMIQUE BEFORE WORLD WAR I ...... 47 MOLIÈRE AND LULLY AT THE ORIGINS ...... 50 FÉTIS, THE HISTOIRE GÉNÉRALE, AND THE THIRTEENTH-CENTURY CHANT-FABLE ...... 53 ADAM DE LA HALLE AND LE JEU DE ROBIN ET DE MARION ...... 56 TWENTIETH-CENTURY HISTORIES OF OPÉRA-COMIQUE ...... 62 CONCLUSIONS ...... 64

CHAPTER 2. THE THEATRICAL TROUPES AND REPERTORY OF THE FAIR THEATERS BEFORE 1697 ...... 67 THEATRICAL LIFE IN SEVENTEENTH-CENTURY PARIS ...... 68 MUSIC OF THE TROUPES OF DANSEURS DE CORDE ...... 69 THE FIRST ACTING TROUPES OF THE FAIR THEATERS, 1596–1620 ...... 74 FROM THE FAIR TO THE COURT: CURIOSITIES, MARIONETTES, AND TROUPES, 1640–1670 ...... 77 TROUPES AND REPERTORY OF THE FAIR THEATERS, 1675–1680...... 82 SIEUR LA GRILLE AND THE TROUPE DES PYGMÉES ...... 82 THE FRANCO-DUTCH WAR AND THE FUNCTION OF POLITICAL ALLEGORY ...... 87 LA GRILLE’S REPERTORY AND THE PASTORALE ...... 91 LA GRILLE’S REPERTORY AND THE TRAGÉDIE EN MACHINES ...... 93 MUSICAL STRUCTURE IN LA GRILLE’S REPERTORY ...... 95 THE TROUPE DE LA FORCES DE L’AMOUR ET DE LA MAGIE, 1678–1680 ...... 98 APOLLO ON THE FAIR THEATER STAGE: GLORIFYING THE SUN KING ...... 100 CONNECTIONS BETWEEN MOLIÈRE AND THE REPERTORY OF THE TROUPE OF ALARD AND VONDREBECK...... 106

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LES DIVERTISSEMENTS DE LA FOIRE (1678) ...... 107 TROUPES AND REPERTORY OF THE FAIR THEATERS, 1680–1697...... 110 THE TROUPE OF ALEXANDRE BERTRAND ...... 111 L’ENLÈVEMENT DE PROSERPINE, LULLY, AND BALLET ...... 112 CONCLUSIONS ...... 114

CHAPTER 3. REPERTORY OF THE FAIR THEATERS, 1697–1712 ...... 116 ORALITY AND TEXTUALITY: THE LIBRETTO SOURCES ...... 117 THE THEATRICAL LEGACY OF THE COMMEDIA DELL’ARTE IN PARIS ...... 120 AVOIDING CENSORSHIP: “INDECENT PERFORMANCES AND OBSCENITIES” ...... 122 THE CHARACTERS, PLOTS, AND SCENARIOS OF THE COMMEDIA DELL’ARTE ...... 124 SLAPSTICK, COMIC VIOLENCE, AND LAZZI SCENES ...... 128 THEMES AND SUBJECTS IN THE PRE-1713 FAIR THEATER REPERTORY ...... 132 CLASSIC SUBJECTS ...... 132 CONTEMPORARY LOCALES ...... 137 THE POPULARITY OF PARODIES AT THE FAIR THEATERS, 1707–1710 ...... 138 THE TECHNIQUES OF PARODY ...... 141 FORM, GENRE, AND THE FIRST COMÉDIE EN VAUDEVILLES ...... 146 AUDIENCE PARTICPATORY SINGING ...... 146 VAUDEVILLE USE IN THE REPERTORY OF THE ITALIAN TROUPE ...... 148 EARLY EXAMPLES OF THE VAUDEVILLE STRUCTURE ...... 152 MUSICAL STRUCTURE IN THE FAIR THEATER REPERTORY, 1710–1712...... 161 VAUDEVILLE TUNES, SOURCES, AND MEANINGS ...... 161 BEYOND VAUDEVILLES: OTHER MUSICAL BORROWINGS AND VOCAL MUSIC ...... 170 INSTRUMENTAL MUSIC: INCIDENTAL MUSIC, INTERLUDES, AND OVERTURES ...... 173 DANCE MUSIC ...... 176 CONCLUSIONS ...... 181

CHAPTER 4. PARODY, SATIRE, AND POLEMICS AT THE FAIR THEATERS, 1713–1723 ...... 183 THEATRICAL PARODY IN SEVENTEENTH- AND EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY FRANCE ...... 185 RIDICULING THE ROYAL THEATERS ...... 191 REFERENCES TO PUBLIC FIGURES ...... 195 SATIRE IN EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY FRANCE ...... 198 NICOLAS BOILEAU AND SEVENTEENTH-CENTURY SATIRE ...... 198 SATIRICAL SONGS IN SEVENTEENTH-CENTURY FRANCE ...... 200 SATIRICAL SONGS IN EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY FRANCE ...... 202 SONGS ON THE 1716 CHAMBER OF JUSTICE...... 203 FROM SATIRICAL SONG TO THEATRICAL SUBJECT: ARLEQUIN TRAITANT AND THE 1716 CHAMBER OF JUSTICE ...... 208 THEATRICAL POLEMICS ...... 211 THE CLOSING AND REOPENING OF THE FAIR THEATERS, 1718–1721...... 212 MUSICAL BORROWINGS FROM THE OPERATIC REPERTORY ...... 221 MEANING IN OPERATIC BORROWINGS ...... 223 THE TECHNIQUES OF MUSICAL BORROWING ...... 226 CONCLUSIONS ...... 231

CONCLUSION ...... 232

BIBLIOGRAPHY ...... 236

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LIST OF TABLES

Table 2.1. Repertory of the Fair Theaters before 1697 ...... 68

Table 2.2. List of Musical Numbers in Les pygmées (1676) ...... 96

Table 2.3. List of Musical Numbers in Les amours de Microton ou les charmes d’Orcan (1677) ...... 97

Table 2.4. Musical Structure of Les forces de l’amour et de la magie (1678) ...... 102

Table 2.5. Musical Structure of Circé en postures (1678) ...... 106

Table 2.6. Musical Structure of L’enlèvement de Proserpine (1695) ...... 114

Table 3.1. Extant Repertory of the Fair Theaters, 1697–1712 ...... 119

Table 3.2. Performance Calendar for the Fair Theaters, 1697–1712 ...... 139

Table 3.3. List of Vaudeville Timbres in the Gherardi Collection ...... 151

Table 3.4. Vaudeville Tunes Used in the Fair Theater Repertory, 1710–1712 ...... 162

Table 3.5. Musical Structure of the divertissement from act III of Le ravissement d’Hélène, le siege et l’embrasement de Troie (1705) ...... 180

Table 4.1. List of Examples of the Pièce polemique in the Lesage Collection, 1718–1734 ...... 212

Table 4.2. List of Borrowed Scenes from Alceste ...... 216

LIST OF MUSICAL EXAMPLES

Musical Example 1.1. “Trairi, deluriau,” from Le jeu de Robin et de Marion ...... 59

Musical Example 3.1. Source of Vaudeville “La beauté la plus sévère,” from Atys ...... 163

Musical Example 3.2. Arlequin et Scaramouche vendangeurs, act I, scene 8 ...... 165

Musical Example 3.3. “Air” from Manuscript Score of L’Inconnu by Jean-Claude Gillier ...... 167

Musical Example 3.4. Vaudeville tune “Sarabande de L’Inconnu” ...... 168

Musical Example 3.5. “Air des hautbois Les folies d’Espagne” ...... 170

Musical Example 3.6. Recitative from Cadmus et Hermione, act III, scene 3 ...... 172

Musical Example 3.7. Vaudeville tune “Robin ture lure lure” ...... 179

Musical Example 4.1. Le rappel de la Foire à la vie, scene 2...... 217

Musical Example 4.2. Alceste, act III, scene 5, opening instrumental number ...... 224

Musical Example 4.3. Alceste, act III, scene 5, reduction of five-part scoring ...... 226

Musical Example 4.4. Alceste, act III, scene 4 ...... 227

Musical Example 4.5. Le rappel de la Foire à la vie, scene 1...... 230

LIST OF FIGURES

Figure I.1. Seventeenth-Century Depiction of a Trestle Stage at the Fair of Saint Germain ...... 10

Figure I.2. Plan de Turgot, Map of Paris Showing the Fairgrounds around 1739 ...... 16

Figure I.3. Detail of the Fair of Saint Germain from the Plan de Turgot ...... 17

Figure I.4. Detail of the Fair of Saint Laurent from the Plan de Turgot ...... 18

Figure 1.1. Grout’s “Ancestry” of French Lyric Genres ...... 65

Figure 3.1. Textual Allusion to Quinault’s Libretto for Cadmus et Hermione (1673) ...... 145

Figure 3.2. Textual Allusion to Quinault’s Libretto for Armide (1686) ...... 145

Figure 3.3. Textual Borrowing from Quinault’s Libretto for Armide (1686) ...... 146

Figure 4.1. Structure of the Funeral Scene from Les funerailles de la Foire from the Original Alceste Libretto ...... 229

Introduction

When French musicologist Maurice Barthélemy wrote his essay on the history of opéra- comique in 1992, he wanted to offer readers a “general panorama of French opéra-comique from its origins to 1789” rather than provide them with a “definitive introduction.”1 Moreover, he claimed that there were “too many material problems” that would prevent him from “covering the totality of the repertoire.”2 That Barthélemy needed nearly seventy-five pages to paint this

“general panorama” speaks to some of the “many material problems” surrounding the history of opéra-comique. The “totality of the repertoire” is also quite substantial. Isabelle Martin lists nearly 1,200 titles of works that were performed at the fair theaters from 1697–1762.3 However, many of these are preserved in manuscripts that were, regrettably, written in a hand that is now quite difficult to read. In her study on captivity operas at the fair theaters Jama Stilwell lamented,

“Indeed, many of the surviving manuscript copies are almost illegible, with components removed or added through scribbled marginal notes.”4 The reliance on pre-existing tunes, the provenance of which are often difficult or impossible to determine, has also hindered the creation of musical studies of this repertory. Only recently has Judith Le Blanc uncovered the origins of many vaudeville tunes that originated from the opera repertory.5

1 Maurice Barthélemy, “L’opéra-comique des origines à la Querelle des Bouffons,” in L’opéra-comique en France au XVIIIe siècle, ed. Philippe Vendrix (Liège, Belgium: Mardaga, 1992), 6.

2 Ibid.

3 Isabelle Martin, Le Théâtre de la Foire: Des tréteaux aux boulevards (Oxford, United Kingdom: Voltaire Foundation, University of Oxford, 2002), 319–78.

4 Jama Stilwell, “‘A Story Altogether Foolish, Bizarre, and Buffoonish’: The Théâtres de la Foire and the Eighteenth-Century Captivity Opera” (PhD diss., University of Iowa, 2003), 68.

5 Judith Le Blanc, Avatars d’opéras: Parodies et circulation des airs chantés sur les scènes parisiennes (Paris: Classiques Garnier, 2014).

The genre which Barthélemy and Martin have written about, though commonly referred to as opéra-comique, was a comedic theatrical form comprising spoken dialogue and popular songs with newly-composed texts, akin to ballad opera in England. Among audiences in eighteenth-century Paris, this vast musical-theatrical repertory, perhaps more clearly referred to as comédies en vaudevilles, rivaled or, in some cases, surpassed the works of the royal theaters in popularity. In terms of scholarly popularity, no such rivalry seems to exist; the volume of studies on classic French opera and musical-theater greatly outnumber those written about the comédie en vaudevilles. There may be several reasons for this. In addition to the source problems mentioned above, the genre of comédie en vaudevilles has often been overlooked because of its perception as a “low” form of art, a bias that has only recently been addressed by literary scholars.6 Secondly, earlier scholars who did not overlook the genre of comédie en vaudevilles, were overly concerned with its status as a nascent form of the later, post-1760 genre opéra- comique. Rather than attempting to understand the genre within its eighteenth-century context, they have tended to view the comédie en vaudevilles as a primitive stage in a grand generic evolution or have resorted to philosophical speculation on its origins. While helpful in many respects, this teleological perspective fails to explain why the genre comédie en vaudevilles held such a popular place in the first half of the eighteenth century and played an integral role in the city’s theatrical life.

Part of this misunderstanding of the comédie en vaudevilles is the result of its long historiography and an ever-changing set of defining criteria. Even in the late eighteenth century, a tradition of speculating about opéra-comique’s origins began that was revisited by French historians in the late nineteenth century. Tied in with efforts to celebrate France’s cultural past,

6 See Martin, Le Théâtre de la Foire and Nathalie Rizzoni, “Inconnaissance de la Foire,” in L’Invention des genres lyriques français et leur redécouverte au XIXe siècle (Lyon, France: Symétrie, 2010), ed. Agnès Terrier et Alexandre Dratwicki, 119–51. 2 opéra-comique became linked to earlier key dramatic-literary figures like Molière. The influential critic François-Joseph Fétis went so far as to trace the origins of opéra-comique back to the Middle Ages and Adam de la Halle, whose first complete works editions were being produced around the same time. This perspective, in part driven by nationalistic undertakings at a time of low public morale in France after the devastating Franco-Prussian War, was later brought to American musicology by Donald J. Grout in the twentieth century. Thus it was in this context that the foundations of our current understanding of opéra-comique were laid.

But rather than considering the comédie en vaudevilles as a stage in a grand trajectory that leads from medieval theatrical traditions to a golden age in the nineteenth century, this genre is perhaps better understood through its temporality. That is to say, it is better understood through its connections to its own time. It is precisely the topicality of the comédie en vaudevilles, created through a depth of allusions and intertextual references to other theatrical works, politics, and public figures, that led to its popularity. In fact, these references are more elaborate than previously thought, casting doubt on the notion that the authors at the fair theaters catered exclusively to a low-brow audience.7 As this study will show, understanding the eighteenth-century context of these references is an essential step in clarifying misconceptions about genre and meaning in the comédie en vaudevilles that are a product of its historiography.

These allusions often took the form of theatrical parody, which I will define as taking a pre-existing work as the basis for a new comedy. This often meant preserving the characters (and costumes) and settings of the original work while ridiculing one or more aspects of it, such as unrealistic plot elements, music, and overly dramatic character reactions. Sometimes these

7 This notion can still be seen in scholarship occasionally. For example, see Robert Ignatius Letellier, Opéra-Comique: A Sourcebook (Newcastle-upon-Tyne: Cambridge Scholars, 2010), xii. “In 1714, when the high society of Paris was seen at the Comédie Française and the Opéra, small comedy plays were the preferred form of entertainment of the less well-off.” 3 parodies were veiled and therefore did not retain the characters and settings of the original. In other instances, a single scene or moment from another work could be parodied within a larger comedy, thus not necessarily forming the basis of the new work. Thus the procedures of parody were not simple. A parodist could borrow scenes from multiple theatrical works and cleverly weave them into the fabric of a new plot. In their new context these borrowed scenes often acquired a new layer of meaning when an aspect of the original work was analogous to the plot of the parody. This borrowing process also required that scenes were carefully adapted to be concise and to suit smaller performing ensembles. Texts were often abridged and reordered to create new forms. Comédies en vaudevilles were shorter than serious operas, a feature that probably contributed to their popularity. For example, it was typical to see three separate one-act comédies en vaudevilles performed consecutively at a performance.

While the fair theater repertory drew largely from pre-existing works, it also dealt with current events, including the theatrical politics of Paris. This subject matter became so popular at one point that events from the ongoing legal disputes between the Parisian theaters formed the entire plots of new comédies en vaudevilles. As theatrical polemics were constantly on the minds of the authors, they cleverly brought them to their stages where they ridiculed the royal theaters for their perceived unfair treatment of the fair theaters. Through this polemical repertory, the fair theaters voiced their opposition to the actions of the royal theaters while critiquing their repertory via the techniques of parody and satire.

A consequence of this legal battle with the royal theaters was that the fair theaters were often prohibited from a certain mode of performance, such as spoken dialogue on stage. Yet the authors and actors at the fair theaters cleverly circumvented the laws governing monopoly privilege to keep their theatrical endeavor running. This strictly regulated theatrical environment

4 created the conditions where the comédie en vaudevilles arose not so much abruptly, but rather from a series of theatrical experiments through trial and error. Error did not necessarily mean that a particular piece had failed to entertain the public but rather that it had violated some regulation or monopoly privilege held by one the royal theaters. If the prohibition on dialogue was being strictly enforced (officers were sent to the fair theater performances to document these violations), pieces were performed using a series of monologues. If the prohibition on actors singing on stage was being strictly enforced, audiences sang the words to well-known melodies from large banners that were unfurled during the performance. The details of this interesting legal battle between the fair theaters and the royal theaters are explained by Robert Isherwood.8

These early comédies en vaudevilles also owed their success to the theatrical legacy of the Italian commedia dell’arte tradition. The extent and precise methods of this repertory borrowing have yet to be fully studied. It has often been assumed that after the dismissal of the Italian comedians in 1697 that the troupes at the fair theaters simply began performing their repertory verbatim.

However, it appears that this claim is not entirely true as a comparison of the early fair theater librettos and the repertory of the Italian comedians in chapter 2 will show. The fair theater troupes borrowed extensively from the Italian troupe, but used these features in new ways or in different contexts. These borrowed elements, in particular the stock characters and comic lazzi scenes, remained an important part of the comédie en vaudevilles repertory throughout the century.

The use of popular songs within a stage comedy was also an innovation of the Italian troupe that was extensively developed at the fair theaters. This use of pre-existing popular tunes, originally with the intent of aiding participatory audience singing, presents another inquiry into

8 Robert M. Isherwood, Farce and Fantasy: Popular Entertainment in Eighteenth-Century Paris (New York: Oxford University Press, 1989). See in particular, chapter 3: “The Politics of Culture: The Struggle Against Privilege,” 81–97. 5 the process of borrowing and issues surrounding the notion of genre. Since these popular songs had diverse origins, some coming from Lully operas and some from Renaissance dances, for example, the authors could now play on their original contexts to add additional layers of meaning. The resultant works are complex, intertextual comedies, whose diverse meanings are often overlooked by modern scholars.

Political Historical Background

The flowering of the comédie en vaudevilles in the beginning of the eighteenth century was not coincidental, but rather was strongly shaped by the political circumstances of the period.

Studies dealing with this era often use the term ancien régime to specify its chronological focus.

Ancien régime France refers generally to the period of centralization of the French monarchy after the fifteenth century, but more specifically to the reigns of Louis XIV and Louis XV. Since the primary focus of this study is the years leading up to the development of the comédie en vaudevilles and the first experiments with the sung vaudeville form, its chronological limitations are the final years of Louis XIV’s long seventy-two-year reign (1643–1715) and the brief period afterwards known as the Régence or Regency (1715–1723) during which the sun king’s great- grandson and successor, Louis XV, was not old enough to fully assume the responsibilities of the crown. In the interim, Louis XIV’s nephew (the son of Louis’s younger brother Philippe I),

Philippe II, duc d’Orléans, served as regent. Under Louis XIV, the French monarchy had reached the pinnacle of its splendor, wealth, and power in the 1660s and 1670s, and served as a model of royal life across Europe for many decades afterwards. This is the image of absolutist monarchy, with its grandiose displays of military prowess, opulent art, architecture, and theatrical spectacle, that is commonly portrayed in history texts. In fact, it is during this time that the extravagant

6 palace of Versailles was greatly expanded and many of the royal académies were established to govern the different disciplines. After 1700, though, this image began to change. The final fifteen years of Louis XIV’s reign were characterized by financial turmoil, the War of Spanish

Succession, the king’s declining health, and a new culture of religious piety (largely attributed to the insistence of Madame de Maintenon, his second wife after 1683) that discouraged spectacle and opulence, including theatrical productions. Colin Jones remarks: “The wilder festive extravaganzas of Louis XIV’s youth died out, Christian prevailed over pagan symbolism, and naked statues around the gardens of Versailles acquired strategically placed fig leaves.”9

Theatrical productions at the court greatly decreased too during this time and, in 1697, one of the king’s favorite acting troupes, the Italian comedians, was dismissed from Paris altogether.

After Louis XIV’s death in 1715, however, there was a dramatic shift in the culture of the royal court with the accession of the king’s nephew, Philippe II, duc d’Orléans, to the position of regent. Whereas a spirit of piety characterized the last decades of Louis’s reign, Philippe II brought to the fore a libertine morality and renewed desire for indulgence in art, music, and theater.10 Having denounced religion in his youth, the regent was well known for his promiscuity and drinking, and sought to promote a culture of intellectual and artistic freedom. Philippe II also signaled the new tastes of the royal court, an aesthetic that departed markedly from the norms of the last decades of Louis XIV’s reign. Here, he preferred works by Peter Paul Rubens and

Giorgione over those by some of the Sun King’s favorite painters like Charles Le Brun. Philippe

II was also known to have ridiculed the symbolic music of Louis XIV’s court, the music of Jean-

9 Colin Jones, The Great Nation: France from Louis XV to Napoleon 1715–99 (New York City, New York: Columbia University Press, 2002), 19.

10 See Georgia Cowart, The Triumph of Pleasure: Louis XIV and the Politics of Spectacle (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2008), 221. Cowart writes, “The period of the Regency represented a return to the hedonist ideals that had held sway at the Académie royale de musique, but it was more a libertinage de moeurs than a progressive libertinage d’esprit.” 7

Baptiste Lully. It is no coincidence that the Regency period (1715–1723) witnessed several important theatrical developments: (1) the rise of the fair theaters to prominence, (2) the first attempts by the fair theaters to acquire legitimacy through the purchase of privileges, and (3) the return and re-establishment of the royal Italian comedic troupe in 1716. The fair theaters benefitted greatly from the new spirit of artistic and theatrical freedom under Philippe II and thus their authors were able to push the boundaries of social critique further than before. The regent himself was known to attend the fairs and performances at their theaters, in one case even inviting a fair theater troupe to perform at the Palais-Royal, the regent’s personal residence which also housed the public theater occupied by the Académie royale de musique or the Paris

Opéra as it was more commonly known.

Theatrical Background

In the late seventeenth century, Paris was home to three royal theater companies.11 Royal in this sense meant that not only did these three theater companies have legal approval to perform stage works but also that they received generous subventions from the monarchy to operate. There was also a theatrical hierarchy. The Comédie-Française, founded in 1680 by the merger of two troupes, was the most important theater and exclusively performed spoken dramas

(comedy and tragedy alike) by France’s classic authors. In the seventeenth century the prominent authors for the Comédie-Française were Pierre Corneille, and later Molière, Thomas Corneille, and Jean Racine. In the early eighteenth century the works of Marivaux, Dancourt, Houdar de La

Motte, Crébillon, Danchet, and Destouches predominated the stage of the Comédie-Française.

While this repertory was primarily spoken, music still played an important role in the form of

11 For an overview of the royal theater companies in Paris, see Daniel Heartz, Music in European Capitals: The Galant Style, 1720–1780 (New York: Norton, 2003), 602–11. 8 songs, dances, and incidental numbers. The Académie royale de musique also known as the Paris

Opéra, had a monopoly on fully-sung tragedy or tragédie en musique. Its repertory in the eighteenth century included in addition to new operas, the classic repertory of Lully and Quinault collaborations. The third theater company in the hierarchy was the Italian troupe who excelled in the commedia dell’arte tradition. It is important to note that they were a favorite of Louis XIV until their dismissal from Paris in 1697.12 As they were not reinstated until 1716 by the regent, their absence during the years 1697–1716 became an important period for the development of the comédies en vaudevilles.

Apart from these three official theater companies, an illegitimate theatrical tradition thrived at the Parisian trade fairs. These trade fairs were home to a number of independent comedic acting troupes who had developed their own repertory since at least the sixteenth century. In these early years and throughout the late seventeenth century, acting troupes at the trade fairs often performed on rudimentary trestle stages outdoors. Although few details are known about the dimensions of these early theaters, an image from the late seventeenth century shows one example (see Figure I.1.). It is small, outdoors, and did not require special admission for passers-by. However, it seems that by the eighteenth century the fair theaters had become increasingly elaborate and began to match the size and scope of the royal theaters. These eighteenth-century theaters at the trade fairs were also enclosed, allowing troupes to charge for individual admission. Barry Russell identified two archival sources that inform us about the possible dimensions of a theater at the Parisian trade fairs.13 The first is a design plan from the

12 For a discussion of the reasons for the dismissal of the Italian troupe from Paris, see Virginia Scott, The Commedia dell’Arte in Paris 1644–1697 (Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 1990), 317.

13 Originally cited by theater historian Barry Russell under the heading “Salles de théâtre,” and “Cabane de la Veuve Maurice en 1702,” at http://www.foires.univ-nantes.fr. Both theater plans are from the Archives Nationales, N III Seine 271 (from 1702) and N III Seine 291 (from 1725). 9

Figure I.1. This detail is taken from a digital reproduction of a print depicting the Fair of Saint Germain in the late seventeenth century.14 The banner above the stage portrays a troupe of tightrope dancers and acrobats, the type which were commonly seen at the fair theaters in the seventeenth century.

Fair of Saint Laurent in 1702 specifying the dimensions of a theater that was forty-three meters long and eleven meters wide. A second plan for the same theater in 1725 indicates a height for the theater of eleven meters. These dimensions are comparable to the other Parisian theaters from this time, including the Comédie-Française.

14 The full image can be found in “Recueil. Foire Saint-Germain,” available through the Bibliothèque nationale de France’s digital collection at https://gallica.bnf.fr.

Unlike their counterparts at the Paris Opéra in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, the actors and actresses of the fair theater troupes did not have extensive training in music and singing. Rather, they were comedians who excelled in slapstick humor and could improvise entire plays from the skeleton of a farcical scenario. Their comedies were also embellished by a physical virtuosity since many of the performers had backgrounds in acrobatics and were highly- skilled dancers. Thus they were not lacking musicality. Many were capable singers and some played musical instruments. Most of all, though, they were multi-talented actors and actresses.

One such actor, named Lavigne, who played the role of Scaramouche at the fair theaters in the early 1700s, “danced on a tightrope without counterweights and played the violin there exceptionally, on his head, between his legs, on his back, etc.”15 Moreover, their backgrounds were diverse. Some were trained in the tradition of the Italian commedia dell’arte. Some had even spent time performing in Italy before coming to Paris. Many came to Paris from the provinces for the opportunity to earn a living as professional actor-comedians. Others came from acting family trees that had performed in Paris for generations.

The relationship between the royal theaters and the fair theaters can best be described as precarious. The Comédie-Française in particular took umbrage with the irreverence of the fair theaters. Their condemnation and legal harassment of the fair theaters from the time of their inception led to a long and sustained legal battle for the fair theaters to gain legitimacy. Many times during the early eighteenth century the fair theaters were closed by an order of the police executed on behalf of the Comédie-Française. Sometimes their theaters were even forcibly demolished or disassembled. Often during these early years, police were sent to the fair theaters

15 Claude Parfaict and François Parfaict. Mémoires pour server à l’histoire des spectacles de la foire par un acteur forain, vol. 1 (Paris: Briasson, 1743), 55. Of Lavigne, the Parfaicts write that he “…dansait sur la corde sans contrepoids, et y jouait du violon très-singuliérement, tantôt sur la tête, tantôt entre ses jambs, sur son dos, et c[aetera].”

11 to document a performance for potential violations of the Comédie-Française’s monopoly privilege on spoken dialogue. These police reports have thus become a fruitful source on the repertory of the fair theaters from this time when extant librettos are generally scarce. They have thus helped supply many of the descriptions discussed in chapter 3. In contrast to their interactions with the Comédie-Française the fair theaters maintained an amiable or symbiotic relationship with the Opéra. In 1715 a troupe at the fair theaters purchased a privilege (privilege of the Opéra-Comique) directly from the managers at the Opéra to perform pieces with singing and dancing on stage. Only a few years later, however, they were temporarily shut down by the

Comédie-Française for the use of dialogue on stage. These continual battles were made the subject of several fair theater comédies en vaudevilles after 1718 in an innovative type of piece wherein the characters were personifications of the theaters themselves. Here, in clever ways, the authors at the fair theaters ridiculed the actions of the other theaters while simultaneously incorporating elements of theatrical parody. These comedies based on the theatrical politics of

Paris are examined in chapter 4.

Terminology

As a French subject, scholarship on the comédie en vaudevilles has naturally developed a specialized set of terms. Most are preservations of the original French when there is no suitable translation. First is the term “fair theaters.” This refers to the unorthodox location of its theaters, not in a royal salle (hall) or théâtre (theater), but rather at open-air trade fairs held seasonally in

Paris. Thus it was known in the eighteenth century as Le Théâtre de la Foire (The Theater of the

Fair). This use of the singular noun Le Théâtre is somewhat misleading, though, as it was intended to refer to a body of theatrical works and the troupes who performed them rather than a

12 particular edifice. Le Théâtre de la Foire was sometimes shortened simply to La Foire. In several of the comedies based on the theatrical politics of Paris, one of the main characters is a personification of the fair theaters known simply as “La Foire.”

During most of the years of its existence, Le Théâtre de la Foire did not comprise one specific troupe, but rather had two or more competing troupes each with their own stage. In an entrepreneurial vein and perhaps to gain a competitive edge, these troupes often marketed their stage with a distinct title. One prominent troupe in the early 1700s, for example, displayed a large sign above their theater that read: “Les Jeux des Victoires (The Plays of Victories).”

Competition was a constant presence from the earliest days of the fair theaters. After the Italian comedians left Paris in 1697, there were three troupes performing at the fair theaters. In 1711, no less than five different troupes were actively performing at the Fair of Saint Laurent. To be clear, these troupes usually performed at both the Fair of Saint Laurent and the Fair of Saint Germain.

Thus the designation Théâtre de la Foire referred to multiple troupes and multiple theaters. The actors and actresses in these fair theater troupes as well as the entrepreneurs who funded them were often called forains. This term appears frequently in the literature, particularly in the nineteenth century. Though more commonly used as a noun, it has also be used as an adjective as in the case “forain actor (actor of the fair theaters).”

The term fair theaters, or Théâtre de la Foire, also referred to two different physical locations. Since the Middle Ages, Paris had been home to several different trade fairs, where merchants occupied booths (loges) to sell various goods ranging from food and beverages to luxury items such as jewelry. In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, two of these trade fairs emerged as significant sites for theatrical performance, the Fairs of Saint Germain and Saint

Laurent. An iconography going back to the sixteenth century shows the precise location of these

13 two fairgrounds.16 The Saint Germain fairgrounds were situated on the Left Bank between present-day Rue Mabillon and Rue de Tournon behind Saint Sulpice Church.17 By contrast, the

Saint Laurent fairground was located on the Right Bank close to the present-day Gare de l’Est. 18

Both fairgrounds are labeled (“Foire de St. Laurent” and “Foire St. Germain”) and pictured in the famous Plan de Turgot, a detailed map of Paris created by Michel Etienne Turgot from 1734–

1739, shown below in Figure I.2.19 It is clear from Turgot’s map that the Fair of Saint Laurent was considerably farther from the heart of the city and its power centers, situated instead in the faubourgs, which were essentially farmlands during this time. The Fair of Saint Germain, on the other hand, was only a short walk from the Île de la Cité. Some scholars have suggested that these two trade fairs had different social compositions.20 For example, Martin suggests that the presence of luxury goods at the Fair of Saint Germain indicates that part of its audience was wealthy.21 An account from the eighteenth century claims that the “[common] people” attended the Fair of Saint Germain during the day but at night arrived “the persons of quality” and

“socially-prominent women (grandes dames).”22 The Fairs of Saint Laurent and Saint Germain

16 The Fair of Saint Germain is clearly labeled on the sixteenth-century map La Ville, cité, université de Paris (1552–1559) by Olivier Truschet and Germain Hoyau. A digital reproduction of this map is available on the Bibliothèque nationale de France’s digital collection at https://gallica.bnf.fr. For facsimiles of historical maps of Paris, see Jean Boutier, Les Plans de Paris des origines (1493) à la fin du XVIIIe siècle: étude, carto-bibliographie et catalogue collectif (Paris: Bibliothèque nationale de France, 2002).

17 Bertrand Porot, “Aux origines de l’opéra-comique: étude musicale du Théâtre de la Foire de Lesage et d’Orneval (1713–1734),” in The Opéra-comique in the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries, ed. Lorenzo Frassà (Turnhout, Belgium: Brepols, 2011), 285.

18 Ibid.

19 Michel Étienne Turgot, Plan de Paris (Paris: 1739). A digital reproduction of this map is available at the Bibliothèque national de France’s digital collection at https://gallica.bnf.fr. The Fair of Saint Germain is pictured in “View 47” and the Fair of Saint Laurent is pictured in “View 53.”

20 See Martin, 10–11, and Porot, 285–6.

21 Martin, 10–11.

22 Cited in Porot, 286. 14 were also seasonal and thus were not held simultaneously. The Fair of Saint Germain, for example, was held every winter from February until Palm Sunday while the Fair of Saint Laurent was held at the end of the summer, usually from July to September.23

The comédie en vaudevilles was analogous to the ballad operas of England. It was a comic theater piece comprising spoken dialogue and vaudevilles, pre-existing popular melodies to which new words were set. The etymology of the term vaudeville is unclear, though Clifford

Barnes offers two potential sources.24 First he suggests the term vaudeville may have developed from the term vau de vire, a fifteenth-century genre of satirical song from the geographical area known as the valley of Vire in Normandy. Thus the texts of the vau de vire dealt with the local events and figures of Normandy. In the sixteenth century, several important printed collections contained examples of vaux de vire, but as Barnes points out, the term was used rather inconsistently at this time. Another possible derivation is from the term voix de ville meaning

‘voices of the city,’ which dates from the sixteenth century. However, these most often described a courtly type of strophic poem that was set to music. By 1600, the spelling vaudeville had come into widespread use along with a narrower definition, which in the time of Louis XIV meant satirical song texts set (usually syllabically) to well-known popular tunes. Writers of these song texts were sometimes referred to as vaudevillistes. Thus vaudevillistes were not necessarily musicians. Their songs would circulate with text only and a simple indication of the popular tune to which it should be sung. This textual incipit that identified the tune was referred to as the timbre. It is a mistake to assume that the timbre provided reliable information about the origins

23 See James R. Anthony, “Théâtres de la Foire,” in Grove Music Online (2001), accessed 29 June 2019. http://www.oxfordmusiconline.com/grovemusic.

24 See Clifford Barnes, “Vaudeville” in Grove Music Online (2001), accessed 13 Feb. 2019. http://www.oxfordmusiconline.com/grovemusic. 15

Figure I.2. The Plan de Turgot below depicts Paris around 1739. The circle on the bottom left highlights the location of the Fair of Saint Laurent while the circle on the right depicts the Fair of Saint Germain. To be clear, the Plan de Turgot does not depict direction as in modern maps. Instead, the top of the map is roughly southeast. For example, a line drawn from the Fair of Saint Germain to the Fair of Saint Laurent would point northeast (from the upper right corner to the bottom left).

Figure I.3. Detail of the Fair of Saint Germain from the Plan de Turgot showing the fairgrounds situated adjacent to the abbey from around 1739.

of the tune. While in some cases it might cite the original text with which the tune appeared, more often it referred to the most popular text by which a particular tune was known. Adding further confusion, a single melody could be known by a dozen or more different timbres. From the verb fredonner meaning “to hum,” the term fredon, referred to the tune itself. Thus a fredon could have several timbres.

Because the satirical vaudevilles of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries were political in nature, the so-called vaudevillistes remained anonymous. These songs often circulated the streets of Paris in illicit copies distributed in places such as the Pont Neuf, a bridge connecting the Right and Left Banks to the Île de la Cité where numerous venders, mountebanks, and street performers gathered. The topics of these political vaudevilles were also categorized by terms like mazarinades, philippics, and poissonades. Mazarinades, for example, were political

Figure I.4. Detail of the Fair of Saint Laurent from the Plan de Turgot.

song texts that ridiculed Louis XIV’s chief finance minister, Cardinal Jules Mazarin. During the

Regency, vaudevilles that mocked Philippe II were sometimes called philippics. Later, song texts that were written about Madame de Pompadour were known as poissonades after her maiden name “Poisson.”

When the vaudeville was brought from the streets into the theater it acquired a specific dramatic function within the comédie en vaudevilles. Unlike arias in serious opera, in which a character typically expressed a type of emotional reflection or reaction to the action of the plot that had advanced during a section of recitative, vaudevilles were more often used to move the action of the plot. In some cases, different characters alternated phrases within a single vaudeville, carrying out an entire self-contained dialogue. Thus the primary function of a

18 dramatic vaudeville was often dialogic and not altogether different from the spoken dialogue that accompanied these songs. Other times, characters carried out a dialogue, not within a single vaudeville, but with each character using a different vaudeville tune to respond or participate in the dialogue.

Aims and Outline of This Project

The present study examines the genre of comédie en vaudevilles to better understand its eighteenth-century context. Chapter 1 shows how our current understanding of the comédie en vaudevilles has been shaped by nineteenth-century conceptions of genre. The narrative of opéra- comique’s development that was promulgated by French historians, archivists, and musicologists in the late nineteenth century was inherently influenced by a desire to link French comic opera with France’s cultural past and coincided with broader musicological-historical efforts, such as the publication of Fétis’s Histoire générale de la musique (1869–1876) and the first complete works edition of Adam de la Halle’s output. This scholarly view, largely preoccupied with identifying opéra-comique’s origins, has informed modern understandings of the genre of comédie en vaudevilles primarily through the work of influential American musicologist Donald

J. Grout. Chapter 2 examines a set of seventeenth-century works from the fair theaters that are often considered precursors to the comédies en vaudevilles. This analysis shows that these works were quite different from the repertory that they are claimed to have anticipated. In fact, a comparison of these pieces with the genres of musical theater from late seventeenth-century

France, such as ballet, pastorale, and opera, reveals that they often imitated or borrowed elements from these genres of the royal theaters. An examination of the practitioners of these early works at the fair theaters also provides further insight into theatrical life in the late

19 seventeenth century. In contrast, chapter 3 demonstrates how the very first comédies en vaudevilles (after 1708) relied heavily on elements borrowed from the Italian theater in Paris rather than from the other royal theaters seen in the pre-1700 repertory discussed in chapter 2. By comparing a set of librettos of the first extant comedies from the fair theaters with the commedia dell’arte repertory, I demonstrate how the French comédie en vaudevilles appropriated many elements from the commedia dell’arte tradition. Parisian audiences in the early 1700s would have been well-versed in the commedia dell’arte repertory because of the presence of the

Gherardi troupe in Paris in the 1690s. Thus they would have recognized and appreciated the reference to and use of comic routines commonly referred to as lazzi.

While chapters 1–3 show how the works at the fair theaters have been viewed in different ways as inferior to the works of the royal theaters, chapter 4 demonstrates that the comédie en vaudevilles was, at the time of the Regency, a complex, intertextual work. Here, I use two comédies en vaudevilles as case studies to show how audiences would have recognized the numerous references within these works. Thus I cast doubt on the notion that the comédie en vaudevilles was a simple genre intended for an uneducated audience. The frequent allusions to other theatrical works, politics, and public figures required an audience that was literate and knowledgeable about current events and the repertory of the Paris Opéra and the Comédie-

Française. An analysis of the musical component of these comédies en vaudevilles further supports this notion as it contained, in addition to popular songs, numerous musical excerpts from several different Lully operas.

Many of the sources I have consulted are familiar, though, I have consulted them with new inquiries and new perspectives. For example, Barnes examined the police reports published by Émile Campardon to determine the orchestra size at the fair theaters. Since few librettos

20 survive from this period, I have searched these reports for descriptions of performances at the fair theaters to better understand what the genre may have comprised—characters, costumes, plots, dancing, singing, dialogue, and musical numbers. Other sources are less familiar. The main sources I have relied on for chapters 2–3 are a set of librettos of works performed at the fair theaters from 1678–1712. To my knowledge, there are no studies that deal extensively with this repertory. I have also relied on an important eighteenth-century anthology of comédies en vaudevilles from the fair theaters that was published in 10 volumes, containing over 100 pieces.

Compiled by the illustrious author Alain-René Lesage several years after the works it contains premiered, Le Théâtre de la Foire, ou l’Opéra Comique remains the central source of librettos of the comédie en vaudevilles from the Parisian fairgrounds in the early 1700s. I have also consulted manuscript librettos when necessary.

The status of the comédie en vaudevilles as a “low” art form has only recently been critiqued by scholars of French theater. In musicology, the comédie en vaudevilles has been viewed as a less significant counterpart to the core repertory of serious opera. In the nineteenth century, historians relegated the comédie en vaudevilles to the status of a rudimentary form of the later opéra-comique. In this dissertation, I will demonstrate how the repertory of the fair theaters in Paris in the early eighteenth century, in particular the genre of the comédie en vaudevilles, was far from a simple art form. Rather, it developed as a sophisticated commentary on French theater, a polemical on theatrical politics, and a social critique of current events. The authors at the fair theaters did not cater to a low-brow audience. On the contrary they imbued their works with numerous intertextual references to theatrical politics and current events—allusions that only an audience well-versed in serious French theater and public affairs could understand and appreciate. The depth of textual allusions and meanings carried by individual tunes in these

21 comedies is also significant. The examples discussed in this study are only a small sample from a rich repertory that has much more to tell us about eighteenth-century culture and music.

Chapter One: Inscribing the Origins of Opéra-Comique

Despite a clear distinction between the newly-composed opéras-comiques of the 1760s and the earlier comédies en vaudevilles, which relied primarily on pre-existing music, scholars in the nineteenth century did not always clearly distinguish the two genres. One reason for this discrepancy was an inconsistent use of the term “opéra-comique” in the eighteenth century.

The term “opéra-comique” seems to have originated to describe the theaters where the comédies en vaudevilles first appeared and the troupes who performed them. In this sense, “opéra- comique” referred to the theater, the company, and its body of works. Prior to the 1730s, comedies were rarely identified as opéras-comiques by the authors or persons who produced their librettos or recorded them in manuscripts. Instead they were commonly labelled as

“comédies,” “divertissements,” or more generically as “pièces.” It was not until the 1730s and

1740s that the term “opéra-comique” came into general use in librettos to describe what were spoken comedies with sung vaudevilles. Yet in the nineteenth century the term “opéra-comique” was still used in reference to the entire repertory of the fair theaters and the theater of the Opéra-

Comique.

In addition to an inconsistent use of terminology, writers in the nineteenth century became overly concerned with identifying opéra-comique’s origins and attempting to explain its development through some type of grand evolutionary framework. From this perspective, some scholars tended to view the comédie en vaudevilles as a primitive form of the later genre opéra- comique, identifying the repertory of the fair theaters from the seventeenth century as the starting point for opéra-comique. Others instead identified the genre’s origins with Molière’s and Lully’s comédies-ballets. By contrast, another school of writers, strongly influenced by the work of

François-Joseph Fétis, sought the origins of opéra-comique in medieval theatrical traditions.

French writers in the decades following Fétis’s Histoire générale de la musique continued to develop his theory on opéra-comique’s origins more extensively. This viewpoint of French writers in the late nineteenth century was brought to American musicology primarily through the work of Donald J. Grout, whose aptly titled 1939 dissertation, “The Origins of Opéra-Comique,” was the culmination of several decades of theorizing on opéra-comique’s origins and development. Here Grout collected and synthesized into a single grand theory, a quasi-scientific taxonomy of all the theatrical genres in France.

This chapter shows how our current understanding of the genre opéra-comique and the comédie en vaudevilles is still affected by nineteenth-century perspectives. Clarifying misconceptions surrounding the use of the term opéra-comique, I attempt to situate the comédie en vaudevilles within its eighteenth-century context, rather than view it through a narrative of progress. Thus, it is perhaps better to consider the comédie en vaudevilles as a genre distinct from the later opéras-comiques after 1760. In this chapter, I explicate the problems stemming from the use of terminology in the eighteenth century, considering eighteenth-century theoretical and historical writings on the genre of opéra-comique. I then examine the numerous writings on opéra-comique from the nineteenth century to demonstrate how the spirit of historicism and the influence of Fétis’s work has shaped our modern understanding of the genre. Many of the notions found in scholarship on opéra-comique around the turn of the twentieth century can be traced back to Fétis’s writings. A clear parallel between Auguste Comte’s theory on sociocultural evolution and nineteenth-century narratives on opéra-comique’s development is also observed.

Comte theorized that societies progressed from “primitive” states to “civilized” states. Similarly, nineteenth-century writers believed that the genre opéra-comique had evolved from an undeveloped form. Acknowledging these perspectives from opéra-comique’s historiography is

24 essential in developing a more nuanced understanding of the comédie en vaudevilles. While the narrative of progress that characterized much of the writing on opéra-comique since the nineteenth century is helpful for thinking about the ways in which genres are shaped by other genres, it fails to paint a fuller portrait of Parisian theatrical culture.

The Term “Opéra-Comique” in Eighteenth-Century France

A primary contributing factor to these divergent theories on the origins of opéra-comique is confusion surrounding the use of the term opéra-comique from its first appearance in the eighteenth century. Although modern scholars differentiate between the genre opéra-comique and the theater Opéra-Comique, royally sanctioned only in 1762, no such typographical distinction was made in the eighteenth century. For example, “Opéra-Comique” could refer to

(1) the physical building of the theater itself or (2) more generally to the theater company. This includes the repertory, its authors, and its performers. It could also refer to (3) the genre of musical theater developed in France in the late eighteenth century by composers like François-

André Danican Philidor, André Ernest Modeste Grétry, and Pierre-Alexandre Monsigny, as it most commonly is in scholarship. Particularly in nineteenth-century scholarship, the term opéra- comique was often used to refer to the comédie en vaudevilles in addition to the repertory of opéras-comiques by Grétry, Philidor, and Monsigny.

Typographical practices in the eighteenth century, which were not standardized, have also contributed to misunderstandings about the term opéra-comique. In general, when the term

“opéra-comique” appeared in print in the eighteenth century it was almost always capitalized and never hyphenated.1 The term “Opéra Comique” appeared first in 1714 in reference to the theaters

1 Barthélemy, “L’opéra-comique des origines à la Querelle des Bouffons,” 10.

25 of two particular troupes, the troupe of Catherine Vondrebeck and the troupe of Madame de

Saint-Edme, describing both troupes’ theaters as well as referring to the theatrical companies themselves.2 Thus the term “Opéra Comique” at this time referred formally to the physical theaters of these two troupes at the Fairs of Saint Germain and Saint Laurent, their performers, and their repertory. The date generally given by scholars for the first appearance of the term

“Opéra Comique” is December 26, 1714, the day a formal agreement was signed between these two troupes and the Académie royale de musique, who legally permitted these troupes to use the term “Opéra Comique” at the fair theaters.3 Regarding the third usage of the term opéra- comique, as in the theatrical genre, the first piece identified by scholars as an opéra-comique is

Lesage’s Télémaque (1715), a parody of the opera Télémaque et Calypso by Destouches.4

However, in his anthology first published in 1721, Lesage labeled Télémaque as a “pièce” in one act rather than an opéra-comique. The piece is better described as a comédie en vaudevilles since its musical component comprises contrafact settings of popular tunes, or vaudevilles, rather than a newly-composed score.

2 Isherwood, 89.

3 This date is given in several sources: Henri Lagrave, Le théâtre et le public à Paris de 1715 à 1750 (Paris: Klincksiek, 1972), 372; Isherwood, 89; Barthélemy, 10. In the literature, this date was first given by nineteenth- century historian Jules Bonnassies, Les spectacles forains et la Comédie Française, le droit des pauvres avant et après 1789. Les auteurs dramatiques et la Comédie Française au dix-neuvième siècle d’après des documents inédits (Paris: E. Dentu, 1875), 40. Bonnassies cites, in addition to this agreement on December 26, a letter from the comte de Pontchartrain to the marquis d’Argenson on July 4, 1714. In the eighteenth century, the Parfaict brothers mentioned the fairs of 1715 as the first time that the term “Opéra Comique” was used by the theater troupes advertising their spectacle, but do not cite any specific dates or either of these documents.

4 Barthélemy, 10–11. Here, Barthélemy seems to echo Georges Cucuel who identified the first opéra- comique as Lesage’s Télémaque. Cucuel points to a quote from the Mémoires of the Parfaict brothers who claimed that “M. Lesage flatté par le succès des pièces qu’il avait données à ce théâtre voulut par reconnaissance quitter tout autre ouvrage pour se consacrer entièrement à ce spectacle, où il a si bien réussi qu’on conviendra aisément que c’est lui qui a pour ainsi dire créé cette nouvelle espèce de poésie dramatique connue sous le nom d’opéra-comique. (Mr. Lesage, flattered by the success of the pieces that he had given to this theater, wished through recognition to leave all other work [behind] in order to devote himself entirely to this spectacle, where he has succeeded so well that one acknowledges easily that it is he, who has, as it were, created this new type of dramatic poetry known by the name opéra-comique.)”

In the eighteenth century, especially before the 1730s, comedies were rarely identified as opéras-comiques by the authors or persons who produced their librettos or recorded them in manuscripts, instead labelling them commonly as “comédies,” “divertissements,” or more generically as “pièces.” Lesage himself titled his anthology, Le Théâtre de la Foire, ou l’Opéra

Comique (The Fair Theaters, or the Opéra-Comique), but referred to the individual comedies within as either “pièces” or “prologues.” Here, Lesage used “prologues” to refer to one-act comédies en vaudevilles intended to be performed before a three-act comédie en vaudevilles or several one-act comédies en vaudevilles. There are also more examples from the 1710s of the term “Opéra Comique” being used in reference to a theater or troupes rather than the genre. In the 1718 comedy by Lesage, Les funerailles de la Foire, the stage is meant to represent “the hall of the Opéra-Comique.” The following year, the writer Nicolas Boindin, an outspoken detractor of the fair theaters, used the term “Opéra Comique” in reference to the acting troupes at the fair theaters in his Lettres historiques.5 In the 1730s the term “opéra-comique” appears in librettos to describe the genre comédies en vaudevilles. As can be seen primarily in the librettos that Charles

Simon Favart wrote for the fair theaters, the term “opéra-comique” was regularly used to refer to the genre by the 1740s.

While in the following decades the term was increasingly used in reference to both the theater and theatrical genre, it was not until 1762 that it became the title of an official company when the Opéra-Comique merged with the Comédie-Italienne to form a royally-sanctioned theater. Although the term “opéra-comique” had been used since the 1730s to describe the genre comédies en vaudevilles, the opéras-comiques that were being written after 1762 were very different from the early works of the fair theater written by Lesage, Fuzelier, and Dorneval in the

5 Barthélemy, 10.

1710s and 1720s. One of the primary differences between these two genres was their musical structures. While the early comédies en vaudevilles by Lesage contained a few newly-composed numbers, they consisted almost entirely of vaudevilles. Thus the term comédies en vaudevilles more accurately describes what has often been referred to as opéras-comiques prior to the 1760s.

After the Bambini troupe debuted in Paris in August of 1752, the comédie en vaudevilles underwent significant changes. The following year the librettist Jean-Joseph Vadé collaborated with the composer Antoine Dauvergne on an opéra-comique titled Les troqueurs (1753) in which they completely abandoned the vaudeville structure in favor of a newly-composed score based on

Italian models.6 Les troqueurs thus combined a French libretto with the elements of an Italian intermezzo which can be seen clearly in its “opening sinfonia and the profusion of vocal ensembles, in the use of recitative (a compositional device quickly denied the burgeoning genre since the Paris Opéra swiftly forbade its use at rival theaters), and through such devices as tremolos, widely varied dynamics and large melodic leaps.”7 The influence of this experiment of an entirely original score in Les troqueurs is not felt completely until the late 1760s when the new form of opéra-comique replaced the older vaudeville structure. For over a decade, though, the older vaudeville form and the newer model after Les troqueurs coexisted. The comédies en vaudevilles of the 1750s increasingly had, however, the addition of new vocal airs and were often thus referred to as comédies mêlées d’ariettes (comedies with ariettes interspersed). The term “ariette” referred to the newly-composed airs that appeared alongside the traditional

6 Les troqueurs premiered on July 30, 1753 at the Fair of Saint Laurent according to the original libretto printed by Duchesne. It should also be noted that the original libretto contains one vaudeville in the opening scene, sung by Lubin to a traditional tune from the old repertory, “Tout cela m’est indifferent.” In the score published in 1755, this number does not appear, but instead skips from the orchestral overture to Lubin’s ariette, “On ne peut trop tôt.”

7 Michael A. Keller and Elisabeth Cook, “Dauvergne [D’Auvergne], Antoine,” in Grove Music Online (2001, January 1), accessed on November 30, 2018, http://www.oxfordmusiconline.com/grovemusic.

28 vaudevilles. The fourth edition (1762) of the Dictionnaire de l’Académie française, (the first one to include the term “ariette”) defined an “ariette” as a “light and non-legato air, in imitation of the Italians.”8 Indeed French writers in the 1760s had already acknowledged the influential role the Italian intermezzo played in the conception of the comédie mêlée d’ariettes. David Charlton notes that the comédies mêlées d’ariettes, first appearing in 1754 were really adaptations of the intermezzi that still relied heavily on the traditional French practice of using vaudevilles.9 For example, Louis Anseaume’s Bertholde à la ville (1754), a comédie mêlée d’ariettes, was an adaptation of the Bambini troupe’s Bertoldo in corte. Yet Anseaume’s Bertholde did not contain a newly-composed score but rather comprised fifty-five vaudevilles with only six newly- composed ariettes. Likewise, Anseaume’s Le Chinois poli en France (1754), another comédie mêlée d’ariettes adapted from the Bambini troupe’s repertory, had sixty-eight sung vaudevilles compared to just three original arias and a duet.10 The original libretto for Anseaume’s Bertholde identified it as an “opéra-comique” in one act. The printed score also labeled it as an “opéra- comique” with the added description “mêlée d’ariettes.” It is clear that opéra-comique’s practitioners have always recognized a distinction between the comédie en vaudevilles, the comédie mêlée d’ariettes, and the newly-composed opéras-comiques after 1760 in terms of their musical structures and their chronological development. However, writers have often referred to all of these genres as opéras-comiques. From this inconsistent use of terminology arose differing theories on the origins of opéra-comique. Some writers, for example, identified the origins of opéra-comique with the comédies en vaudevilles of Lesage and others with Dauvergne’s and

8 Dictionnaire de l’Académie française, 4th ed., vol. 1 (Paris: Veuve de Bernard Brunet, 1762), 99. “Air léger et détaché, à l’imitation des Italiens.”

9 David Charlton, Opera in the Age of Rousseau: Music, Confrontation, Realism (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013), 292.

10 Ibid., 292–3. 29

Anseaume’s Les troqueurs.

Histories of the Fair Theaters in the Early Eighteenth Century

In addition to a nondescript use of terminology (titles of genres were hardly used with any sense of uniformity throughout Europe in the eighteenth century), later perspectives on the comédie en vaudevilles were also greatly affected by a bias against what was perceived as a popular or “low-brow” form of entertainment. Appearing alongside popular spectacles, such as sword-swallowers, jugglers, trained animals, and acrobats, for example, the comédie en vaudevilles had an association with these contemporary attractions. Moreover, the earliest pieces and comédies en vaudevilles of the fair theaters were performed by acrobats and tightrope dancers who staged lighthearted imitations of theatrical works from the royal theaters (this early repertory is examined in chapter 2). Thus the perception of opéra-comique’s “lowly origins” at the seasonal trade fairs in Paris has aided the development of the narrative that opéra-comique evolved from a “primitive” form into a veritable literary-theatrical genre, with a classic era in the late eighteenth century and a pinnacle or golden age in the nineteenth century. While this aspect of opéra-comique’s history is especially apparent in the writings from the turn of the twentieth century, this conception of a high-low divide can be seen in the earliest writings on the fair theaters. Although the theater of the Opéra-Comique was not royally-sanctioned until 1762, interestingly, its earliest writers and practitioners began to inscribe its history while the comédie en vaudevilles was still a nascent theatrical genre.

The first document to give a history of the fair theaters appeared in 1721. Albeit brief, the preface to Lesage’s collection Le Théâtre de la Foire, ou l’Opéra Comique remains an important

30 historiographical source as several of its ideas are echoed in later histories.11 The collection itself is also the most important musical-textual source of comédies en vaudevilles from early eighteenth-century France, published in ten volumes from 1721–1737.12 In total the collection contains librettos for ninety-two comédies en vaudevilles performed from 1713–1736. Most of them were written by Lesage, Jacques-Philippe Dorneval, and Louis Fuzelier, while a few were authored by Denis Carolet. As a musical source it is equally important. Each volume contains an appendix which in total provides music for over 1,500 vocal pieces, 1,100 of which are vaudeville tunes. The remaining are original compositions or borrowed operatic numbers that are edited, adapted, and rearranged to suit the new context of a parody.13

Lesage’s preface is generally considered a reliable source by scholars. Moreover, the brief history it describes can also be corroborated with extant librettos and documents from the legal dispute between the theaters (see chapter 3). Lesage identifies the origins of the fair theaters with the brief farces that were interspersed within the acrobatic routines of the danseurs de corde before describing how the genre comédie en vaudevilles resulted from a prohibition against dialogue. By the 1720s spoken dialogue had increasingly been added between the sung vaudevilles, assuming what Daniel Heartz considers its “classic form” with a mixture of spoken

11 Alain-René Lesage, Le Théâtre de la Foire, ou l’Opéra Comique, vol. 1 (Paris: Etienne Ganeau, 1721), i–v.

12 Volumes 1–3 were published in 1721, volumes 4–5 in 1724, volume 6 in 1728, volumes 7–8 in 1731, volume 9 in 1734, and a tenth volume in 1737. The ninth volume was collected and edited by Denis Carolet (1696– 1739) rather than Lesage and includes a preface by the new editor. Confusingly, this volume appeared from two different Parisian publishers, La Veuve Gandouin, where it is identified as “volume 10,” and Prault, where it is labeled, “volume 9.” To add further confusion, the tenth volume published in 1737 by Pierre Gandouin, is labeled, “volume 9.” Lesage along with Dorrneval returned as the editors.

13 Only musical notation for the vocal lines or melodies is provided. Choral parts are included, for example, in the case of an operatic borrowing or original vocal trio. Instrumental parts are rare. Basso continuo and instrumental numbers are not included.

31 dialogue and song.14 Though Lesage’s preface has been summarized eloquently by Heartz and translated by James R. Anthony in his classic text on the Baroque era in France, its importance in the development of opéra-comique’s historical narrative warrants republishing here:

The fair theaters (here is a history of it in a few words) began with the farces that the danseurs de corde mixed with their exercises. Next, some fragments of the old Italian pieces were performed. The French comedians forced these performances, which already attracted much of the world, to stop and obtained some arrêts that prohibited the fair theater actors from performing any comedy in either dialogue or monologue. The fair theater actors, no longer able to speak, had recourse to banners: that is to say, each actor had his role written in large print on a board that he presented to the eyes of the spectators. These inscriptions appeared first in prose. After this they were set to songs that the orchestra played and the assistants accustomed themselves to singing. But, as these banners cluttered the stage, the actors took care to make them descend from the arcade (cintre), in the manner that is shown at the top of the first piece of this volume. The fair theater actors, seeing that the public enjoyed this spectacle in songs, imagined with good reason that if the actors were singing—even the vaudevilles—they would brighten the performances further still. They negotiated with the Opéra, who, in accordance with its licenses, granted them permission to sing. Immediately pieces were composed purely in vaudevilles; and the spectacle then took the name “opéra comique.” Gradually prose was mixed with the verses to better link the couplets, or to avoid making them too boring: so that imperceptibly the pieces became mixed. They were as such when the Opéra Comique had finally succumbed to the effort of its enemies, after having always been persecuted by them.15

Lesage’s account thus explains how opéra-comique developed from farcical pieces performed by tightrope dancers into a genre that mixed singing with spoken dialogue. This particular aspect is reiterated by some nineteenth-century commentators, citing the repertory of the fair theaters in the seventeenth century as the origins of opéra-comique. Lesage’s account also describes the

14 Heartz, “Terpsichore at the Fair: Old and New Dance Airs in Two Vaudeville Comedies by Lesage,” in From Garrick to Gluck: Essays on Opera in the Age of Enlightenment, ed. John A. Rice (Hillsdale, New York: Pendragon, 2004), 138.

15 Lesage, Le Théâtre de la Foire, ou l’Opéra Comique, vol. 1, iii. In French Baroque Music from Beaujoyeulx to Rameau (Portland, Oregon: Amadeus Press, 1997), James R. Anthony has translated the passage ‘les faire descendre du ceintre (sic)’ as ‘lower them from waist height.’ Here he has taken the spelling of ‘ceintre’ to refer to ‘ceinture’ meaning ‘waist.’ However, I believe ‘ceintre’ in this case is instead an archaic spelling of ‘cintre’ meaning ‘arch’ or ‘arcade,’ and refers to boards or rafters that were positioned above the stage. The iconography from the fair theaters supports this notion as children dressed as cherubs are depicted hanging from above the stage holding banners or large scrolls with printed text. A police report from this time also describes a performance of a piece in which children dressed as cherubs unfurled banners with text from above the stage.

32 characteristic mixture of song and spoken dialogue that would remain a crucial criterion of these early comédies en vaudevilles. It is this broad definition that allowed historians in the nineteenth century to include a variety of theatrical genres as predecessors of opéras-comiques in their speculation on the genre’s origins.

It is important to add that Lesage’s preface should also be understood more broadly as part of an effort to legitimize the fledgling genre of comédie en vaudevilles by differentiating it from its farcical predecessors. Lesage’s preface may have even served as an advertising tool, appealing to audience members from the royal theaters to attend performances at the fair theaters. Several remarks elsewhere from Lesage’s preface support this interpretation. Lesage is somewhat transparent about his motivations for creating his anthology of comédies en vaudevilles from the first paragraph of his preface. Here, he demonstrates a keen sense of historical awareness:

It is not at all to dispute the prize with the immortal masterpieces, which set the French Theater above all the theaters of the world, that this collection appears today. It is not even to enter into comparison with both other royal spectacles where one does not yet observe exactly the precepts of Aristotle. It is to leave a monument for the future that makes known the diverse forms that one has seen at the fair theaters.16

From Lesage’s remarks we can infer who his intended audience may have been. Lesage is careful not to tread on hallowed ground, suggesting his readers held the classic repertory of the

Comédie-Française and Opéra in the highest regard. While the comédies en vaudevilles are not to be compared to the great classics, Lesage’s historical anthology would still be suitable for the library of any learned dilettante. Lesage also differentiates the librettos in his anthology from the

16 Lesage, Le Théâtre de la Foire, ou l’Opéra Comique, vol. 1, i. “Ce n’est point pour disputer de prix avec les chef-d’oeuvres immortels, qui mettent le théâtre français au-dessus de tous les théâtres du monde, que ce recueil paraît aujourd’hui. Ce n’est pas même pour entrer en comparaison avec les deux autres spectacles reglez, où l’on n’observe pourtant pas exactement les préceptes d’Aristote. C’est pour laisser à l’avenir un monument qui fasse connaître les diverses formes sous lesquelles on a vû le théâtre de la foire.”

33 pieces that appeared previously at the fair theaters. Here, Lesage and his coauthors have enshrined in an authoritative text, a specific version of each of these pieces. The librettos that survive from the preceding years, however, rarely include detailed transcriptions of dialogue, containing instead short descriptions of dialogues, interactions, and pantomime scenes of what were quasi-improvised comedies. These earlier librettos that preceded Lesage’s anthology served instead as audience aides, created for the present time, distributed at or prior to a particular performance with little or no thought of preserving the work for all of time. Lesage’s collection was created with a very different purpose in mind. The first volume of Lesage’s collection, for example, appeared eight years after the premiere of the first piece it contains. Moreover, Lesage and his coauthors took care to explain some of the topical references throughout the anthology via footnotes. For example, in a sung vaudeville from the comedy La querelle des théâtres, the authors refer to an “obliging Massy,” who, they explain to future readers, was a famous food and beverage vender at the fairs.17 The result is akin to a modern critical edition complete with references explained in footnotes for the reader.

Lesage was also aware of the fair theaters’ association with low-brow spectacle, which he acknowledged in his preface: “The title alone of Théâtre de la Foire carries a notion of the low and coarse, which hinders [its consideration as a] Livre (book). Why wish to eternalize the memory of it? One cannot forget it soon enough.”18 Lesage is not simply making the case that his collection is worthy enough to be printed. Here he uses the word “Livre” not in its most general sense, as in any old book, but with a more nuanced shade of meaning akin to “a work of great

17 Lesage and Fuzelier, La querelle des théâtres, in Théâtre de la Foire, ou l’Opéra Comique, vol. 3 (Paris: Etienne Ganeau, 1721), 40.

18 Lesage, Le Théâtre de la Foire, ou l’Opéra Comique, vol. 1, i. “Le seul titre de Théâtre de la Foire emporte une idée de bas et de grossier, qui prévient contre le Livre. Pourquoi vouloir en éterniser le souvenir? On ne peut trop tôt en perdre la memoire.”

34 erudition.” The first edition of the Dictionnaire de l’Académie française (1694) provides the following as an alternate definition in the eighth paragraph of the entry for the word “Livre”:

“Livre, is also taken for a work of intellect, being in prose, being in verse, extensive enough to fill a volume. An excellent book, a scholarly book, a pernicious book, a dangerous book…”19

The fair theater performers also advanced this idea to the public, claiming that their audience had become more sophisticated and discerning by 1715. They also claimed that their pieces had evolved to cater to new audience tastes. In July of 1715 an address to the fair theater audiences given by a famous actor named Dominique was published in the Mercure. Here the renowned actor claimed that he feared the judgement of his audiences so much so that it caused him to tremble. He also referred to the old repertory of the fair theater as “pure bagatelles,” essentially dismissing them as short, trivial pieces.20 He also remarked that the audiences of the fair theaters were now composed of “difficult spectators who give their applause only to the works that had the right to merit them and we owe this glorious reform to the distinguished authors who wish well to work for us…”21 The “distinguished authors” here must have certainly referred to Lesage who had joined the fair theaters only a few years earlier in 1712.

Another crucial part of this effort to legitimize the fair theaters concerned improving the quality of the performances of their comédies en vaudevilles. This led the fair theater entrepreneurs to hire distinguished figures from the royal theaters to oversee the musical direction and choreography of their performances. Sometime around Lesage’s debut at the fair theaters in 1712, Henri Dumoulin was hired as the maître de ballet and Jean-Claude Gillier was

19 Dictionnaire de l’Académie française, 1st ed., vol. 1 (Paris: Veuve de Jean Baptiste Coignard, 1694), 657. “Livre, se prend aussi pour un ouvrage d’esprit, soit en prose, soit en vers, d’assez grande étenduë pour remplir un volume. Un excellent livre. un livre plein d’erudition. livre pernicieux. livre dangereux…”

20 Nouveau Mercure galant, July ed. (Paris: D. Jolle and J. Lamesle, 1715), 287.

21 Ibid., 287–8.

35 hired to serve as musical director. 22 Lesage was eager to advertise their names in his preface noting that “The Opéra-Comique had as maître de ballet M. Dumoulin l’aîné, a man consummate in his art, and as composer of its music, Mr. Gillier, to whom one is indebted for the best vaudevilles that have been widespread throughout Europe for more than forty years.”23

Henri Dumoulin came from a family of prominent dancers and was the eldest of four brothers, all of whom enjoyed exceptionally long careers as dancers for the Opéra.24 Thus the name

Dumoulin carried prominence in the ballet world of early eighteenth-century Paris. Of the four

Dumoulin brothers, Henri was not known for his abilities in solo dancing but rather for ensemble roles that exhibited the noble style.25 It was perhaps his experience and expertise in ensemble dances that the entrepreneurs at the fair theaters sought, hoping he would bring an aspect of formality and structure to their dance numbers. Likewise, the name Gillier would have been

22 The exact date of Henri Dumoulin’s debut at the fair theaters is uncertain. The Parfaict brothers first mention Dumoulin as providing the “ballet” for three works that premiered in the summer of 1714. The first name Henri is not mentioned by Lesage or the Parfaict brothers. Rebecca-Harris Warrick suggests that Henri worked at the fair theaters from 1714–1719. See Rebecca Harris-Warrick, Dance and Drama in French Baroque Opera: A History (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2016), 387. A roster of personnel given by Nicolas Boindin in 1719 includes among the dancers for the Opéra “The three Dumoulins.” See Nicolas Boindin, Lettres historiques sur tous les spectacles de Paris: second lettre (Paris: Pierre Prault, 1719), 114. The exact date of Gillier’s debut at the fair theaters is also uncertain. The first pieces for the fair theaters mentioned by the Parfaict brothers in which Gillier is credited with “composing the music” premiered in the summer of 1714. See Claude Parfaict and François Parfaict, Mèmoires, vol. 1, 163. At that time Gillier was already known as a composer of vaudeville tunes. The Parfaict brothers remark that he had composed an “infinity of lovely vaudevilles.” By 1712, original compositions by Gillier had already made their way into the vaudeville repertory of the fair theaters similarly to the way various numbers from Lully’s operas had become vaudeville tunes. Gillier’s tunes typically came from original music he had composed for the Comédie-Française. Several of the tunes in the fair theater repertory which I have identified as original compositions by Gillier from other theatrical works are discussed in chapter 3.

23 Lesage, Le Théâtre de la Foire, ou l’Opéra Comique, vol. 1, ii. “L’Opéra Comique avait pour maître de ballet M. Dumoulin l’aîné, homme consommé dans son art; et pour compositeur de sa musique M. Gillier, à qui l’on est redevable des meilleurs vaudevilles qui sont répandus dans l’Europe depuis plus de quarante ans.”

24 While no first name is given by either Lesage in his preface or the Parfaict brothers in their Mèmoires, they do mention “Dumoulin l’aîné (Dumoulin the elder)” as the maître de ballet for the fair theaters. Harris-Warrick notes that after 1706, when the youngest brother David began to dance at the Opéra, the Dumoulins were differentiated in librettos by their first initial. See Harris-Warrick, 387.

25 Interestingly, it was not François Dumoulin, well-known for his comic abilities, who was hired to be the maître de ballet for the comedies at the fair theaters.

36 well-known in theatrical circles as he had been a prominent performer and composer for the royal theaters. After 1693, Gillier held a post as bass violinist in the orchestra at the Comédie-

Française for thirty years (working simultaneously at the fair theaters after 1713) and had composed original music for plays at the Comédie-Française as early as 1694. During his time at the Comédie-Française, Gillier had collaborated with prominent authors such as Dancourt,

Regnard, Dufresny, and others. Thus the names Dumoulin and Gillier would have been recognized and appreciated by the audiences of both the Comédie-Française and the Opéra. It may have also been convenient for Dumoulin and Gillier to recruit and hire quality dancers and musicians because of their connections to the royal theaters. It was quite common for performers or musicians to work at more than one theater. 26 The Parfaict brothers provide biographical details for several other dancers who made their start at the fair theaters and would later enjoy successful performance careers at the Opéra. The entrepreneurs at the fair theaters may have also been attempting to expand their audience by appealing to the audiences of the royal theaters by bringing an element of familiarity into a repertory that already had a strong connection to opera and serious drama through textual allusion, music, and parody.

Histories of the Fair Theaters 1730–1760

Apart from Lesage, few writers in the first half of the century seem to have been interested in the history of opéra-comique. In fact, it was not until the late 1760s, just a few years after the establishment of the official theater of the Opéra-Comique, that a number of important volumes dealing with the history of opéra-comique appeared. These included André Guillaume

Contant d’Orville’s Histoire de l’opéra bouffon (1768), Jean Augustin Julien Desboulmiers’s

26 Harris-Warrick, 390.

Histoire du théâtre de l’opéra comique (1769), Pierre-Jean-Baptiste Nougaret’s De l’art du

Théâtre (1769), Laurent Garcin’s Traité du mélodrame (1772), Charles Desprez de Boissy’s Lettres sur les spectacles (1774), Jean Marie Bernard Clément and Joseph de Laporte’s Anecdotes dramatiques (1775), and Laporte and Sébastien-Roch Nicolas Chamfort’s Dictionnaire dramatique

(1776). Along with its newfound legal legitimacy, the Opéra-Comique’s history was now considered worthy enough to be the subject of writings by learned intellectuals.

Outside of Lesage’s preface, only one writing on the history of the fair theaters appeared before the late 1760s. First appearing in 1743, Mémoires pour server à l’histoire des spectacles de la foire par un acteur forain was compiled and written by two theater historians, Claude Parfaict and

François Parfaict.27 The Parfaict brothers were both well-respected in the literary world of their time as historians and scholars. Voltaire had even contributed an article for their Dictionnaire.28

Both brothers were also authors but collectively they produced few theatrical works. Claude, the younger of the two, seems to have been more prodigious than his older brother and was highly esteemed for his translations of ancient Greek writings. In general, the Parfaict brothers’

Mémoires is the most important source of performance dates, audience reception, and biographical information on the performers, authors, and entrepreneurs of the fair theaters. They also republished numerous official documents regarding the various regulations affecting the performances at the fair theaters. The Parfaicts penned nearly 500 pages detailing the early history of the fair theaters, suggesting that by the 1740s, there must have been an audience

27 Claude Parfaict and François Parfaict, Mémoires pour server à l’histoire des spectacles de la foire par un acteur forain, 2 vols. (Paris: Briasson, 1743). Years later, the Parfaict brothers collaborated on the important Dictionnaire des théâtres de Paris, 7 vols. (Paris: Lambert, 1756).

28 For a list of their writings and brief biographies see ed. Louis-Gabriel Michaud, Biographie universelle ancienne et moderne: histoire par ordre alphabétique de la vie publique et privée de tous les hommes qui se sont fait remarquer par leurs écrits, leurs actions, leurs talents, leurs vertus ou leurs crimes, vol. 32 (Paris: Desplaces, 1862), 132–3. Claude (c. 1701–1777) outlived his older brother François (1698–1753) by two decades. Known for his translation from Greek of Lettre d’Hippocrate sur la prétendue folie de Démocrite, Claude later received a 1,200 livre annual pension from Madame de Pompadour that lasted until his death.

38 interested in purchasing this book. Thus the efforts of Lesage and his collaborators may have gained some ground in their quest for theatrical legitimacy. In 1735, Pierre-François Godard de

Beauchamps had considered the Opéra-Comique worthy enough to be included in his

Recherches sur les théâtres de France, a three-volume tome that attempts a comprehensive history of French theater.29 However, he did not include a history of the fair theaters.

Beauchamps was content enough to simply list the titles contained in Lesage’s collection with the rationale that “this book [Lesage’s anthology] was [already] in everyone’s hands.”30 It was, however, this short passage from Beauchamps’s book that the Parfaict brothers cited as inspiring them to undertake the publication of their historical memoires on the fair theaters. In addition to

Beauchamps’s entry, the two articles from Henri Sauval’s Antiquités de Paris on the Fair of

Saint Laurent and the Fair of Saint Germain, are also included.31 Poetic descriptions of the fair theaters from the Gazette are also quoted alongside a brief description of some curiosities at the fair theaters from Jacques Bonnet’s Histoire générale de la danse sacrée et profane.32

Importantly, the Parfaicts were the first to identify the origins of opéra-comique with a specific work, citing a farce titled Les forces de l’amour et de la magie performed at the fair theaters in 1678 by a troupe of acrobats and tightrope dancers. They went so far as to reprint the libretto of this piece along with an avertissement for its original performance. The preface takes the form of a correspondence between the authors and an actor from the fair theaters who wished

29 Pierre-François Godard de Beauchamps, Recherches sur les théâtres de France, 3 vols. (Paris: Prault, 1735). This short description of the fair theaters is found in part three of volume 1, 159–60.

30 Ibid., 159.

31 Claude Parfaict and François Parfaict, Mémoires, vol. 1, xii–xxxix. See Henri Sauval, Histoire et recherches des antiquités de la ville de Paris, 6 vols. (Paris: Charles Moette and Jacques Chardon, 1721). A history of the establishment of the various fairs in Paris from the Middle Ages is found in volume six, 660–70.

32 Jacques Bonnet, Histoire générale de la danse sacrée et profane, avec un supplement de l’histoire de la musique, et le parallèle de la peinture et de la poésie (Paris: Houry fils, 1723).

39 to remain anonymous, referred to simply as M. de N***. Yet they offer little analysis on the origins of opéra-comique, instead quoting a letter from M. de N***, who claimed that Les forces

“would serve as a model in order to understand the taste and the genre of the pieces which appeared at the fairs [at this time], before the French pieces from the former Italian troupe and those that would precede the Opéra-Comique were introduced there.”33 While M. de N*** does speak fondly of this piece, he notes that the “principal object of this divertissement” was its acrobatic routines and visual effects. Nevertheless, Les forces de l’amour et de la magie still remains the earliest extant libretto from the fair theaters. As a result, several scholars in the nineteenth century identified it as the origins of opéra-comique.

Histories of the Fair Theaters in the Late Eighteenth Century

The writings on opéra-comique in the late eighteenth century can generally be divided into two categories: (1) those that echo the debates between Italian and French music of the

Querelle and (2) those that mainly reiterate the writings from earlier in the century. However, one writer in the second category, Nougaret, also began to speculate into the past about the origins of opéra-comique. Here, Nougaret began a tradition that writers in the late nineteenth century would revive.

The best representative of the first category, which concerns debates on national style, is

Contant d’Orville’s treatment of the history of Italian comic opera. Although he focused primarily on the history of Italian comic opera, which he refers to as “opèra bouffon,” he reveals some insights on opéra-comique from the viewpoint of a proponent of Italian opera. Here, one

33 Claude Parfaict and François Parfaict, Mémoires, vol. 1, lvi. “…servira de modéle pour faire connaître le gout et le genre des pièces qui parurent aux foires, avant qu’on y introduisit les françaises de l’ancienne troupe italienne, et ensuite celles qui précederent l’Opéra-Comique.”

40 can still see echoes of the Querelle shaping his opinions on the merits of French versus Italian comic opera. Interestingly, he does not acknowledge the fair theaters nor the comédie en vaudevilles as the source of later opéras-comiques, instead attributing its origins to the Italian intermezzo, specifically the works of the Bambini troupe in Paris:

It is to Italian opera that we owe our French opera. It is to grand opera, that we are indebted for opéra-comique, and it is to the ancients, to the Italians, to French grand opera, and to the taste for novelty, which the Italian ‘bouffons’ made [audiences] adopt during the eighteen months [they were] in Paris, that we have the obligation of the new genre of pièces mêlées d’ariettes.34

Two important points are apparent from Contant d’Orville’s remarks: (1) he considers opéra- comique as emerging after 1752 and (2) he makes the distinction between opéra-comique, containing only newly-composed music, and the comédie mêlées d’ariettes, a type of comédie en vaudevilles combined with newly-composed airs (ariettes). Of the latter, Contant d’Orville speaks quite negatively, referring to it as a “monster” and decrying what he perceived as musical interruptions. He claims that “the public acknowledges without a doubt that nothing is more bizarre than a spoken dialogue that is interrupted by the music at the most sensitive moment of interest…”35 It is ironic that a writer so favorable towards Italian comic opera, which contains no spoken dialogue, complained that the spoken dialogue in French comic opera was interrupted by song. It may have been that Contant d’Orville was referring to the vaudevilles that still comprised the main musical component of the comédie mêlées d’ariettes. In the comédie mêlées d’ariettes, the use of vaudevilles was considered a distinctly French feature, while the newly-

34 André Guillaume Contant d’Orville, Histoire de l’opéra bouffon, contenant les jugemens de touters les pièces qui ont paru depuis sa naissance jusqu’à ce jour, vol. 1 (Amsterdam: Chez Grangé, 1768), 4. “C’est à l’opéra italien que nous devons notre opéra françois. C’est au grand opéra, que nous sommes redevables de l’opéra- comique, et c’est aux anciens, aux italiens, au grand opéra françois, et au gout pour la nouveauté, qui a fait adopter pendant dix-huit mois, dans Paris, les bouffons italiens, que nous avons l’obligation du nouveau genre des pièces mêlées d’ariettes.”

35 Ibid., 5. “Le public convient sans doute que rien n’est plus bizarre qu’un dialogue récité, et que la musique interrompt dans le temps le plus susceptible d’intérêt…”

41 composed ariettes were considered Italianate. Thus Contant d’Orville considers opéra-comique

(after 1760) as an offshoot of Italian opera while the comédie mêlées d’ariettes, with their reliance on French vaudevilles, appeared to him to have ‘only an indirect relationship to the opéra bouffon of the Italians.”36 Contant d’Orville’s theory on French opéra-comique is clearly drawn on national boundaries: vaudevilles represented a distinctly French musical style while opéra-comique was an Italian genre sung in the French language.

In contrast to Contant d’Orville, other writers in the late eighteenth century avoided polemics on national style and instead relied on earlier writings, mainly Lesage’s preface and the

Mémoires of the Parfaict brothers. For example, Desboulmiers’s Histoire du théâtre de l’opéra comique, though influential for eighteenth-century writers, presents little in the way of new information or perspectives on the development of the genre of opéra-comique. Moreover, its alphabetical arrangement and entry format better situate it with the contemporaneous encyclopedias or dictionnaires that were so popular during the eighteenth century. The entirety of Desboulmiers’s historical narrative of the development of opéra-comique is contained in an eight-page preface. A careful reading reveals that it is simply a summary of descriptions from the

Mémoires of the Parfaict brothers and preface to the Lesage collection. In fact, parts of

Desboulmiers’s preface read almost verbatim from Lesage’s anthology. Here, he echoes Lesage in saying that “…the fair theaters began with the farces that the danseurs de corde were mixing among their exercises” and that “One then played some fragments of the old Italian pieces.”37

Nougaret, on the other hand, devotes an entire chapter to the history of opéra-comique in

36 Ibid., 4. “…qui n’a qu’un rapport indirect à l’opéra bouffon des italiens….”

37 Compare Jean Augustin Julien Desboulmiers, Histoire du théâtre de l’opéra comique, 2 vols. (Paris: Lacombe, 1769), 5–7 with Lesage, Théâtre de la Foire, ou l’Opéra Comique, vol. 1, iv.

42 his De l’art du théâtre (1769).38 Like Desboulmiers, he traces the origins of opéra-comique to the farces performed by the danseurs de corde at the fair theaters in the seventeenth century.

Again Lesage’s account of the development of the comédie en vaudevilles figures prominently in his description of the first pièces par écriteaux. However, Nougaret goes further than

Desboulmiers, and thus Lesage and the Parfaict brothers in acknowledging the role of the

Gherardi troupe in the origins of opéra-comique. Perhaps the first historian to do so, Nougaret credits the innovation of using sung vaudevilles in stage works to the former Italian troupe:

Plausibly enough, the former Italian theater is believed to have given us the idea [of using sung vaudevilles in their plays]. They often intertwined some cheerfully-turned songs into their facetious pieces: nothing more was needed in order to give birth to the opéra- comique, which led us imperceptibly to form a most pleasing spectacle.39

Indeed it was the Italian theater that employed sung vaudevilles within their spoken comedies in the 1690s, an innovation that became the basis of the genre comédie en vaudevilles. Delving deeper into the past in searching for opéra-comique’s origins, Nougaret speculated that by the

1630s, an early form of opéra-comique had already been established. However, he believed that none of these works were printed until 1640. He cites Sorel’s La comédie des chansons (1640) as the first example to appear in print. A pastiche-like piece, La comédie des chansons is derived from well-known vaudevilles.40 Though its tunes have not yet been identified, text refrains such as “Hon, hon, qu’il est bon, len fine, len fa, len fa lirondaine,” found in La Roze’s closing song

38 Pierre Jean Baptiste Nougaret, De l’art du théâtre; oú il est parlé des différens genres de spectacles, et de la musique adaptée au théâtre, 2 vols. (Paris: Chez Cailleau, 1769). Nougaret’s history of opéra-comique can be found in volume 1, chapter 4, “Histoire de l’opéra-bouffon, autrefois opéra-comique, et ses progress,” 49–66.

39 Ibid., 51. “L’ancien théâtre italien est soupçonné, avec assez de vraisemblance, de nous en avoir donné l’idée. Il entre-mêlait très-souvent dans ses pièces facétieuses des chansons gaillardement tournées: il n’en fallut pas d’avantage [sic] pour faire naître l’opéra-comique, qui nous conduisit insensiblement à former un spectacle plus agréable.”

40 John S. Powell, Music and Theatre in France, 1600–1800 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000), 84.

43 from act I, scene 5, are similar to the kinds of refrains found in many other vaudevilles.41 Thus these songs were sometimes referred to as flons-flons, as Hector Berlioz does in his 1836 essay on opéra-comique.42 John S. Powell suggests that La comédie des chansons, likely performed at the Théâtre du Marais, was also very influential in the creation of the later pastorale L’inconstant vaincu (1661), which incorporated drinking songs of a popular style.43 Active for most of the seventeenth century until they merged with Molière’s troupe in the 1670s, a competing troupe performed at the Théâtre du Marais. Their theater, located in the Marais district, was especially known for spectacular stage effects and elaborate machinery after it was rebuilt in 1644 because of damages from a fire.

While many writers in the late eighteenth century echoed the histories produced by their counterparts in the first half of the century, they were also strongly influenced by the Querelle.

This is apparent in the tone and focus of the writers on comic opera in France in the late eighteenth century who continued debating the merits of national styles. At the same time, these writers, including Contant d’Orville, Nougaret, and Desboulmiers, who sought to identify similarities between opéra-comique, Italian comic opera, and other dramatic pieces developed a body of writings that tended to view theatrical genres as developing organically from a fixed starting point. This viewpoint is developed further by the historians and writers in the late nineteenth century as they speculated the origins of opéra-comique.

41 La comédie des chansons (Paris: Toussainct Quinet, 1640), 29. Digital version accessed online via https://gallica.bnf.fr.

42 Hector Berlioz, “De l’Opéra-Comique,” Revue et gazette musicale de Paris, vol. 3 (18 September 1836), 325. “The flons-flons, the popular airs no longer sufficed…(Les flons-flons, les airs populaires ne lui suffisent plus…)”

43 Powell, Music and Theatre in France, 84–5. Although Charles de Beys is largely credited with La comédie des chansons, Powell suggests it was written by Charles Sorel, citing Émile Roy’s claim in his biography of Sorel, La vie et les oeuvres de Charles Sorel, Sieur de Souvigny (1602–1674) (Paris: Hachette, 1891), 422. Powell believes it was performed at the Théâtre du Marais because the libretto contains a character named “Jodelet,” which was the stage name of Julien Bedeau, one of troupe’s actors. 44

Positivism and New Sources in the 1870s

After a period of inactivity in the early nineteenth century, French scholarship on opéra- comique and the fair theaters experienced a vital resurgence in the 1870s as several important volumes on its history appeared. The timing of these publications is not coincidental. This decade saw a widespread renewed interest in historical music, particularly in the French- speaking world with the publication of the first volume of Fétis’s Histoire générale de la musique (1869), as well as the influential strains of positivist thought in the humanities evident in the work of Émile Littré in his Dictionnaire de la langue française (1873) and later with Pierre

Laffitte’s Les grands types de l’humanité (1875). The political circumstances of the 1870s may have also played an important role as the French nation attempted to restore morale and national pride following the devastating loss in the Franco-Prussian War. The renewed interest of French historians in the 1870s in French art, literature, music, and theater paints an important backdrop for understanding the narrative histories of opéra-comique that were produced during this era.

Unlike the majority of eighteenth-century historians and writers on opéra-comique who largely reiterated earlier narratives, the French archivists and historians of the 1870s drew heavily from a wealth of new sources and archival materials made available through two important volumes, Jules Bonnassies’s Les spectacles forains et la Comédie-Française (1875) and Émile Campardon’s Les spectacles de la foire (1877). An extant letter from Bonnassies

(1813–1880), a French theater historian who had worked at the bureau du théâtres some point prior to 1872, requesting access to all archival materials pertaining to the Parisian theaters held at the Bibliothèque nationale de France demonstrates this desire to re-examine primary sources.44

Devoting fifty-three pages of his Les spectacles forains et la Comédie-Française to the history of

44 Jules Bonnassies, Letter to Charles Nuitter, November 13, 1872, autograph manuscript. Digital version accessed online via https://gallica.bnf.fr.

45 the fair theaters, Bonnassies greatly expanded its chronological scope by tracing the earliest mentions of spectacles performed at the fair theaters back to 1595. However, he is little concerned with identifying the origins of the genre, determined instead to write a history of the legal actions against the fair theaters. Though it is not entirely clear, it appears that Bonnassies makes a distinction between the comédie en vaudevilles and the fully-composed opéra-comique.

He does not cite a specific date or work, offering only vague statements that the reader is left to decipher: “…at the Saint Laurent Fair of 1717, [they] played, with much success, a genre approaching opéra-comique.”45

Campardon’s work focused on republishing countless sources including public records, police reports, and other documents in his two-volume Les spectacles de la foire, totaling over

900 pages. While Campardon opted for a dictionary-style format with biographical entries for the numerous figures associated with the fair theaters, a short introduction (forty-four pages) outlines the history of the fair theaters from 1176 to the end of the eighteenth century. Like Bonnassies,

Campardon does not cite a specific work, such as Les troqueurs, for example, as the first opéra- comique nor does he identify the origins of the comédie en vaudevilles. Citing the premiere of the comedy Les forces de l’amour et de la magie, he offers only one statement regarding the origins of the fair theaters, “It is only at the Saint Germain Fair of 1678 that one sees arise the actual théâtre forain.”46 Here, Campardon avoids speculating about the origins of opéra- comique, instead simply echoing the assertion of the Parfaict brothers. In general, the work of

Bonnassies and Campardon avoided interpretation, historical narratives, and theoretical

45 Bonnassies, Les spectacles forains, 41. “…à la foire Saint-Laurent de 1717, jouent, avec beaucoup de succès, un genre approchant de l’opéra-comique.”

46 Campardon, Les spectacles de la foire, vol. 1, xv. “Ce n’est qu’à la foire Saint-Germain de 1678 qu’on voit s’élever le premier théâtre forain proprement dit.”

46 discussions of genre in favor of presenting historical facts in chronological order. The resultant documentary histories thus emphasized biographical information, legislation, and judicial rulings. While the writers who followed them departed from this strict methodology, Campardon and Bonnassies made the history of the fair theaters an appealing subject to French historians and writers in the decades that followed.

Histories of Opéra-Comique before World War I

As early as 1769 the French writer Nougaret had speculated that opéra-comique probably existed sometime before 1640, claiming that Sorel’s La comédie des chansons (1640) may have been one of the first opéras-comiques to have appeared in print. Nougaret had still set an important precedent in the historiography of opéra-comique in speculating about the origins of the first “opéra-comique.” As La comédie des chansons was not performed at the fair theaters, but rather at the Théâtre du Marais, Nougaret extended the conception of the genre and its origins beyond the physical location of a particular theater. If opéra-comique was not necessarily born at the fair theaters, why not consider Molière’s oeuvre or even earlier examples of plays that mixed spoken dialogue and song as the first opéras-comiques? The publication of historian

Eugène d’Auriac’s anthology of comédies en vaudevilles in 1878 marked a return to theorizing about the origins of opéra-comique, an approach that would reach its pinnacle with the work of musicologist Donald J. Grout in the 1930s. After d’Auriac, a number of writers adopted this quest for origins, applying an ever changing set of criteria, and leading them to discover several different progenitors of opéra-comique.

D’Auriac’s anthology contains ten comédies en vaudevilles, one fair theater comedy from

1678, and a substantial introduction titled “Essai historique sur les spectacles forains.”47

Although the first part of the essay deals with the history of the establishment of the various fairs in Paris, d’Auriac’s reading of opéra-comique as a genre that progressed through developmental stages is revealed in the opening pages: “One will see that these two types of spectacles have had, as the French comedy [has had], their time of barbarity, infancy, and their glory days.” An analogous view is evident in early sociological theories from the nineteenth century that attempted to understand societies as progressing from “primitive” dark eras to mature, technological “golden ages.”48 More specifically, a parallel is seen between the three-stage structure d’Auriac proposes for opéra-comique’s development and the three-stage developmental process of societies that Auguste Comte described in his Cours de Philosophie Positive.

D’Auriac’s selection of comedies for the anthology is thus meant to demonstrate the development of a genre rather than make available unpublished works. In fact, all of the works he chose to include were previously published, the first in the Mémoires of the Parfaict brothers and the other ten in the Lesage collection.49 The opening selection, Les forces de l’amour et de la magie (1678), is the only piece before 1713 and must represent d’Auriac’s example of theatrical

‘barbarity,’ describing it as “a scenario without a plot, meant, above all, to show the suppleness and agility of the actors.”50 He continues his critique to say it is imperfect yet still serves as a representative of public taste in the 1670s. Here, d’Auriac is simply paraphrasing a line from the

47 Eugène d’Auriac, Théâtre de la Foire avec un essai historique sur les spectacles forains (Paris: Garnier Frères, 1878), 2. “…on verra que ces deux sortes de spectacles one eu, comme la comédie française, leur temps de barbarie, leur enfance et leurs jours de gloire.”

48 See Daniel W. Rossides, Social Theory: Its Origins, History, and Contemporary Relevance (Lanham Maryland: Rowman and Littlefield, 1998), 69.

49 D’Auriac. After Les forces de l’amour et de la magie, the next three pieces are taken from volume 1 of the Lesage collection. One of each of the next four examples were taken from volumes 2–5 and the last three pieces were taken from volume 6 of the Lesage collection.

50 Ibid., 22. “…d’un scenario sans intrigue, destine surtout à montrer la souplesse et l’agilité des acteurs…”

Parfaict brothers’ Mémoires nearly verbatim.51

While not naming him specifically, d’Auriac disputes Nougaret’s assertion and instead identifies the origins of opéra-comique in 1708:

Some writers have wanted to make the origins date back to the year 1641 [this is clearly an allusion to Nougaret], where appeared La comédie des chansons containing the lovers Alidor and Sylvia; but nothing proves that this piece, attributed to Charles Beys, was the first work with ariettes to have appeared in France.52

Indeed, d’Auriac’s claim rests upon the assumption that the permission negotiated between a fair theater troupe and the directeur général of the Académie royale de musique in 1708 allowing

“singers in their divertissements” led to the creation of a genre akin to opéra-comique.53

Unfortunately there are no librettos in either print or manuscript form of the two performances cited by d’Auriac for this year, Arlequin Atys and Arlequin gentilhomme par hazard. Moreover, there are no descriptions of these performances found in police reports. From the title alone, it is clear that the first is a parody of Lully’s Atys. The second is a title that appears in the repertory of the Italian comedians. The only documentary evidence of a performance by the fair theater troupe who enjoyed this privilege in 1708, the troupe managed by Jeanne Godefroy, is a police report that describes the performance of a monologue piece containing “dances and burlesque

51 Ibid. Compare d’Auriac’s assertion “…sinon comme modèle, du moins comme souvenir. Il servira à faire comprendre le goût populaire et le genre de pièces qu’on représentait sur les foires à la fin du dix-septième siècle (…if not as a model, at least as a reminder. It will serve to help [people] understand the popular taste and the genre of pieces that were performed at the fairs at the end of the seventeenth century,)” with Claude Parfaict and François Parfaict, Mémoires, vol. 1, lvi, “…elle servira de modéle pour faire connaître le goût et le genre des pièces qui parurent aux foires, avant qu’on y instroduisit les françoises de l’ancienne troupe italienne, et ensuite celles qui précédèrent l’Opéra-Comique (it will serve as a model to help [people] understand the taste and genre of pieces which appeared at the fairs before the French [pieces] of the former Italian troupe and then those which preceded the Opéra-Comique.”

52 Ibid., 31. “Quelques écrivains ont voulu faire remonter cette origine à l’année 1641, où parut La comédie des chansons contenant les amours d’Alidor et de Sylia; mais rien ne prouve que cette pièce, attribuée à Charles Beys, soit le premier ouvrage à ariettes qui ait paru en France.”

53 On the circumstances of this permission, see Claude Parfaict and François Parfaict, Mémoires, vol. 1, 73– 78.

49 songs.”54 Thus d’Auriac’s assertion can be considered only as speculation.

Molière and Lully at the Origins

In the 1880s an important theory on the origins of opéra-comique emerged that attempted to identify Molière and Lully as the genre’s creators. The once lowly genre of opéra-comique from the bawdy fairgrounds had now been linked to two of the most prominent figures in classic

French theater. The linking of opéra-comique to Molière and Lully was not accidental but rather was part of an effort to legitimize the history of the genre by musicians and writers who were associated with the theater of the Opéra-Comique in the second half of the nineteenth century.

These figures who sought to elevate the historical and cultural status of opéra-comique were also tied up in polemics on the merits of Molière’s literary oeuvre and scholarly disputes about his place within the pantheon of French classical theater. In the following discussion, many of the ideas espoused by the proponents of this view are traced back to writings on Molière from earlier in the nineteenth century to demonstrate how the subject of opéra-comique became an important part of literary debates and discussions of genre.

The primary proponent of this view was the prolific French writer and musician Arthur

Pougin. Pougin, who had previously written volumes on Campra, Rameau, Rossini, Bellini, and

Meyerbeer to cite only a few. In 1882, he authored a monograph on the origins of opéra-comique that linked Molière and Lully to the creation of opéra-comique.55 Pougin’s name may be familiar to musicologists from his role as the editor of the supplement to Fétis’s Biographie universelle.

Pougin was also a performer who had enjoyed a long career playing theatrical music. Trained at

54 Campardon, Les spectacles de la foire, vol. 2, 121. See the police report from March 4, 1708.

55 Arthur Pougin, Molière et l’opèra-comique (Paris: J. Baur, 1882).

50 the Paris Conservatoire, Pougin played violin in theater orchestras from the time he was thirteen years old, including a post at the Opéra-Comique from 1860–1863. However, he abandoned his performance career after 1863 to focus entirely on his writings, which were initially published serially in the influential Revue et gazette musicale before they appeared later as independent volumes. In 1882, still greatly interested in musical-theatrical history, Pougin wrote a brief volume asserting that the origins of opéra-comique are found with the comédie-ballet Le

Sicilien; ou l’Amour peintre (1667) by Molière and Lully.

The timing of and impetus for Pougin’s writing on Molière’s Le Sicilien coincided with other publications on Molière and thus should be understood within this context. Just one year prior to the publication of Pougin’s book, an historical edition of Molière’s Le Sicilien with a piano-vocal arrangement of Lully’s original music for the ballet appeared. This edition had been assembled by Eugène Sauzay, a violinist and composer who taught at the Conservatoire up until

1892.56 Sauzay’s edition was controversial because he had added his own newly-composed musical numbers for the ballet, which he placed at the end of the volume after his piano-vocal arrangement of Lully’s extant musical numbers and an historical preface. Less than a year later, in March of 1882, literary critic Edmond Schérer published an essay in the journal Le Temps in which he decried the French public’s adoration of Molière and compared it to religious dogma.57

A supporter of Molière, Pougin quickly came to Sauzay’s defens. Moreover, he attempted to further solidify Molière’s literary status by attributing to him the creation of the genre opéra- comique. Pougin’s criteria for this assertion included, in addition to Molière’s comedy, which he claims had surpassed all of Lully’s previous comédies-ballets in ‘nuance,’ the lighthearted

56 Charles Eugène Sauzay, Le Sicilien; ou l’Amour peintre (Paris: Librairie de Firmin-Didot, 1881).

57 Edmond Schèrer, “Une hérésie littéraire,” Le Temps (March 19, 1882): 3.

51 quality of Lully’s musical excerpts:

…an ariette to Hali to open the curtains, the serenade placed on the lips of Adraste in lieu of being entrusted to the three musicians, a romance to Isidore, an air bouffe to Don Pèdre, a tender and impassioned duet between the two amoureux, a very exciting finale, here are all the elements of a beautiful and good opéra-comique…58

However, Pougin’s assertion can be traced to a previous writer, literary critic, and member of the

Académie française after 1816, Louis Simon Auger (1772–1829). A prominent writer in the early nineteenth century, Auger edited numerous collections of seventeenth- and eighteenth- century French authors including Molière. Auger’s writings on Molière included his 1827

Discours sur la comédie et vie de Molière and his edition of the nine-volume Oeuvres de

Molière.59 Auger’s influential commentaries on Molière’s plays can be found in several later

Molière editions from the nineteenth century, in particular, this passage that Pougin quotes:

One would be tempted to believe that the comédie-ballet Le sicilien had given birth to opéra-comique. Does one not indeed find in the piece by Molière, the duets, the ariettes of our lyric comedies, and up until these divertissements that the poet usually places at the end of the acts, as so many of the prepared structures for the music and choreography? Le Sicilien, moreover (I use here the established expression), is coupé [designed] like an opéra-comique; the scenes, the situations, the airs, are prepared and brought here in the same manner.60

Thus Pougin’s placement of opéra-comique with Molière and the comédie-ballet is an assertion that originates within the Académie française and the original editors of Molière’s plays and can

58 Pougin, 37. “…une ariette à Hali au lever du rideau, la sérénade placée dans la bouche d’Adraste au lieu d’être confiée aux trois musiciens, une romance à Isidore, un air bouffe à don Pèdre, un duo tendre et passionné entre les deux amoureux, un finale très mouvementé, voilà tous les éléments d’un bel et bon opéra-comique…”

59 Louis Simon Auger, Discours sur la comédie, et vie de Molière, extraits de l’édition des oeuvres de Molière, avec commentaires (Paris: Firmin Didot, 1827).

60 Cited by Pougin, 36. “On serait tenté de croire que la comédie-ballet du Sicilien a donné naissance à l’opéra-comique. Ne trouve-t-on pas, en effet, dans la pièce de Molière, les duos, les ariettes de nos comédies lyriques, et jusqu’à ces divertissements que le poète place d’ordinaire à la fin des actes, comme autant de canevas préparés pour la musique et la chorégraphie? Le Sicilien, d’ailleurs (je me sers ici de l’expression consacrée), est coupé comme un opéra-comique; les tableaux, les situations, les airs y sont préparés et amenés de la même manière.” See also, for example, Charles Louandre’s edition Oeuvres complètes de Molière, vol. 2 (Paris: Charpentier, 1858), 327, where the same passage by Auger is cited.

52 be viewed as stemming from a hagiographic perspective. At the same time, the criteria for defining opéra-comique were clearly laid out. While Auger pointed to structural and stylistic similarities between the comédie-ballet and opéra-comique, Pougin emphasized the lightness of the play. Pougin and Auger used general criteria to link opéra-comique to genres from a classic era of French theater considered to be a pinnacle of French cultural achievement. The influence of these viewpoints on the greater narrative of opéra-comique’s development is seen later in the twentieth century through the work of Grout who attempted to link opéra-comique, comédie- ballet, and medieval French theater in a grand theatrical “ancestry.”

Fétis, the Histoire générale, and the Thirteenth-Century Chante-fable

In contrast to the proponents of Molière, other writers searched deeper into France’s cultural past for predecessors to opéra-comique. This viewpoint, which ultimately identified the origins of opéra-comique with Adam de la Halle, can be traced to the musicological work of

Fétis. At the time of his death, Fétis had completed only five volumes of his Histoire générale de la musique, ending with chapters on the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. However, there are a few brief instances in which Fétis discusses the origins of opéra-comique in volumes 1 and 5, as well as in the Biographie universelle des musiciens. In his Biographie universelle, Fétis cites Les troqueurs (1753) as the first opéra-comique, making the distinction between the comédie en vaudevilles and the opéra-comique entirely made up of newly-composed music:

Up until this point [1753], this genre of pieces that in France is called opéras-comiques, had been only comedies intermixed with couplets, such as our vaudevilles; but Les troqueurs, written in imitation of the Italian intermezzos, with the exception of spoken dialogue which took the place of recitative, would open a new career to French composers.61

61 François Joseph Fétis, Biographie universelle des musiciens et bibliographie générale de la musique, 2nd ed., vol. 1 (Paris: Didot, 1860), 437. “Jusque-là ce genre de pièces, qu’on appelle France opéras-comiques, n’avait été que des comédies entremêlées de couplets, tels que nos vaudevilles; mais Les troqueurs, écrits à l’imitation des 53

Fétis’s remarks here, though, are rather straightforward, acknowledging both the influence of the

Bambini troupe and the differences between the Italian and French genres. It is in his discussion of the thirteenth-century genres that Fétis offers a more holistic view of opéra-comique’s development. In volume 1 of the Histoire générale de la musique Fétis identifies the origins of opéra-comique with the thirteenth-century fabliaux sung by the trouvères: “What they [the trouvères] have produced in this genre is, from all the evidence, the origin of the vaudeville and the opéra-comique. One observes here in the melodies, more grace and elegance than in those of earlier times.”62 What Fétis seems to be speaking of here is a type of courtly narrative known as the chante-fable, rather than the fabliau, which were brief, farcical, and sometimes bawdy plays.

For example, a famous fabliau is Le garçon et l’aveugle (thirteenth century), comprising only two actors who play the part of two swindlers, one of whom gets the better of the other before beating him in a slapstick style.63 The chante-fable, on the other hand, more akin to the recitation of an epic poem, alternates between sections of prose and verse, the verse sections of which are sung to a melodic formula. The musical part of the chant-fable was a remnant of the old sung

French epic poems known as the chanson de geste. Fétis bases this conjecture on two criteria and citing as an example Aucassin et Nicolette, which is now considered a chante-fable rather than a fabliau.64 Fétis’s first observation is a parallel between the structure of the texts, which in

Aucassin et Nicolette, alternates between prose and metered verse. This formulaic alternation, he intermèdes italiens, à l’exception du dialogue parlé qui tenait la place du récitatif, ouvrirent une carrière nouvelle aux compositeurs français…”

62 Fétis, Histoire générale de la musique, vol. 1 (Paris: Firmin Didot frères, fils et cie, 1869), 172. “Ce qu’ils ont produit en ce genre est, de toute evidence, l’origine du vaudeville et de l’opéra comique. On y Remarque dans les melodies plus de grâce, plus d’élégance que dans celles de temps antérieurs.”

63 Richard Axton, European Drama of the Early Middle Ages (Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1974).

64 The text and music of this chante-fable are preserved in a manuscript, MS ff. fr. 2168. A digitized version of this manuscript is available online at https://gallica.bnf.fr.

54 argues, transformed “the subject of the fabliau into dramatic action intermixed with metered airs.”65 For Fétis, then, the structure of the text had a dramatic function. The second similarity he remarks on between opéra-comique and the chant-fable was the style of song. Fétis considers two types of secular song from the thirteenth century, a simple, rhythmically-driven popular song, and a less-rhythmic, more ornate, graceful style that was developed by the troubadours and trouvères. It is this second, more elaborate style, he argues, that elevated these works to such a high level, which finds its parallel in the later opéras-comiques.

Later on, in volume 5, Fétis claims to have identified parallels between other thirteenth- century plays and opéra-comique, citing in particular three plays by Adam de la Halle: Le jeu de

Robin et de Marion, La jeu d’Adam ou de la feuillie, and Le jeu de pelerine. Describing them as

“jeux comiques” and “comédies,” Fétis believed he found in them an “analogy with the opéras- comiques and modern vaudevilles, being composed of dramatic action, spoken dialogues, and song…”66 Here again, Fétis specifies the origins of opéra-comique with the earliest mixed genres that combined spoken dialogue and songs. His criteria again lies in a structural similarity: the use of spoken dialogue with songs interspersed. It is interesting to note that Fétis does not draw any parallels between the subject matter of these works, for example, the pastoral aspects of Le jeu de

Robin et de Marion, or the love story of Aucassin et Nicolette, and that of later opéras-comiques, such as Justine Favart’s Annette et Lubin (1762) or Les amours de Bastien et Bastienne (1753), a parody of the pastorale Le devin du village. Instead, Fétis focuses almost exclusively on very basic and general similarities in the comedies’ structures in order to link opéra-comique to the

65 Fétis, Histoire générale de la musique, vol. 1, 172. “…le sujet du fabliau en action dramatique entremêlée d’airs rhythmés.”

66 Fétis, Histoire générale de la musique, vol. 5, 137. “…l’analogie avec les opéras-comiques et les vaudevilles modernes, étant composés d’actions dramatiques, de dialogues parlés et de chant…”

55 music and drama of the Middle Ages. As with much of Fétis’s Histoire générale de la musique, an emphasis on organic development of genres and the longue durée perspective of French culture is clearly seen.

Adam de la Halle and Le jeu de Robin et de Marion

After the French historians and archivists of the 1870s had laid the foundation for the numerous histories of opéra-comique, Fétis’s theorizing on the development of opéra-comique, viewing it within the larger history of French drama, seems to have been very influential in the following decades leading up to World War I. Indeed, several scholars affirm or echo his conjectures about thirteenth-century genres and opéra-comique. In particular, after 1890, scholars continued to claim that Adam de la Halle’s Le jeu de Robin et de Marion was the starting point for opéra-comique. Albert Soubies and Charles Malherbe described it as a “very ancient and thus very respectable model” of opéra-comique.67 A year later Auguste Font reiterated: “More than four centuries before Lesage and Favart, Mr. Adam [de la Halle] composed a veritable comédie en vaudevilles.”68 Henri Chervet, writing in 1906, claimed that

Adam de la Halle’s “little masterpiece, [was] so close yet to the opéra-comique which will flourish five centuries later.”69 It is important to view this newfound focus on Adam de la Halle within the spirit of historicism that characterized the final decades of the nineteenth century. In addition to Fétis’s Histoire générale de la musique (1869–1876) (as well as other large-scale

67 Albert Soubies and Charles Malherbe, Histoire de l’Opéra-Comique: la seconde salle Favart, vol. 1 (Paris: Marpon and Flammarion, 1893), 2. “…un modèle fort ancien et, partant, fort respectable.”

68 Auguste Font, Favart, l’opéra-comique, et la comédie-vaudeville aux XVIIe et XVIIIe siècles (Paris: Fischbacher, 1894), 8. “Plus de quatre siècles avant Lesage et Favart, M. Adam composa une veritable comédie en vauevilles…”

69 Henri Chervet, “Les origines de l’opéra-comique,” La Nouvelle Revue 41 (July-August 1906): 47. “…son petit chef-d’oeuvre, si près pourtant de l’opéra-comique qui fleurira cinq siècles plus tard…”

56 musicological projects, complete works, and Denkmaler editions that were undertaken throughout Europe), the Oeuvres complètes of Adam de la Halle edited by Edmond de

Coussemaker was published around the same time in 1872. Amid the political turbulence in

France in the 1870s, a spirit of nationalism also contributed to a resurgence of interest in French cultural figures.70

While Fétis’s viewpoint can be observed as an important thread in scholarship during this time, his holistic approach is taken even further in the decades that followed as scholars attempted to develop a historical narrative that focused on opéra-comique’s evolution. From the language used by French historians at this time, it is clear that they were preoccupied with creating taxonomies, identifying developmental stages, and “uncovering” a large-scale progression from a more “primitive” art form. Readers may see an analogous work in historian

Oswald Spengler’s The Decline of the West, first published in 1922, in which he considered cultures as organisms that progressed through various life stages.71 Chief among the French writers on opéra-comique at the turn of the twentieth century was the writer Auguste Font, who even referred to his theory on the origins of opéra-comique as a ‘genealogy.’ Like the other writers in the 1890s, Font considered Le jeu de Robin et de Marion as the first opéra-comique.

Yet Font went further than Fétis and other writers, seeing a parallel between the pastoral subject matter of Adam de la Halle’s play and the comédie en vaudevilles. For Font, though, Le jeu de

Robin et de Marion was an isolated anomaly in the evolution of opéra-comique having no immediate predecessor or follower:

70 For a discussion of the rise of French nationalism in the 1880s and 1890s, see Philip G. Nord, Paris Shopkeepers and the Politics of Resentment (Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1986).

71 See Oswald Spengler, The Decline of the West, ed. Arthur Helps, and Helmut Werner., trans. Charles F. Atkinson (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1991).

The example soon given by Mr. Adam would be lost for the theater. Marion, the shepherdess, dancing with her friend ‘beautiful, clever, and happy’ would have to wait a long time under the elms for her companions in the vaudeville, the Jeannettes and the Annettes.72

Font also saw a parallel in the musical numbers in Le jeu de Robin et de Marion and the vaudevilles of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. He cited, for example, the use of onomatopoeia or jargon in the texts of songs, such as in the refrain “Trairi, deluriau” from scene

1 of Le jeu de Robin et de Marion (shown in Musical Example 1.1). In the eighteenth century, popular tunes such as “Ô gué lon la lan laire” and “Lon lan la derirette” appeared frequently in the comédies en vaudevilles at the fair theaters. It is not difficult to understand why Font saw a similarity between the simple phrase structure of “Trairi, deluriau,” (A’ B’ A’’ A’’’ A A’) and those of the eighteenth-century vaudevilles.

While Font focused on the role of Charles-Simon Favart in the development of opéra- comique, Soubies and Malherbe’s Histoire de Opéra-Comique in 1893 was one of the first works to treat the development of nineteenth-century opéra-comique.73 Consequently it remains an important source for this period. Soubies and Malherbe also contributed their own theory on the origins and development of opéra-comique. At the time of their collaboration, Soubies and

Malherbe were both prominent writers of music histories. Soubies, who studied organ at the

Conservatoire in Paris, edited the periodical Almanach des spectacles and had authored over a dozen volumes on theatrical music. Malherbe was a musicologist and archivist-librarian for the

Paris Opéra known for his numerous books on Jean-Philippe Rameau. He was also known for owning a remarkable set of autographs that he had collected during his life, most notably the

72 Auguste Font, Essai sur Favart et les origines de la comédie mêlée de chant (Toulouse: Édouard Privat, 1894), 9. “…l’exemple sitôt donné par M. Adam sera perdu pour le théâtre. Marion, la bergeronnette, ballant avec son ami « bel, cointe et gai », attendra bien longtemps sous l’ormeau ses compagnes du vaudeville, les Jeannettes et les Annettes.”

73 Albert Soubies and Charles Malherbe, Histoire de l’Opéra-comique: la seconde salle Favart, 2 vols. (Paris: Marpon and Flammarion, 1893). 58

Musical Example 1.1. “Trairi, deluriau,” from Le jeu de Robin et de Marion after a modern transcription in the Oeuvres complètes de trouvère Adam de la Halle, ed. Edmond de Coussemaker (Paris: Durand and Pédone-Lauriel, 1872), 355–6.

Symphonie fantastique manuscript and many autograph fragments of Beethoven sketches. The primary focus of Soubies’s and Malherbe’s Histoire de Opéra-Comique was the period 1840–

1887 when the Opéra-Comique occupied a theater reconstructed in 1840 known as the second

Salle Favart.

While Soubies and Malherbe briefly discuss the history of the Opéra-Comique prior to

1840 in this important work, their Précis de l’histoire de l’Opéra-Comique reveals more insight

59 into their attitudes regarding its development.74 Referring to this Précis (handbook), they state that “we have tried to indicate the outline of this primitive period [before 1762] and to shed some light in the middle of this darkness.”75 In the Précis, Soubies and Malherbe divided the development of opéra-comique into nine (!) stages prior to 1762, describing its evolution almost as a scientific process:

An art form, whatever it is, is not born abruptly with its whole repertoire; quite the contrary, it derives from sources sometimes far removed, progresses slowly, changes gradually and arrives at its complete flowering only after a series of trials during which it has almost disappeared many a time. This is also [true] of the Opéra-Comique.76

Soubies and Malherbe thus considered the time that the Opéra-Comique occupied the second

Salle Favart (1840–1887) to be a golden age for the genre comprising works by Meyerbeer,

Massenet, Saint-Saëns, Delibes, and Bizet. Yet they also acknowledged an earlier classic period, a “pinnacle of l’Opéra-Comique in its second manner” marked by the debut of Grétry.77 As everything produced at the fair theaters before 1745 remains part of an “incubation” period for them, Soubies and Malherbe refer to the first golden age of opéra-comique as the years leading up to the merger of the theaters in 1762 after the debut of the Bambini troupe in 1752. They argue that “opéra-comique was perfected” only after it was “re-immersed in the Italian source.”78

In contrast to Soubies and Malherbe, who credited its origins to Italian comic opera,

Chervet attempted to link the development of opéra-comique with the history of serious opera in

74 Soubies and Malherbe, Précis de l’histoire de l’Opéra-Comique (Paris: A. Dupret, 1887).

75 Soubies and Malherbe, Histoire, vol. 1, 3. “…nous avons essayé d’indiquer les grandes lignes de cette période primitive et d’apporter quelque lumière au milieu de ces ténèbres.”

76 Soubies and Malherbe, Précis, 2. “Une forme d’art, quelle qu’elle soit, ne nait pas brusquement, armée de toutes pièces; bien au contraire elle derive de sources parfois très éloignées, progresse lentement, se modifie peu à peu et n’arrive à son complet épanouissement qu’après une série d’épreuves au cours desquelles elle a faille maintes fois disparaître. Il en est ainsi de l’Opéra-Comique.”

77 Ibid., 31.

78 Ibid., 26.

France. Chervet’s narrative follows a trajectory from the first French operas of Lully to Rameau to Grétry and the opéras-comiques of the late eighteenth century. While still acknowledging

Cambert and Perrin’s Pomone as the first French opera, Chervet claims that French opera did not truly begin until Lully. Glossing over Lully’s successors, he situates Rameau as the composer who “alone was able to resuscitate it [opera] thanks to his powerful, energetic, and profound genius.”79 Thus it is no failure on Rameau’s part that opéra-comique was elevated to the level of the tragédie en musique in the second half of the eighteenth century in Chervet’s view, but rather a consequence of changing audience tastes. Chervet argues that audiences had grown tired of the tragédie en musique and were thus reacting against its perceived decadence. Finding it boring, audiences were instead drawn to the Opéra-Comique where after 1753 “music became the principal raison d’être for spectacle.”80 As chapter 4 will demonstrate, this criticism of tragédie en musique as boring, especially Lully’s operas, appeared frequently in the fair theater repertory during the Regency. At the same time, Chervet argues that opéra-comique had ‘evolved’ beyond a farcical genre whose primary purpose was laughter to a ‘sentimental and poetic’ genre seeking

“universal emotion, sentimentality, and tears.”81 Chervet thus believed that the popularity that the Opéra rediscovered happened only through competition with opéra-comique. While

Chervet’s interpretation was novel, it overlooked the very successful tragédies en musique of

Piccinni and Gluck which premiered at the Paris Opéra in the late eighteenth century.

79 Henri Chervet, “Les origines de l’opéra-comique,” La Nouvelle Revue 41 (July-August 1906): 46. “…seul put le ressusciter grâce à son puissant, nerveux et profound génie.”

80 Ibid., 54.

81 Ibid., 55.

Twentieth-Century Histories of Opéra-Comique

As scholars in the early twentieth century began to generate new insights on the origins of opéra-comique, many of the same old opinions remained. The influence of Fétis’s work echoed strongly in the beginning of the twentieth century as Adam de la Halle still figured prominently in historical narratives of the development of opéra-comique. Writing in 1914,

Georges Cucuel acknowledged his influence: “Le jeu de Robin et de Marion, given in Naples in

1283, contained dances, plays, and couplets in vaudevilles intercalated with a dialogue in prose.”82 Donald J. Grout in his dissertation from 1939, “The Origins of the Opéra-Comique,” began his discussion of origins with Adam de la Halle: “Three centuries before the opera itself was discovered a French trouvère, Adam de la Halle, had produced a work which in both form and spirit is a clear prototype of the eighteenth-century opéra-comique. That work is Le jeu de

Robin et de Marion…”83 Yet at the same time Cucuel and Grout offered a new perspective on the development of opéra-comique by exploring the influence of the Italian theater in Paris on the early works of the fair theaters. Although the notion that the performers at the fair theaters appropriated the repertory of the Italian comedians after 1697 had been a part of previous narratives of opéra-comique’s history, few writers in the nineteenth century, particularly the

French writers among them, were willing to acknowledge the influence of the commedia dell’arte on the early repertory of the fair theaters.

Cucuel believed that the origins of opéra-comique were strongly influenced by both the

Italian and French traditions. Yet his conclusions seem to fall along national divides. On the

French side, Cucuel acknowledged medieval theatrical genres: farces, religious plays, and soties.

82 Georges Cucuel, Les créateurs de l’opéra-comique français (Paris: Librairie Félix Alcan, 1914), 10. “Le jeu de Robin et de Marion, donné à Naples en 1283, renfermait des danses, des jeux et des couplets en vaudevilles intercalés dans un dialogue en prose.”

83 Donald J. Grout, “The Origins of the Opéra-Comique,” (PhD diss., Harvard University, 1939), 9. 62

However, he disputed the claims of some important eighteenth-century writers, such as

Nougaret, who sought the origins of opéra-comique in the French works of the seventeenth century. While Nougaret identified La comédie des chansons (1640) and L’inconstant vaincu

(1661) as the first opéras-comiques, Cucuel argued that La comédie des chansons was a “simple literary play” and that neither it nor L’inconstant vaincu were sung. Cucuel also challenged the notion that the French works of the fair theaters in the seventeenth century were predecessors to opéra-comique. Instead, Cucuel ascribed an important role to Italian dramatic genres. He may have been the first writer to point to the works of the Italian theater, citing specifically the comedies of Gherardi, Dominique, and Romagnesi. Cucuel also argued that comic and serious opera were “closely mixed” in Italy, suggesting that Caccini’s and Peri’s Euridice (1600),

Cavalli’s Giasone (1649), and later Alessandro Scarlatti’s Prigioniero fortunato (1698) and

Telemaco (1718) all integrated comic elements into a serious dramatic framework. Specifically, it is this combination of serious and comic elements in which he saw the influence of or, at least, a parallel with Italian Baroque opera. He notes, however, that this “fusion” is not evident in

French opéra-comique until 1769. Here, Cucuel echoes ideas from Chervet’s essay in which he asserted that opéra-comique was elevated only after the incorporation of the sentimental. While some may find Cucuel’s comparison of Monteverdi’s L’incoronazione di Poppea with French opéra-comique from the 1770s unusual, his acknowledgement of the commedia dell’arte and

Italian comedians in the development of the comédie en vaudevilles was an important new insight.

Grout was almost certainly influenced by Cucuel’s work, in particular Cucuel’s acknowledgement of the Italian theater in Paris, devoting two chapters (nearly 175 pages) of his dissertation to the topic. Two years later in 1941 he presented a paper on the musical component

63 of the Gherardi troupe’s repertory at the Annual Meeting of the American Musicological Society.

But perhaps more characteristic of Grout’s early writings on opéra-comique is his preoccupation with creating a grand taxonomy of French musical-theatrical genres and situating opéra-comique within it. For example, Grout viewed the different genres of French theater as different species that evolve, have traits that are passed on, and are subjected to the influence of other theatrical lineages. Opéra-comique was a newer species and thus a descendent of its ancestral forms:

French classical tragedy, comedy, and ballet. He writes:

In spite of the early appearance of the secular comedy with music in France, there is no historical line leading toward opéra-comique until the last half of the seventeenth century. […] The main current of French dramatic music therefore leads toward the opera. It is only in a side-stream, the comedy-ballet, that we find the starting-point from which the evolution toward opéra-comique will begin.84

Grout’s thinking is clear from his use of the terms “historical line,” “main current,” “side- stream,” “starting-point,” and “evolution.” Moreover, he spelled out his conception of this theatrical lineage in a diagram that he titled “Ancestry of the Opéra-Comique,” which I have republished below in Figure 1.1. Here, Grout asserts that French classical comedy, comédie- ballet, commedia dell’arte, and the early works of the fair theaters are all ancestral to the comédie en vaudevilles. From here the later genre of newly-composed opéras-comiques was developed.

Conclusions

The earliest writings on the history of opéra-comique from the eighteenth century describe the process of the creation of the comédie en vaudevilles. Writers in the nineteenth century developed this theory of the genre’s origins more extensively than previous

84 Grout, “The Origins of the Opéra-Comique,” 76.

Figure 1.1. Grout’s “ancestry” of French lyric genres

writers, focusing largely on the relationship between opéra-comique and earlier French theatrical genres. This focus on France’s cultural past at the turn of the twentieth century coincided with a broader spirit of historicism. At the same time, nineteenth-century scholars borrowed theories on sociocultural evolution that interpreted the world through a narrative of progress and applied these ideas to histories of opéra-comique. Grout played a central role in bringing these

65 perspectives into American musicology. It is through Grout that the various theories of opéra- comique’s development from the nineteenth century are collected and synthesized into a grand theory. Grout connects the comédies-ballets of Molière and Lully, the medieval plays of Adam de la Halle, and the repertory of the commedia dell’arte to the fair theater repertory of comédies en vaudevilles (which he calls opéras-comiques en vaudevilles).

The long historiographical process detailed above in this chapter reveals how flexible, ever-changing notions of genre can become rigidly inscribed within a body of scholarship, persistently shaping a narrative for generations. This is not to say that this perspective is without merit. The scholarship on opéra-comique’s origins raises important questions about how genres are defined, how genres change over time, and how genres interact with each other. However, an awareness of this historiography is also crucial to viewing the comédie en vaudevilles beyond this perspective. The efforts of nineteenth-century historians to situate the genre of opéra- comique within this developmental framework have overshadowed attempts to view the comédies en vaudevilles within its eighteenth-century context. These early comedies functioned as intertextual works, interconnecting current events, politics, and theater through allusions, political allegories, and textual-musical borrowings.

Chapter 2: The Theatrical Troupes and Repertory of the Fair Theaters before 1697

Nineteenth-century scholars, despite producing numerous volumes that speculated about the origins of opéra-comique, largely overlooked the troupes and repertory of the fair theaters of the seventeenth century. Still today, little has been written about the performances at the fair theaters from this era. However, some writers, as early as the eighteenth century, pointed to the seventeenth century in tracing the origins and development of opéra-comique, citing, in particular, a comedy performed at the Fair of Saint Germain in 1678 titled Les forces de l’amour et de la magie. While Cucuel refuted the influence of this work on the later comédies en vaudevilles, Grout considered this piece and other similar seventeenth-century works from the fair theaters as an essential part of his theatrical “ancestry” under the category “French popular theaters (Théâtres de la Foire”), suggesting that they strongly influenced the later (post-1715) comédies en vaudevilles. Yet these early works of the fair theaters bear little resemblance to the genre of comédie en vaudevilles that succeeded them in the eighteenth century. Instead, they are better understood through the broader context of theatrical life in seventeenth-century France and the various contemporaneous genres from the royal theaters, such as pastorales, mythological machine plays, ballets, comedies, and operas, which they borrowed from, referenced, or imitated. Of the fair theater repertory in the seventeenth century, only six librettos survive from the years 1678–1695 (shown below in Table 2.1). Four of these were certainly performed at the fair theaters while two, which premiered at the Théâtre du Marais, may have been revived at the fair theaters on a smaller scale in the years following their premieres. Comparing the four fair theater librettos to contemporary genres from the royal theaters reveals several key similarities in style, subject matter, staging, and, perhaps, musical structure.

Table 2.1. Repertory of the Fair Theaters before 1697 Year Title Venue Source 1676 Les pygmées Théâtre du Marais libretto 1677 Les amours de Microton ou les charmes d’Orcan Théâtre du Marais libretto 1678 Les forces de l’amour et de la magie Saint Germain Fair libretto, Parfaict I 1678 Circé en postures Saint Germain Fair libretto 1678 Les divertissements de la foire Saint Laurent Fair libretto 1681 L’âne de Lucien ou le voyageur ridicule Saint Germain Fair N/A 1689 Le docteur de verre Saint Laurent Fair N/A 1695 L’enlèvement de Proserpine N/A MS. ff. fr. 9312

Though no musical scores survive from this repertory, I nevertheless make several observations about the musical components and structure of each these works. In this chapter, I also examine the activities of the performing troupes that appeared at the fair theaters in the seventeenth century to attempt to fill gaps in our knowledge of this repertory due to a scarcity of sources. I draw mainly from primary source documents and contemporary descriptions of their performances in order to reconstruct this little-known repertory beyond what can be gleaned from extant librettos.

Theatrical Life in Seventeenth-Century Paris

France witnessed a flowering of the dramatic arts during the seventeenth century, the main corpus of which earned the historical place of French classic theater, namely Molière,

Pierre Corneille, and Jean Racine. At the same time, the country saw a concomitant increase in the number of acting troupes in Paris and the provinces.1 Yet even for theater companies that received royal subventions, there was scarcely a sense of stability. Competition for audiences led to constantly changing locales and personnel, the construction of new theaters, renovations of old

1 Henry Carrington Lancaster, “Jean-Baptiste Raisin, Le petit Molière,” Modern Philology 38/3 (February 1941): 335.

68 theaters, the sudden appearance or departure of a rival enterprise, the merger of troupes, and the ongoing exercise and enforcement of various monopoly privileges or other regulations governing performances. In the world of “unofficial” troupes attempting to make a living in Paris, the situation was even more precarious. The financial opportunity provided by the large crowds that attended the seasonal fair theaters made them a suitable home to a variety of musical-visual spectacles. Documents dating from 1618 cite the existence of rudimentary scaffolding stages built by performers at the fairgrounds in the hopes of making their acts visible to a greater share of the crowds. By the end of the century, even as early as the 1670s, the fairgrounds could lay claim to a veritable “theater” comprising highly-talented performers, several of whom had performed with the royal troupes, actual librettos, and, of course, music and dance. Several of these troupes, in fact, gave private performances before the court. It is the activities of these performing troupes and their relationship with the court that informs the following discussion. As the “unofficial” spectacles of Paris threatened the livelihood of the royal troupes, a portrait of seventeenth-century theatrical life emerges in which the state attempted to govern even the smallest details of spectacles that might have been considered insignificant curiosities or novelties.

Music of the Troupes of Danseurs de corde

By the seventeenth century, the Parisian trade fairs had already developed a vibrant theatrical scene. The popularity of these early works of the fair theaters is undeniable, even if they were situated on the margins of Parisian theatrical life or considered as novelties. Their popularity is evidenced by the intervention of the royal troupes, who used their privileges to hinder and suppress these “illegitimate” competitors. Though they lacked the financial resources

69 and subventions of their royal counterparts, the fair theater troupes found clever solutions to circumvent theatrical regulations. For example, they might stage their performances with marionettes because live actors were prohibited from their stages. Their performers also had diverse theatrical backgrounds. While they acted and sang, they were not trained as actors or singers, but rather excelled in dance, ballet, and acrobatics. Several of these theatrical troupes, often referred to as the danseurs de corde, specialized in tightrope dancing. Some of earliest works of the fair theaters that survive from the 1670s were performed by the danseurs de corde.

These troupes continued to perform well into the eighteenth century and were responsible for the performance of the first comédies en vaudevilles in the 1710s. This particular image of the fair theaters as the home of “street performances,” such as acrobatics and tightrope dancing, is exactly the image that the Opéra-Comique’s detractors in the eighteenth century sought to perpetuate. Nicolas Boindin, an advocate of the royal troupes and author for the Comédie-

Française, wrote in 1719 about the newly-named “Théâtre de l’Opéra-Comique.” In the opening lines, he reminded his readers that despite any efforts to elevate the public image of the fair theaters, they would always be remembered by the Parisian public as the lowly danseurs de corde (tightrope dancers).2

Precisely what the performances of the danseurs de corde entailed is best described by

Jacques Bonnet, a writer who had previously been trésorier du Parlement.3 In his Histoire générale de la danse sacrée et profane (General History of Sacred and Secular Dance) (1723) he categorizes their performances into four different types, several of which are reminiscent of those done by modern-day circus acrobats:

2 Nicolas Boindin, Lettres historiques sur tous les spectacles de Paris (Paris: Pierre Prault, 1719).

3 Jacques Bonnet, Histoire générale de la danse sacrée et profane, avec un supplement de l’histoire de la musique, et le parallèle de la peinture et de la poésie (Paris: Houry fils, 1723). 70

The first type were those who spun around a cord, like a wheel around an axle, suspended by their necks or feet. The second type were those who went from the top to the bottom of a cord, leaning on their stomach, having their legs and arms extended. The third were those who ran on a long, tight cord in a straight line, and even on another one from the top to the bottom, very perilously. The fourth were those who danced naturally on a taught cord with counterweights, as we commonly see today. Afterwards, sauteurs [acrobats, tumblers] were sometimes added to their troupe to perform perilous sauts, which the Greeks called cubistes, and some women who leapt through hoops garnished with sword points inside, and who made a number of very surprising, supple, and agile turns that rendered their spectacles more pleasing and respectable.4

Bonnet’s description of the fourth type of danseurs de corde and sauteurs is the kind that most commonly figured in accounts of performances at the fair theaters. The frontispiece to volume 1 of the Lesage collection also confirms Bonnet’s description.5 Here, an advertisement outside a theater shows a performer balancing on a tightrope holding a long staff as a counterweight while a sauteur is pictured on the ground below with an arched spine, presumably in the midst of a tumbling routine. As this iconography shows, the association of the danseurs de corde with the fair theaters persisted into the 1730s. Boindin was thus referring to these acrobatic troupes who, by the late seventeenth century, had begun to perform actual theater pieces and several of whom had established themselves at the fair theaters. In 1719, though, Boindin’s subtle insult was intended to recall the fair theaters’ long association with the low-brow type of “street performances” that appeared alongside the danseurs de corde at the fair theaters: mountebanks, magic tricks, trained animals, prototypical circus acts, and other curiosities. In fact, there is

4 Ibid., 162–3. “Les premiers étaient ceux qui voltigeaient autour d’une corde, comme une roue qui tourne autour de son essieu, et qui se suspendaient par le cou ou par les pieds: les seconds étaient ceux qui se coulaient du haut en bas sur une corde, appuyez sur l’estomac, ayant les bras et les jambs étendues: les troisiémes étaient ceux qui couraient sur une longue corde tendue en droite ligne, et même sur une autre tendue dur haut en bas, ce qui paraissait fort périlleux, et les quatriémes étaient ceux qui dansaient naturellement sur une corde tendue, avec le contrepoids, comme nous le voyons familièrement aujourd’hui. Mais par la suite des temps ils joignirent à leur troupe des sauteurs pour les sauts périlleux, que les Grecs appelaient cubistes, et des femmes qui sautaient au travers des cerceaux garnis de pointes d’épées en dedans, et qui faisaient quantité de tours de souplesses et d’agilités très- surprenantes; ce qui rendit aussi leurs spectacles plus divertissants et plus estimables.”

5 This frontispiece is reproduced in Heartz, “Terpsichore at the Fair,” 137. Currently, a high-resolution digital reproduction of this image is available on the Bibliothèque nationale de France’s online collection at https://gallica.bnf.fr under the title, “Frontispice de Le théâtre de la foire,” by Bernard Picart.

71 documentation of these kinds of spectacles at the fairgrounds. An advertising pamphlet (affiche) from the Fair of Saint Germain announced that a performer known as the “Grand Scot” was going to drink an “incredible quantity of water that he will convert entirely into wine, milk, beer, ink, odoriferous waters (perfumes) of several scents.”6 The same day he promised to

…pull from his mouth salad as fresh as those that are sold in the halls, two full plates of veritable living fish, roses, carnations, tulips, and several other flowers as beautiful and fresh as those that are born in the gardens of spring, more living birds, three- or four- hundred pieces of gold, ties and cuffs, some teeth, ribbons, and a thousand other curiosities that one cannot explain and seem to go beyond the imagination.7

Firsthand accounts also indicate that music played an important role in these performances, especially when they involved or featured trained animals. In the Histoire générale de la danse sacrée et profane Bonnet also describes one such performance:

In the past one has seen at the Fair of Saint Germain some rats dancing in rhythm on a cord to the sound of instruments, standing on their hind legs and holding little counterweights, just the same as a danseur de corde. There was a troupe of eight rats, who were dancing a figured ballet on a grand table to the sound of violins with as much aptness as the dancers of this profession: but even more surprising was a white rat from Lapland who danced a sarabande with so much aptness and seriousness that it could have done an espagnol.8

He goes on to describe a scene from the Fair of Saint Laurent where a monkey danced a minuet

6 This affiche is transcribed in its entirety in Bonnassies, 6. “Le Grand Scot boira une quantité incroyable d’eau qu’il convertira en toute sorte de vin, en lait, en bière, en encre, en eaux odoriférantes de plusieurs senteurs.”

7 Bonnassies, 6. “Il sera sortir de sa bouche de la salade aussi fraîche que celle que l’on vend aux halles. Deux plats pleins de veritables poisons toute en vie. Des roses, des oeillets, des tulips et plusieurs autres fleurs, aussi belles et fraîches quelles naissent dans les jardins au printemps, et de plus des oiseaux en vie, trois ou quatre cens pièces d’or, des cravates et des manchettes de point et de lace, des rubans, et mille autres curiosités que l’on ne peut expliquer, et qui semble aller au delà de l’imagination.”

8 This passage is cited by Claude Parfaict and François Parfaict, Mémoires, vol. 1, xlii–xliii. “On a vû autrefois à la Foire de Saint Germain des rats danser en cadence sur la corde au son des instruments, étant debout sur leurs pattes de derrière, et tenant de petits contrepoids, de même qu’un danseur de corde. Il y avait une autre troupe de huit rats, qui dansaient un ballet figuré sur une grande table, au son des violon ,et avec autant de justesse que des danseurs de profession: mais ce qui surprit davantage, ce fut un rat blanc de Laponie, qui dansa une sarabande, avec autant de justesse et de gravité, qu’aurait pû faire un espagnol.”

72 with his owner, who later performed a comedy with a violin-playing dog.9

In the plays and acrobatic routines of the troupes of danseurs de corde, music also appears to have had an integral role. Again, several descriptions of performances by troupes of danseurs de corde at the fair theaters come from Bonnet.10 Moreover, Bonnet’s accounts demonstrate that music almost always accompanied their routines. He recalls one performance he attended in the late seventeenth century, describing especially the virtuosity of one danseur de corde:

When he reached the top, he attached his counterweights to the summit of the mast, where a large, round, wooden plate was attached, and he danced while turning on all sides, then he danced on his head and feet at the top, and made a great number of movements that conformed to the cadence of the violins.11

A description of a famous danseuse de corde, known as “La Belle Tourneuse,” notes how she

“danced a sarabande solo with such grace that she charmed all of the spectators” and later “based her movements on the cadence of the violins playing an air that seemed to stir up the winds.”12

Thus music was not simply incidental in the acrobatic routines of the danseurs de corde, but also formed an integral part of these scenes as dances [and other acrobatics] were choreographed to the beat of the music. Moreover, the mention of a sarabande solo seems to indicate that the danseurs de corde also performed true, balletic numbers in addition to their acrobatic routines.

Therefore the acrobatic scenes that appear in the fair theater librettos from the 1670s would have

9 Claude Parfaict and François Parfaict, Mémoires, vol. 1, xliii–xliv.

10 Bonnet, 161–82.

11 Ibid., 169–70. “…quand il était monté, il attachait son contrepoids au sommet du mât, sur lesquel il y avait un rond de bois large comme une assiette, et dansait en trounant de tous côtes, ensuite il y dansait sur la tête et les pieds en haut, et y faisait quantité de mouvments conformes à la cadence des violons…”

12 Ibid., 171. An error in the typesetting of this edition incorrectly labels this page as 169. “…dansait seule une sarabande avec tant de grace, qu’elle charmait tous les spectateurs…elle prenait son mouvement de la cadence des violons qui jouoiaent un air qui semblait exciter les vents.”

73 most likely been accompanied by music. Bonnet’s accounts also confirm the notion that these troupes performed veritable theater pieces: “I will say that the danseurs de corde have become very pleasing to the public for a while through the embellishment of their plays and the cleanliness of their theaters.”13

The First Acting Troupes of the Fair Theaters, 1596–1620

As early as the 1590s, acting troupes appeared alongside the many curiosities at the fair theaters. Since none of repertory of these sixteenth-century troupes survives, it is difficult to specify much about their performances. However, these troupes most likely performed mystery plays as police reports seem to indicate. These police reports also identify specific performers, describing them as “comedians” and granting them permissions to construct temporary stages at the trade fairs. The first documentary evidence of a performing troupe at the fairgrounds comes from February 5, 1596 in the form of a sentence de police granting “Jehan Courtin, Nicolas

Poteau, and their other companions, French comedians” permission “to play and to perform lawful and honest secular mysteries without offending or insulting any persons of the faubourgs

[regions right outside the city] of Paris and only during the time of the Fair of Saint Germain.”14

The ruling refers to Courtin’s and Poteau’s troupe as “comedians.” Moreover, it specifies that they were forbidden to ridicule anyone, suggesting that Courtin’s and Poteau’s troupe or other performers at the fair theaters may have had a reputation for ridiculing public figures previously.

Satire may have already been an important part of the fair theater repertory in 1596. The next

13 Ibid., 162.

14 The police sentence is reproduced in its entirety in Campardon, Les spectacles de la foire, vol. 1, viii–x. “Jehan Courtin, Nicolas Poteau et autres leurs compagnons, comédiens françaises…nous avons permis et permettons aux défendeurs de jouer et représenter mystères profanes, licites et honnêtes sans offenser ou injurier aucunes personnes ès faubourgs de Paris et pendant le temps de la foire Saint-Germain seulement…”

74 mention of a troupe at the fairs comes from 1618, after a troupe petitioned the priory and convent of the abbey of Saint-Germain-des-Préz to perform at the fairs. A sentence granted them permission to “build scaffolding that they needed to give honest recreation to the people during the length of said fair of the present year only, on the charges and conditions of not performing forbidden or scandalous plays.”15 This particular troupe, led by André Soliel and Isabel Le

Gendre, evidently wished to construct “some scaffolding and other conveniences” in an unused part of the fairgrounds near a pillory. This report is perhaps the first documentary evidence of stages being constructed at the Parisian fairgrounds. Nothing of their performances is described in the document, but like Courtin and Poteau, the performers André Soliel and Isabel Le Gendre are identified as comédiens. Evidence of a third troupe at the fairs prior to 1620 comes from a complaint filed by the troupe of the Hôtel de Bourgogne against Claude Aduet’s troupe of danseurs de corde for performing at the fairgrounds without the proper permissions.16 This ruling further demonstrates the privilege of theatrical licensure granted to the religious order known as the Confrérie de la Passion, which had initially been founded to perform religious plays. Since November 17, 1548 the Confrérie had been granted the monopoly right to license theatrical performances in Paris for their own profit by the Parlement de Paris. For each day that they performed at the fairgrounds Courtin and Poteau were thus required to pay a sum of two

écus au soleil to the Confrérie, the administrators and proprietors of the Fair of Saint Germain.

The Italian comedic troupes at the Hôtel de Bourgogne around this time had a deal only scarcely better since they were forced to pay one écu per day and the receipts of three quarters of their

15 Ibid., xi–xii. “…ériger échafaud à ce que besoin leur fait pour donner recréation honnête au peuple pendant la tenue de ladite foire de la présente année seulement…”

16 Bonnassies, 2.

75 boxes to the Confrérie.17

Several important conclusions regarding the fair theater troupes in the early seventeenth century can be drawn based on the information found in these police reports. First, it is clear that as early as 1620 the Parisian fairgrounds had become a significant attraction for performing troupes attempting to earn a living. Moreover, the fact that an “unofficial” troupe at the fair theaters, the troupe of Claude Aduet, had already become the target of a rival troupe several decades before the political reign of Louis XIV and the theatrical reign of Lully, demonstrates the difficult landscape that performing troupes faced while trying to earn a living in seventeenth- century Paris. The ongoing legal struggles that would befall the fair theaters in the eighteenth century are anticipated nearly a hundred years prior. These reports also demonstrate the extent of the highly-regulated theatrical system in France during the ancien régime. No matter the scale or perceived significance of a performer or troupe, legal legitimacy was an important determinant of success. In one example, a performer Louis Mondain, known as the “man with two heads,” had been granted a royal monopoly privilege from the king to establish his spectacle at the fairgrounds. A police report from August 30, 1678 shows that he filed a formal complaint because a troupe of danseurs de corde had encroached on his privilege by falsely advertising their theater as the home of the “man with two heads.” 18 A connection to the court or being in good standing with the king was the lifeblood for any performer. Many of the fair theater troupes in the seventeenth century enjoyed such a relationship or connection with the court.

17 For a detailed discussion of the conflicts between the Confrérie and the early Italian troupes in Paris, see Scott, 16–17.

18 This police report is reproduced in its entirety by Campardon, Les spectacles de la foire, vol. 1, 397–400.

From the Fair to the Court: Curiosities, Marionettes, and Troupes, 1640–1670

The years 1620–1640 were rather tumultuous for Paris. The monarchy had been in a continual state of turmoil since the assassination of Henry IV in 1610. The financial burden from expenditures on the Thirty Years’ War and political opposition from the nobility and provinces during the minority reign of Louis XIII (1610–1617) left France in a state of instability in the following decades.19 Armand-Jean du Plessis, duc de Richelieu, became increasingly influential to Louis XIII in the 1620s, earned the rank of cardinal in 1622, and rose to the role of the king’s chief minister in 1624. The Italian troupes, who were a welcome presence at the court since the sixteenth century, were absent during the years 1624–1644, returning only two years after the death of Cardinal Richelieu. Virginia Scott notes that the timing of their departure and return was not coincidental, as Richelieu’s vision was for a strictly French theater.20 Moreover, the Italian comedians had difficulty finding a suitable place to perform after 1622.21 Thus it is not surprising that there is no documentary evidence of a performing troupe at the fairs from 1620–1640. While

1644 marked the return of the Italians to Paris, the 1640s also saw a new generation of performers at the fairgrounds, primarily in the form of marionette players. Many of them performed at the fairgrounds in addition to giving private performances before the court. It seems that marionettes were quite popular at the court during the 1660s and marionette performers were often employed to entertain the royal children. In some cases, performers enjoyed extended residencies at the court and were well compensated for their time.

A father and son duo of marionette players, Pierre and François Dattelin, better known as

19 P. J. Coveney, “Introduction: France in Crisis, 1620–1675,” in France in Crisis, 1620–1675, ed. P. J. Coveney (London: Macmillan Press: 1977), 3–4.

20 Scott, 18.

21 Ibid.

Brioché, rose to prominence in the 1660s giving performances at both the fair theaters and the court. Little is known of their activity before the late 1660s outside an alleged incident involving the killing of a trained monkey that was part of their act in the early 1640s.22 In 1657, François obtained a permission for marionette performances at the Fair of Saint Germain. Two years before his father Pierre died in 1671, François had already established a relationship with the royal court. Charles Magnin cites two records of payment in the registres of the royal treasury, one for 1,365 livres to “Brioché, jouer de marionnettes” for a three-month stay (September through November) at Saint-Germain-en-Laye (not to be confused with the Fairgrounds of Saint-

Germain, Saint-Germain-en-Laye refers to an extravagant royal chateau about twelve miles west of the Paris city center) in 1669 and another for 820 livres to “François Daitelin (sic)” for a fifty- six-day residency also at Saint-Germain-en-Laye that same year to perform for the dauphin who was only nine years old.23 The different amounts may also point to a discrepancy in the royal recordkeeping. The first payment of 450 livres was for a trip to Saint-Germain-en-Laye and the second payment of 840 livres was for a fifty-six-day stay (July 17 to September, the same dates given by Magnin for the 820-livre payment).24 An annual sum of over 1,200 livres for five months of work was considerable at this time. Estimates suggest that a day laborer, such as a builder, may have earned an annual salary of only 160–200 livres in Paris in the 1660s.25

22 Charles Magnin, Histoire des marionnettes en Europe depuis l’antiquité jusqu’a nos jours (Paris: Michel Lévy frères, 1852), 136.

23 Ibid., 137–8. Whereas Campardon confidently asserts that François Dattelin also went by the name Brioché, Magnin seems unaware that Dattelin and Brioché most likely referred to the same person. Campardon likewise cites two payments documented in the Correspondance administrative sous Louis XIV, one to “François Briocher (sic)” and another to “François Dattelin,” both in 1669. See Campardon, Les spectacles de la foire, vol. 1, 179–80.

24 Campardon, Les spectacles de la foire, vol. 1, 179–80.

25 Micheline Baulant, “Le salaire des ouvriers du bâtiment à Paris, de 1400 à 1726,” Annales 26/2 (March– April 1971): 463–83.

Brioché seems to have reached the height of his fame in Paris during the 1660s, even becoming the subject of an allusion in a comedy performed by the Italian troupe in 1668. By this time the Italian actors had exhausted their traditional repertory and sought to appeal to French audiences with some novel works.26 In a comedy from 1668, Le régal des dames, the first piece in this new repertory of the Italian troupe, a character named Brioché is played by Arlequin.

Drawing on contemporary themes, locales, and characters, Le régal des dames is thus set in Paris at the Fair of Saint Germain.27 Hoping the topicality and references to local figures would add an element of novelty to their repertory, the Italian troupe tried to capitalize on the popularity of a local performer. Arlequin, the main character, impersonates Brioché, even wearing a disguise while performing some magic tricks with goblets. After Lully’s 1652 Mascarade de la Foire de

Saint-Germain, Le régal des Dames is one of the first theater pieces where the locale of the Saint

Germain fairgrounds appears as a setting within a play. The setting of the Fair of Saint Germain would become increasingly popular in the self-referential polemical comedies of the fair theaters during the Regency.

Concurrently with Brioché, two other troupes were actively performing at the fair theaters. The first was also a marionette troupe located primarily at the Fair of Saint Germain in the 1660s and led by Jean-Baptiste Archambault. In 1668, the lieutenant-général de police granted Archambault’s troupe permission to perform at the fairs with marionettes and tightrope dancers. The personnel of Archambault’s troupe also demonstrates how the world of acting was a family business, employing siblings, children, and spouses. Moreover, different troupes often shared connections with each other through blood relatives or marriage. Archambault, for

26 This is according to Donneau de Visé writing in the Mercure galant in 1694. Originally cited by Scott, 155.

27 For a brief synopsis of Le régal des dames, see Scott, 155–6.

79 example, was married to François Dattelin’s sister Marguerite. In the 1668 permission, three brothers, Jérôme, Arthur, and Nicolas Féron, are also mentioned as performers in his troupe.

Around the same time a third troupe known as the “troupe du dauphin” also took up residence at the fair theaters. A family endeavor much like the Brioché act, this troupe also enjoyed connections to the king. Sometime in the 1660s (probably in 1661), Edme Raisin, an organist living in Troyes, moved his wife, Marguerite Siret, and their four children (Catherine, Jacques,

Jean-Baptiste, and Babet) to Paris in order to earn a living as a performer at the fairgrounds.

Raisin had a spectacular attraction for the crowds in a magic épinette (spinet) he had built himself. According to a contemporary account, the épinette would appear to play on its own much like a player piano when Raisin cast a simple spell, “Dame Épinette, jouez, un peu, la boivinette, jouez ceci, jouez cela (Dame Spinet, play, a little, la boivinette, play this, play that).”28 Stories of this enchanted épinette spread so quickly through Paris that Louis XIV ordered Raisin to perform before the court on April 5, 1661.29 There he revealed to the king that

28 Three contemporary accounts by Jean Loret are cited originally in Henry Carrington Lancaster, “Jean- Baptiste Raisin, ‘Le petit Molière,’” Modern Philology 38/3 (February 1941): 336. The three accounts are from (1) April 9, 1661, (2) March 11, 1662, and (3) June 7, 1664. Carrington Lancaster attributes many of the embellishments of this story that have seeped into Molière scholarship over the years to the notorious early biographer of Molière, Jean Léonor Le Gallois de Grimarest. Scholars have long pointed out the factual errors and exaggerations in Grimarest’s biography of Molière, Vie de Monsieur de Molière (Paris: Jacques le Febvre, 1705). Its influence was still far-reaching. For example, Campardon’s entry on Raisin is taken verbatim from Grimarest’s account. Grimarest’s original anecdote about Raisin can be found in his Vie de Monsieur de Molière, 81–88. Carrington Lancaster identifies two falsehoods in Grimarest’s story of Raisin’s magic épinette: (1) that the queen supposedly fainted when the keyboard played by itself and (2) that there was only one child inside the instrument whereas Loret’s account indicates two children. I have also considered the account in Charles de Fieux, Chevalier de Mouhy’s Tablettes dramatiques contenant l’abrége de l’histoire du théâtre François, l’établissement des théâtres à Paris, un dictionnaire des pieces, et l’abrégé de l’histoire des auteurs et des acteurs (Paris: 1752), xix–xx, to be drawn at least in part from Grimarest. Although Mouhy does not echo the myth of the queen’s fainting, he gives the wrong year for Raisin’s arrival in Paris and misstates that only the youngest child hid inside the spinet. Therefore, I include here only as a footnote Mouhy’s account of the troupe du dauphin after Raisin’s passing (supposedly in 1664). His wife, Marguerite, continued to perform with her children. She hired an actor Michel Baron who was just twelve years old at the time. Molière, impressed with this talented young actor, petitioned the king to permit Baron to perform in his troupe. The king obliged and Baron became a prominent actor in Molière’s troupe. Saddened by the loss of Baron, the widow Raisin retired after her theater was deserted.

29 Jean Loret, Muze historique (Paris: 1661), 58–60.

80 two of his children, whom he had taught to play keyboard, were responsible for operating the phantom manual while hidden inside the instrument. Henry Carrington Lancaster reports that another performance by Raisin’s troupe was given before the court on March 4, 1662. This time the children “danced with castanets much better than some marionettes.”30 Two years later, the troupe du dauphin had been established by Edme or possibly by Marguerite. With the talents of the Raisin children as well as others, the troupe performed again before the court “with their surprising echoes, their dances and their melodies, pastorales and comedies.”31 It is unclear precisely what these little pieces may have been, but it is also important to consider that Loret’s word choice of “pastorales and comedies” may have been strongly influenced by his desire to maintain rhymed verse rather than a concern for accurately specifying a genre. Whatever the case, Loret expressed a true admiration for the young troupe having never before been “so delighted.”32 Of the Raisin children, Jean-Baptiste, nicknamed “le petit Molière,” presumably for his ability to impersonate the famous actor-playwright, had a very successful acting career in adulthood working in the provinces before he was invited in 1679 to join the royal troupe of the

Hôtel de Bourgogne, which would merge with the troupe of the Guénégaud to form the

Comédie-Française in 1680.33

30 Loret, Muze historique (Paris: 1662), 38.

31 Loret, Muze historique (Paris: 1664), 88. “Avec leurs surprenants échos, leurs danses et leurs mélodies, pastorales et comédies.”

32 Loret, Muze historique (Paris: 1662), 38.

33 See Carrington Lancaster’s article, cited above, on Jean-Baptiste Raisin for an interesting history of the life of an actor in the French provinces in the late seventeenth century.

Troupes and Repertory of the Fair Theaters, 1675–1680: Sieur La Grille and the Troupe des pygmées

Marionette players were some of the first troupes at the fair theaters for which there are extant librettos dating from the 1670s. Two of them come from a marionette troupe founded in

1675 to compete with the recently established Paris Opéra and other royal theaters. Though originally performed at the spectacular Théâtre du Marais, these two works were likely revived by the troupe at the fair theaters on a smaller scale after the actors were forced to leave the

Théâtre du Marais. Signed into effect on March 31, 1675 by the king, the royal permission states:

Our beloved Dominique de Normandin, écuyer, sieur de La Grille, having humbly shown us that he has found a new invention of marionettes who possess not only an extraordinary grandeur but also measure as performing-comedians with decorations and machines imitating perfectly [human] dancing and the human voice, which will serve not only to please the public but also to instruct the youth. We grant him the privilege to give his performances during the course of twenty years from the present date in our good city and faubourgs of Paris and all around such burgs and places in our kingdom that he will judge suitable…34

The geographic scope and duration of the privilege seemed generous, but as the performances were restricted to marionettes it must not have been immediately apparent that La Grille’s troupe would quickly attract such large crowds. La Grille was known on the Parisian musical-theatrical scene prior to the 1670s. Under the title of “ordinaire de la musique du roi,” La Grille played in the orchestra in many theatrical works from the 1660s into the 1680s, including several of

34 This privilege is republished in its entirety in Jules Claretie, Molière: sa vie et ses oeuvres (Paris: Alphonse Lemerre, 1873), 188–9. “Notre bien-aimé Dominique de Normandin, écuyer, sieur de la Grille, nous ayant humblement fait remontre qu’il trouvé une nouvelle invention de marionnettes qui ne sont pas seulement d’une grandeur extraordinaire mais mesure représentant des comédiens avec des décorations et des machines imitant parfaitement la danse et faisant la voix humaine, lesquelles serviront non seulement de divertissement au public mais serviront d’instruction pour la jeunesse. Lui accordons privilège de donner ses représentations pendant le cours de vingt années à dater présent dans notre bonne ville et faubourgs de Paris et par toutes autours telles bourgs et lieux de notre royaume qu’il jugera à propos…” This document is also discussed by Jérôme de La Gorce, “Un théâtre parisien en concurrence avec L’Académie royale de musique dirigée par Lully: l’Opéra des Bamboches,” in Jean- Baptiste Lully: Actes du colloque / Kongreßbericht Saint-Germain-en-Laye — Heidelberg 1987, ed. Jérôme de La Gorce and Herbert Schneider (Laaber: Laaber-Verlag, 1990), 223–33.

Lully’s operas.35 Information on La Grille’s musical background is, however, relatively sparse.

His maternal grandfather, Henri de Bailly, was a singer who worked also for the chambre du roi.

Not much is known of his training other than the fact that La Grille’s parents purchased a keyboard about ten years into their marriage, presumably for their young son.36

La Grille originally named his marionette players the “troupe des pygmées,” but after a sentence was rendered against them upon the request of Lully, La Grille changed their name to the “opéra des bamboches.” In his article for the Mercure on the theatrical events in Paris from

January to March of 1677, Jean Donneau de Visé mentioned a troupe that “newly-opened at the

Marais, of which the actors are called Bamboche.”37 De Visé attributed the etymology to a famous painter named “Banboche” (sic) who was known for making small figures. La Gorce clarifies the etymology, instead tracing it to the Italian words for a small child or marionette,

“bamboccia” or “bamboccio.”38 Yet the performances by La Grille’s troupe were not as trivial as the name suggests. The marionettes themselves were somewhat substantial in size, around four feet tall. They were also not suspended from cables but rather were manipulated by a system of rods and levers.39 An extant design of one of La Grille’s marionettes by the famous artist Jean

35 La Gorce, 223. He was also a relative of Lully through marriage. La Grille married Anne Morineau, a well-known singer, in 1669. Morineau was a first cousin of Madeleine Lambert who had been married to Lully since 1662.

36 La Gorce, 223. La Gorce cites a document published in Madeleine Jurgens, Documents du Minutier central concernant l’histoire de la musique (1600–1650), vol. 2 (Paris: Imprimerie Nationale, 1972), 768. It shows a payment of 456 livres to Jacques Le Breton, a “master spinet maker.”

37 Le nouveau mercure galant (Paris: Thomas Amaulry, 1677), 28. “…nouvellement ouvert au Marais, dont les acteurs sont appelé Banboches (sic).”

38 La Gorce, 225.

39 This description comes from the avertissement at the beginning of the libretto for La Grille’s Les pygmées (Paris: Christophe Ballard, 1676).

Berain confirms how extravagant and ornate their costumes were.40

Despite their popularity with the public and the court, the opéra des bamboches violated

Lully’s privilège of 1672, and thus did not enjoy a very long existence at the Théâtre du Marais.

Not long after their opening season in 1676–1677 they left the Théâtre du Marais. The following year their name appears in a police report from the Fair of Saint Laurent in 1678. La Grille’s troupe premiered their first original piece, Les pygmées, sometime in 1676 at the Théâtre du

Marais. They followed this with another new work titled Les amours de Microton, ou les charmes d’Orcan. It also premiered at the Théâtre du Marais sometime after November that same year or possibly in January of 1677. De Visé’s aforementioned review from the Mercure in

January 1677 is evidence of a performance in January, though no specific title or date is given.

Another document, a letter to the lieutenant of police, La Reynie, on February 5, 1677 indicates that La Grille’s troupe had already concerned Lully.41 Regarding La Grille’s troupe, the author of the letter urges La Reynie to strictly enforce the rights of Lully’s privilège on behalf of Louis himself:

The king having learned that the marionette players are using music in their performances, his majesty has ordered me to tell you that this [violation], being contrary to the privilege granted to Sieur Lully, wishes that you make them remove it [the music] and that you precisely follow the execution of what is borne in said privilege.42

40 This engraving is reproduced in La Gorce, 227. Berain designed numerous sets for the Opéra and other court spectacles in the seventeenth century. The design is for the character Microton depicted as a shepherd. Microton is the title character of the second piece from La Grille’s troupe, Les amours de Microton, ou les charmes d’Orcan.

41 La Gorce has discovered evidence that Lully attended a performance by La Grille’s troupe in an official complaint lodged by La Grille and his associates against Lully. This document is reproduced in its entirety at the end of his essay, 232–3.

42 This passage is reproduced by Marcelle Benoit, Musique de Cour, Chapelle, Chambre, Ecurie. Recueil de documents (1661-1733 (Paris: Picard, 1971), 52, and also by La Gorce, 226. “Le roi ayant appris que les jouers de marionnettes mêlent de la musique à leurs representations, sa majesté m’a ordonné de vous dire que cela étant contraire au privilège qu’elle a accordé au Sieur Lully, elle souhaite que vous la fassiez retrancher et que vous teniez exactement la main à l’exécution de ce qui est porté dans ledit privilège.”

Another document, republished for the first time in its entirety by La Gorce, gives further details on the performances by La Grille’s troupe. In reaction to the sanctions against them instigated by

Lully and carried out by La Reynie, La Grille and his associates wrote an official complaint on

July 25, 1677. Their protestation was that Lully’s complaints had no basis in fact and were motivated solely by the composer’s jealously. La Reynie’s enforcement of the privilège must have greatly affected La Grille’s profits. They blamed Lully for “all damages and interest caused by the delay and prevention of said exercise.”43 It is also learned from the complaint that their performances must have been extravagant as La Grille seems to have laid out a considerable expense of 60,000 livres for “actors, musicians, instrumentalists, machinists, painters, tailors, fabrics, and necessary ornaments.”44

The activity of La Grille’s troupe after 1677 is not entirely clear. A police report from

1678 republished by Campardon informs us that a “troupe royale des pygmées” took up residence at the Fair of Saint Laurent.45 The report concerns an official complaint filed by another performer at the fairgrounds, a two-headed man named Louis Mondain. Mondain alleged that the “troupe royale des pygmées” had falsely advertised their theater as the home of the

‘homme à deux têtes.’ As Mondain claims, when spectators arrived they saw only a two-headed marionette. Interestingly, Mondain had received a monopoly privilege from the king and permission from the lieutenant général de police to profit from his spectacle and charge audiences ten sols each to see him. La Grille’s involvement with the troupe royale des pygmées is not clear from Mondain’s official complaint. If La Grille was not involved, then the initial

43 La Gorce, 232. “…sieur de Lully pour tous dommages et interêts causés par le retard et empêchement du dit exercice.”

44 Ibid.

45 Campardon, Les spectacles de la foire, vol. 1, 397. “…pour empêcher que les personnes qui veinnent à ladite foire et qui ne savent pas l’endroit où est establi le plaignant…”

85 privilege granted to the “troupe royale des pygmées” on March 31, 1675 had been acquired by a new troupe at the fairgrounds. The author of the report, citing the same language as in the original permission, also confirms the original date and verifies that a marionette player named

Vaudier showed him the “letters from the king.” Unfortunately, none of the names mentioned as members of the new “troupe royale des pygmées” match any of those known to have collaborated with La Grille. The signatories on the police report were, Vaudier, who had collaborated with the “troupe royale des pygmées” at the fair theaters over the previous eight days. Vaudier had his own marionette troupe called the “grandes marionnettes de Monseigneur le

Dauphin,” the same troupe that would collaborate with another marionette troupe at the fairgrounds. Because he declared himself unable to read or sign his name, one François Aubry signed on behalf of the “troupe des pygmées.” A third name, Bernard Desjardins, also appears.

Though it is possible Aubry and Desjardins were associated with La Grille’s original troupe, their names are not listed among those on the aforementioned formal complaint.46 The fate of the

“troupe royale des pygmées” hereafter is unknown. Campardon suggests they may have continued to perform but were completely suppressed only a few years later.47 Nothing is mentioned of their repertory at the fairgrounds in the report other than an affiche from their theater that announced, “The troupe royale des pygmées established at the Fair of Saint Laurent vis-à-vis the two-headed man, will perform every day during said time all the pleasures of the fair in miniature.”48

46 The signatories were La Grille, Jean-François Picquet, François Martin, Joseph Antheaume, Bigot, and Le Franc. La Gorce, 225, 233.

47 Campardon, Les spectacles de la foire, vol. 2, 287.

48 Campardon, Les spectacles de la foire, vol. 1, 398. “La troupe royale des pygmées etablie à la Foire Saint-Laurent vis-à-vis l’homme à deux têtes, représentera tous les jours pendant ledit temps tous les plaisirs de la foire en petit…”

The Franco-Dutch War and the Function of Political Allegory

The extant librettos from La Grille’s troupe demonstrate that the fair theater repertory shared or borrowed key aspects of the repertory of the royal theaters. In their attempts to compete with the royal theaters, the practitioners at the fair theaters treated similar subject matter, used the conventions of pre-existing theatrical genres, or often imbued their works with the allegorical function of glorifying the king or reinforcing the goals of the monarchy. The plots of La Grille’s repertory, for example, borrow elements from classic French theater, especially the pastorale’s pairs of lovers and supernatural elements. La Gorce has already identified similarities in episodes from the plots of La Grille’s works and individual Lully operas. Here, I argue that the repertory of La Grille’s troupe, much like the contemporary works of the royal theaters, also contained overt political allegories that celebrated recent military victories of the Bourbon monarchy over their long-time rivals, the Hapsburgs.

The first extant libretto from La Grille’s troupe from the Théâtre du Marais is the eponymous Les pygmées, a reference to the marionettes themselves as well as the subject matter of the piece. The libretto contains an intriguing foreword that describes the story’s background while functioning as an avertissement. During his brief time at the Théâtre du Marais, La Grille tried to equal the scale and extravagance of the royal theaters in terms of staging and scenery, despite having to use marionettes. In addition to the requisite flying chariots, this included a large-scale aerial military battle between the pygmies and the flying cranes, the long-billed birds that are depicted on ancient Greek pottery. While the anonymous author of Les pygmées promised “novelty,” “agreeable pleasures,” and “the gallant” without resorting to baseness, he also assured the audience that the piece would be similar to the contemporary works of the royal theaters. It would include “music, ballet, flying machines of a new invention, and scenery

87 changes” on a “vast and superb stage.”49 Indeed, the Théâtre du Marais had become renowned for its mechanical capabilities after the theater was rebuilt and modernized in 1644 after having burned down the previous year. In the second part of the letter, the author attempts to legitimize the use of marionettes in lieu of live actors. He argued they are not “soulless” as some critics had claimed, but instead contained three souls each. The three souls referred to the number of persons that were required to operate a single marionette. Attempting to further legitimize the use of marionettes, the author associates the dolls with classic Greek literature, comparing his marionettes to Erulus, who was born with three lives (see book 8 of Virgil’s Aenead). It also seems from the author’s description that they were capable of “dancing and singing.” This is confirmed in Visé’s report the following year in which he described La Grille’s marionettes as

“much improved” and claimed that “they do not dance badly, but they sing too loudly to be able to sing well for a long while.”50

Though the particular subject matter of Les pygmées had not been treated before on the

Parisian stages, it was still derived from episodes in Greek mythology and literature, much like the repertory of the royal theaters. From the Greek pygmaîos, Les pygmées referred not to any specific or actual peoples but rather to the diminutive warriors of Greek mythology who were said to be descendants of Pygmaeus, son of Dorus. Mention of the pygmies appears in Greek literature as early as Homer’s Iliad, where they are described at the beginning of book 3 as being

49 Les pygmées (Paris: 1678), 6. “…sur un vaste et superbe théâtre representer des pièces en cinq actes, ornées de musique, de ballets, de machines volantes d’une invention toute nouvelle, et de changements de décorations…”

50 Le nouveau mercure galant (Paris: Thomas Amaulry, 1677), 29. Originally cited and translated by Powell, 67. “Elles se sont déjà perfectionnées, elles ne dansent pas mal, mais elles chantent trop haut pour pouvoir chanter bien longtemps…”

88 slaughtered by swarms of cranes who had migrated from the winter storms.51 Later Greek writings also refer to the ongoing battle between the pygmies and the cranes. The subject of two perennial rivals in the midst of a large-scale war was especially relevant in France in the 1670s with the ongoing Franco-Dutch War. Drawing on the theme of these perennial rivals, the main action of La Grille’s Les pygmées centers on an aerial-military battle between the cranes and the pygmies which forms the entirety of act III. Act IV is a celebratory parade of the pygmies. By contrast, acts I and II focus on mismatched pairs of lovers. The king of the pygmies has promised his two daughters to two of his favorite generals. However, his oldest daughter, Parvulie, will not comply since she is in love with Timas, a warrior believed to be dead. Unable to decide who will marry his youngest daughter, Pichonine, the king decides to award her to the general responsible for defeating the cranes. Pichonine meanwhile falls in love with Bélus, but it is believed that he has died in battle. Pichonine thus has to marry another general, Picolus, until it is discovered that

Bélus is alive. This convoluted love story is typical of pastorale plots. Moreover, act II ends with a pastoral scene with shepherds singing an air about the power of love.

In a society where public spectacle reaffirmed the actions of the monarchy, audiences would have viewed the subject matter of Les pygmées as an allegory for the Franco-Dutch War, which had begun just four years prior to the debut of La Grille’s troupe in 1676. And similarly to the way the allegorical prologues of Lully’s operas functioned, an epilogue following act V in

Les pygmées serves to glorify the king. Moreover, this epilogue was intended to reaffirm the audience’s faith in the king’s prerogatives, to help increase national pride during the war, and to project an image of victory, despite the troubling reality of the war. Here, Mars reminds the audience of the current and past glory of the French nation, stating that “France is at present so

51 Leonard Schmitz, “Pygmaeus,” in A Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology, vol. 3, ed. William Smith (London: Murray, 1876), 606. 89 famous an empire.” Louis XIV had been trying continually to weaken the House of Habsburg and to expand the French empire north. Yet he had failed to conquer the Spanish Netherlands in the War of Devolution in 1667.52 Just a few years after signing the Peace of Aix-la-Chapelle in

1668 he declared war on the Dutch in 1672. The second half of 1675 was calamitous for the

French. Following the unexpected death of the illustrious general, Henri de La Tour d’Auvergne,

Viscount of Turenne, the French armies fled Sassbach, Germany, and meanwhile suffered another devastating loss in Trier, Germany. Even though it had been a disastrous year, the king’s generals sought to project a positive image of the war effort to Louis XIV, even going so far as to present him with a commemorative book that highlighted the accomplishments of the war.53

Thus the theatrical works at the royal theaters during this time sought to reinforce the victorious image of the war effort being portrayed by the monarchy. For example, the foreword of Thomas

Corneille’s Circé from March 1675 opens by praising the military accomplishments of the king:

The grand conquests of the king and the important victories that he has won over his enemies, having set the glory of France at the highest point it has ever been, the whole world has envied him while witnessing his joy on different occasions, or special festivities, or public spectacles.54

In this context, the plot of Les pygmées, based on a war between two perennial foes, the pygmies and cranes, would have been clearly viewed by audiences as an allegory for the Bourbons and the Habsburgs. The spectacular battle staged in act III thus most likely alluded to specific battles

52 On the circumstances of the Franco-Dutch War, see Paul Sonnino, “Louis XIV and the Dutch War,” in Louis XIV and Europe, ed. Ragnild Hatton (Columbus: Ohio State University Press, 1976), 153–78 and John A. Lynn, The Wars of Louis XIV 1667–1714 (London: Longman, 1999).

53 Sonnino, 164.

54 This foreword from the libretto is republished in John S. Powell, “Charpentier’s Music for Circé (1675),” in Marc-Antoine Charpentier: un musician retrouvé, ed. Catherine Cessac (Sprimont, Belgium: Mardaga, 2005), 347–64. “Les grandes conquêtes du roi, et les importantes victoires qu’il a remportées sur ses ennemis, ayant mis la gloire de la France au plus haut point où elle ait jamais été, tout le monde a tâché à l’envie d’en témoigner sa joie en différentes occasions, ou par des réjouissances particulieres, ou par des divertissements publics.”

90 that the French had won. The battle scene from Les pygmées, which most likely premiered in the fall of 1676, may have brought to mind one of two important naval victories for the French on the Sicilian front. In the spring and summer of 1676, the French navy had succeeded handily in the Battle of Augusta on April 22 and the Battle of Palermo on June 2. The following year in the prologue of Lully’s Isis, Neptune and his followers celebrate victories at sea, an obvious reference to these naval battles of 1676. In scene 2 of the prologue of Isis Neptune proclaims,

“My empire has served as a theater for the war; publicize these new feats: it is the same victor so famous on land who triumphs again on the waters.”55

La Grille’s Repertory and the Pastorale

Although La Grille’s second work, Les amours de Microton, turned markedly away from the bellicose and the classical subject matter typical of Quinault-Lully operas, it still borrowed from the contemporaneous genre of the pastorale. The typical conventions of the pastorale, including character types, setting, subject matter, and plot archetypes, are all apparent in La

Grille’s Les amours de Microton. Les amours de Microton can also be understood as a drama in competition with the royal theaters that is modeled on pre-existing genres, drawing on the conventions that were greatly appreciated by audiences. Yet in the 1670s, fully-sung French opera began to surpass the popularity of pastorales, and thus pastorales after 1670 started to adopt the characteristics of operas, including chorus numbers and ballet scenes. Thus the inclusion of ballet scenes in Les amours de Microton situates it not with the pastorales from the early seventeenth century, but rather with contemporary pastorales that were being produced at

55 Jean-Baptiste Lully and Philippe Quinault, Isis, tragédie en musique ornée d’entrées de ballet, de machines, et de changements de théâtre (Paris: Christophe Ballard, 1677). “Mon empire a servi de théâtre à la guerre; publiez des exploits nouveaux: C’est le meme vainqueur si fameux sur la terre qui triomphe encore sur les eaux.”

91 the royal theaters. The anonymous author describes Les amours de Microton in the libretto as a

“cheerful tragedy interspersed with singular and entertaining ornaments.” Despite this description, its bucolic setting and cast of shepherds, shepherdesses, and sorcerers better situate

Les amours de Microton within the pastorale tradition rather than the tragic tradition. The pastorale commonly featured pairs of lovers, who appear as the primary characters in Les amours de Microton: the shepherd Silvandre and the shepherdess Philis. However, the shepherd

Microton, who is also in love with Philis, mistakenly believes that Philis is in love with him. To remedy the situation, Philis’s friend Dorine enlists the help of a sorcerer, Orcan, to cast a spell on

Microton forcing him to no longer be in love with her. Orcan eventually fulfills their request and the lovers are reunited in act IV. French pastorales of the seventeenth century also contained supernatural scenes, which were known as merveilleux.56 These spectacular elements, which included monsters, sorcerers, magic spells, fountains, and gods, among others, appeared alongside the serene, idyllic world of shepherds and shepherdesses. A merveilleux scene takes place in act IV of Les amours de Microton, culminating with a fire-breathing dragon so horrifying it causes Microton to faint. Anthony has argued that the contrast between the merveilleux and the natural contributed greatly to the dramatic effectiveness of pastorales.57 The simple intrigue of a shepherd-shepherdess pair of lovers, Silvandre and Philis, clashing with a scorned shepherd, Microton, also fits the typical subject matter of the pastorale from this time.

Occasionally the web of spurned lovers was more complex and often led the characters to renounce love altogether at the play’s conclusion. This happens in the pastorale Le triomphe de

56 Anthony, 84.

57 Ibid., 85.

92 l’amour sur des bergers et bergères (1655) by Charles de Bey and Michel de La Guerre.58

Similarly, in Les amours de Microton, Microton, after being cured of his love for Philis, renounces love altogether. In lieu of the actual dialogue scenes from Les amours de Microton, the libretto provides only brief descriptions of the dramatic action in between the couplets of each musical number. Other dramatic pastorales often mixed spoken dialogue with songs, but increasingly were sung-through after the 1650s. Les amours de Microton also contained a substantial ballet component, including eight danced entrées and other various divertissements characteristic of those in contemporary operas.

La Grille’s Repertory and the Tragédie en machines

In addition to sharing aspects of the pastorale, the two marionette plays by La Grille’s troupe also resembled the popular machine plays of the 1670s which were often referred to as tragédies en machines. In particular, Thomas Corneille’s machine play Circé in 1675 with its staggering run of 76 performances (when 40 performances were considered extraordinary) at the

Hôtel de Guénégaud season may have influenced La Grille. The tragédie en machines appeared in France in the 1640s based on models from the theaters in Italy.59 In fact, Cardinal Richelieu and Cardinal Mazarin both brought noteworthy Italian set designers to Paris, the most famous of whom was Giacomo Torelli.60 These sets commonly featured flying machines, oceans, monsters, and sunsets. Moreover, most theatrical productions in Paris in the seventeenth century involved

58 Ibid. Anthony offers Le triomphe de l’amour sur des bergers et bergères as an example of a typical pastorale plot. There are two shepherds and two shepherdesses, all of whom love a different person in the group. However, all of them are scorned by the one they desire. Abandoning love, they all celebrate their freedom from love’s rules.

59 Peter France, “Machine Play (pièce à machines),” in The New Oxford Companion to Literature in French, ed. Peter France (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1995).

60 Ibid.

93 extravagant staging and machinery. Phaeton’s flying chariot from Lully’s tragédie en musique

Phaëton (1683) is a famous example.61 While the mise-en-scène in a machine play was often integral to the storyline, occasionally the emphasis on spectacle and extravagance overshadowed the unities of classical French tragedy. Machine plays after the 1660s increasingly resembled operas. Claude Boyer’s machine play Les amours de Jupiter et de Sémélé (1666) is an excellent example of this.62 La Grille’s productions surely benefited from the capabilities for spectacular special effects at the Théâtre du Marais. The battle scene in Les pygmées would have certainly allowed the engineers to showcase their skill and creativity with aerial effects. The final divertissement of act V of Les amours de Microton also provided the opportunity for grandiose machine effects, exploiting the superimposed dual-stage structure of the Théâtre du Marais.

Here, the libretto calls for an entire mountainside to suddenly appear with shepherds, shepherdesses, and flocks of animals:

Silvandre and Philis go to think about the preparations of their wedding: however, one discovers a great mountain on the second theater, some shepherds and shepherdesses who guard their flock descend to the sound of flutes and oboes, after which one sings this minuet.63

Spectators may have also been in awe of the pyrotechnics and machine effects in the scene wherein “a large dragon comes out next, he launches fire from his mouth, and flies away after spewing forth a frog, Microton, completely terrified, obliges Orcan to send the goblins away.”64

61 The original designs for Phaeton’s chariot are reproduced in François Lesure’s musical iconography, L’opéra classique français: XVIIe et XVIIIe siècles (Geneva: Minkoff, 1972), 53.

62 Anthony, 83.

63 Les amours de Microton, ou les charmes d’Orcan (Paris), 24. No date or publisher is provided. “Silvandre et Philis vont songer aux apprêts de leur noce: cependant on découvre une grande montagne au second théâtre, des bergers et bergeres qui gardent leur troupeau, et en descendent au son des flutes et hautbois, après quoi l’on chante ce menuet.”

64 Les amours de Microton, ou les charmes d’Orcan, 18. “Un gros dragon sort en suite; il jette du feu par la gueule, et s’envole après avoir vomi une grenouille, dont Microton tout épouvanté oblige Orcan d’envoyer les lutins…” 94

Musical Structure in La Grille’s Repertory

In terms of their structure, Les pygmées and Les amours de Microton are examples of the mixed genre in that they both combined spoken dialogue and song. Les pygmées and Les amours de Microton also have substantial musical components. For example, Les pygmées contains seventeen numbers (see Table 2.2) and Les amours de Microton contains twenty-eight different musical numbers (see Table 2.3). It is possible that La Grille composed the scores for Les pygmées and Les amours de Microton himself since it is known that he had previously written music for other theatrical works.65 Les amours de Microton also shows an expanded vocal role from the eight sung numbers in Les pygmées to a total of nineteen. There are eight danced entrées in addition to incidental music that accompanies stage effects. The incidental music in

Les pygmées seems to have played a greater role than in Les amours de Microton, particularly in the lengthy battle scene where a symphony accompanied the stage action. Of the nineteen vocal numbers in Les amours de Microton, eleven are solo airs, four are choruses, and two are duets.

The airs are all labeled in the libretto as “chansons” and are typically short. For example, nine of the eleven solos contain only one stanza of four or six lines. One of these vocal solos is specified as a chanson à boire or drinking song. These were not bawdy or obscene tavern songs, but rather lighthearted airs on the themes of indulgence, pleasure, Bacchus, or good wine. Chansons à boire commonly appeared in theatrical works in the late seventeenth century, particularly when the subject matter was lighthearted or emphasized pleasure. For example the third entrée of

Lully’s mascarade Le carnaval from 1668 contains a chanson à boire.66 It is not clear exactly

65 Powell, Music and Theatre in France, 43–44. When the Marquis de Sourdéac founded an opera company in the 1660s, he commissioned Pierre Perrin as a librettist and Robert Cambert and La Grille as the composers.

66 Jean-Baptiste Lully, Le carnaval, mascarade mise en musique (1675; Paris: Christophe Ballard, 1720).

Table 2.2. List of Musical Numbers in Les pygmées. Act I 1. incidental symphony 2. two officers chanson Act II 3. Parvulie chanson lament about Timas 4. Parvulie chanson “air” 5. two shepherds duet 6. two shepherds duet “air” 7. two shepherds entrée Act III 8. incidental symphony “to the sound of a symphony” “the pygmies withdraw to the sound of instruments playing 9. incidental fanfare some fanfares” 10. entrée “form an entrée de ballet….to the sound of instruments” 11. chorus chanson “victory song (chant de victoire)” Act IV 12. persons of quality entrée “a very gallant entrée de ballet” 13. persons of quality chanson Act V 14. Francine chanson 15. winegrowers chanson 16. winegrowers chanson 17. ensemble entrée

how many singers were needed to cover all the vocal parts of the marionettes in either Les pygmées or Les amours de Microton. In Les amours de Microton, Microton has the leading role with four solos, while the other main characters, such as Dorine, Orcan, and Elise, have only one or two solo airs. The parts of Silvandre and Philis are not singing roles, so it is possible that the entire piece could have been performed with only a handful of singers and a small chorus. It is also not clear from the libretto if the choral numbers were scored for unison or part singing.

Although there are no specific records for the size of the orchestra, La Grille spent a considerable sum of money to stage these works. Flutes, oboes, and violins are all mentioned in the libretto of

Les amours de Microton. A fanfare is called for in act III of Les pygmées. Flutes and oboes are also used with their customary association with pastoral settings. In act V of Les amours de

Table 2.3. List of Musical Numbers in Les amours de Microton, ou les charmes d’Orcan Act I 1. Dorine chanson 2. Microton chanson 3. group of hunters chanson 4 group of hunters entrée Act II a shepherd and “they are interrupted by oboes, a shepherd and a shepherdess 5. chanson (duet) shepherdess singing” 6. Orcan chanson 7. statues chanson “the statues dance and sing” “the statues are changed into gardeners who perform a very 8. gardeners entrée beautiful entrée” Act III 9. Dorine chanson 10. Microton chanson 11. Elise chanson 12. four magicians entrée 13. Orcan chanson “after striking their wands, the vases, who change into figures, four magicians and 14. entrée mingle with them, and comprising some figured steps, perform vases the most entertaining entrée” 15. Love chanson Act IV “a Bohemian dances a sarabande with some castanets in an 16. a Bohemian sarabande extraordinary manner” 17. Elise, Orcan chanson (duet) 18. demons chanson

19. Microton chanson “The magician makes eight demons appear from a horrifying 20. demons entrée cavern that represents the Les enfers. Their entrée is made of extraordinary steps and sauts.” Act V 21. a shepherd chanson 22. a cook chanson 23. Microton drinking song four shepherds and 24. entrée shepherdesses four shepherds and 25. gavotte (sung) shepherdesses shepherds and on a second stage, “some shepherds and shepherdesses who 26. incidental music shepherdesses guard their flocks, descending to the sound of flutes and oboes” shepherds and 27. minuet (sung) shepherdesses shepherds and “the minuet has finished, the shepherds and shepherdesses dance 28. entrée shepherdesses from top to bottom to the sound of oboes, violins, and flutes.”

Microton, a group of shepherds and shepherdesses appear on a mountainside descending “to the sound of flutes and oboes.” They are later accompanied by oboes, flutes, and violins.

The substantial musical components of Les pygmées and Les amours de Microton further situate La Grille’s repertory with the contemporaneous genres of opera, the pastorale, and the tragédie en machines. While opera, being fully sung, had the most substantial musical component of the genres from this time, the pastorale and the tragédie en machines were not lacking significant musical parts. The structure of Charpentier’s score for Circé, with its twenty musical numbers primarily comprising “chansons” and danced entrées is very similar to the musical structures of Les pygmées and Les amours des Microton, which contained seventeen and twenty musical numbers respectively. As La Grille appropriated much from the works of the royal theaters in terms of scenery, staging, subject matter, and plot, it is likely that the music composed for this repertory was also based on models from operas, pastorales, and tragédies en machines.

The Troupe de la Forces de l’Amour et de la Magie, 1678–1680

A few years after La Grille’s troupe premiered at the Théâtre du Marais, a troupe of tightrope dancers and acrobats performed a series of original comedies at the fair theaters. From this troupe, the “Troupe de la Forces de l’Amour et de la Magie,” three librettos survive, all dating from 1678. Like La Grille, the troupe’s founders, two dancers who worked at the royal theaters prior to 1678, sought to create their own spectacle in an entrepreneurial spirit. Their repertory likewise borrowed elements from the royal theaters on a smaller scale. As discussed in chapter 1, these particular pieces became important in the history of opéra-comique as they were cited by eighteenth-century historians as the first predecessors of the comédie en vaudevilles.

While these pieces had substantial musical components, there is no evidence in the librettos that they used vaudevilles. Instead music played an integral role in accompanying the action on stage and the numerous dance numbers. As these pieces largely focused on dance and acrobatics, which was the expertise of its performers, vocal music had only a small role. Just as in the royal theaters, these comedies had an allegorical function, featuring overt encomiastic sections devoted to the king.

The troupe’s founders had both enjoyed associations with the royal theaters in Paris since the early 1670s. The avertissement from the libretto of their first work acknowledges that

Charles Alard and Maurice Vondrebeck founded the troupe. Like La Grille’s troupe, they named themselves after the title of their premiere piece, Les forces de l’amour et de la magie, performed at the fair theaters in 1678. It seems that these two entrepreneurs, whose backgrounds were primarily in dance and acrobatics, were hardly amateurs. Important biographical information on

Alard and Vondrebeck comes mainly from Barry Russell.67 The name “Alard” appears alongside those of some of the most illustrious dancers in Paris, Pierre Beauchamp and Louis Pécourt, in the premiere cast of Lully’s Thésée in 1674.68 Russell also points out that the name Alard is mentioned in performances of Molière’s Le malade imaginaire (1673) and Montfleury’s Le comédien poète in 1674 and 1675 in the registres of the Guénégaud Theater.69 Vondrebeck, originally from Germany, also danced with the royal troupes, notably as a sauteur in Molière’s

67 The following biographical details are found in sources originally cited by Barry Russell on his site “Le Théâtre de la foire à Paris: textes, documents, chronologie, biographies,” at http://www.foires.univ-nantes.fr.

68 See Théodore de Lajarte, Bibliothèque musicale du théâtre de l’Opéra: Catalogue historique, chronologique, anecdotique, vol. 1 (Paris: Librairie des bibliophiles, 1878), 26. Lajarte lists “les sieurs Beauchamp, Alard, Pécourt, De l’Estang” as the “sacrificateurs, Grecs, viellards.” Originally cited by Russell at http://www.foires.univ-nantes.fr.

69 See the the foreword to Janet Clarke’s edition of Thomas Corneille, Circé (Exeter: University of Exeter Press, 1989). Originally cited by Russell at http://www.foires.univ-nantes.fr.

99 troupe in a performance before the king in 1671 of Molière’s and Corneille’s Pysché.70 In act I of

Molière’s comédie-ballet Le ballet des ballets, the name “Maurice” [Vondrebeck] appears as one of “two goblins making perilous sauts” in the entrée of furies and goblins, also performed before the king in December of 1671.71

Apollo on the Fair Theater Stage: Glorifying the Sun King

Les forces de l’amour et de la magie is modeled after contemporaneous genres from the royal theaters. Les forces de l’amour et de la magie treats the typical subject matter of a pastorale, with shepherds, shepherdesses, sorcerers, and demons. Although it was performed by a troupe of acrobats and tightrope dancers at the fair theaters, the play appropriated many other aspects of the royal theatrical repertory, including a plot archetype, its subject matter, its musical-balletic component, and most prominently, its allegorical function of reaffirming the power and grandeur of the monarchy. The plot of Les forces de l’amour et de la magie resembles the basic trajectory of a common Molière plot archetype, where a servant of low birth gets the better of his master and a moral is given at the end of the play. Les forces de l’amour et de la magie begins with Merlin lamenting his lowly status as the servant of Zoroaster, who is in love with the shepherdess Grésinde. She asks Merlin to protect her from Zoroaster’s advances, but

Merlin reveals that he is simply not powerful enough to help her. Grésinde is then abducted by

Zoroaster’s demons and taken to his palace. In a monologue that ends act I, Merlin vows to save

Grésinde and concludes that the only way to save her will be to outsmart Zoroaster. At a feast

Zoroaster has prepared to impress Grésinde, Zoroaster attempts to win her affection but threatens

70 Originally cited by Russell at http://www.foires.univ-nantes.fr. See Marie-Françoise Christout, Le ballet de cour de Louis XIV 1643–1672 (Paris: Picard, 1967).

71 Originally cited by Russell at http://www.foires.univ-nantes.fr. Molière, Le ballet des ballets (Paris: Robert Ballard, 1671), 22. 100 to use magic if she refuses. The remainder of the act takes the form of a divertissement while

Zoroaster’s retinue entertains Grésinde with a series of spectacles, creating a type of performance-within-a-play. After finally agreeing to Zoroaster’s proposition, Grésinde attempts to delay his advances while escaping to seek the help of Juno. After she returns, Grésinde suddenly disappears when Zoroaster tries to embrace her and a demon appears in her place.

Zoroaster has a change of heart and laments how he imposed on Grésinde.

While no score survives, the libretto of Les forces de l’amour et la magie offers some insight into the role of music in the early repertory of the danseurs de corde.72 While its cast of main characters is small, the advertisement reports that the performance contained twenty-four of the “most illustrious sauteurs, to have ever appeared in France.”73 There are at least thirteen numbers in the libretto. These are mostly incidental music to accompany the dance numbers and acrobatic scenes (see Table 2.4). The piece begins with “a very pleasant overture” played by the oboes. There are several moments in the drama where the action halts to allow for tightrope exercises and other acrobatic routines. Based on Bonnet’s accounts of the danseurs de corde, it is safe to assume that these would have been accompanied by music. In act I, scene 1 of Les forces de l’amour et la magie, the stage directions indicate that “an acrobat is seen who appears to fly from one end of the theater to the other.”74 There were also extensive musical scenes in which several numbers appear in succession similar to the structure of a divertissement. For example, in act II, scene 4, four shepherds dance an entrée. This is followed by another solo entrée, and then

72 A transcription of the libretto is provided in Claude Parfaict and François Parfaict, Mémoires, vol. 1, lvi– lxxix. It is also republished by d’Auriac in Théâtre de la foire avec un essai historique sur les spectacles forains, 57–71.

73 Claude Parfaict and François Parfaict, Mémoires, vol. 1, liv.

74 Ibid., lix. “On voit un sauteur qui semble voler d’un bout à l’autre du théâtre.” 101

Table 2.4. Musical Structure of Les forces de l’amour et de la magie (1678) Act I orchestra overture “the oboes play a very pleasing overture” scene 1 ——— incidental acrobatic scene scene 2 demons dance “figured steps” scene 3 demons dance Act II scene 4 four shepherds entrée a dancer entrée four shepherds entrée Arlequin gigue demons, monkeys incidental acrobatic scene four dancers as polichinelles entrée Act III scene 4 a demon incidental acrobatic scene scene 5 Merlin sarabande “he dances a sarabande of nine postures”

the four shepherds return to dance a new entrée. Arlequin and an acrobat then dance a gigue.

Next follows an acrobatic display led by a group of demons who are accompanied by monkeys.

After some “perilous sauts,” four Polichinelles dance another entrée to finish the second act. The placement of these numbers at the end of an act also conforms to the conventional placement of a divertissement. Although operatic divertissements were not always integrated into the dramatic action, in this example the divertissement functioned as a play-within-a-play. Here, Zoroaster had planned this performance as dinner entertainment to impress Grésinde. It is also important to note that the closing number is a danced sarabande, rather than a vocal number. Most likely performed by one of the troupe’s founders, the libretto calls for Merlin to dance a final solo: “He dances a sarabande with nine postures, the names of which follow: (1) the staircase, (2) the cradle, (3) the fountain, (4) the great route, (5) the lantern, (6) the pyramid, (7) the chevrons, (8) the forces of magic, (9) the grand posture.”75

75 Claude Parfaict and François Parfaict, Mémoires, vol. 1, lxxix. “Il danse une sarabande à neuf postures, dont voice les noms. 1. L’escalier. 2. Le berceau. 3. La fontaine. 4. La grande route. 5. Le fanal. 6. La pyramide. 7. 102

For their next piece, the troupe of Alard and Vondrebeck performed a brief, three-act comedy titled Circé en postures, which again demonstrates the troupe’s reliance on the repertory of the royal theaters.76 Like La Grille’s Les pygmées, the plot of Circé en postures is drawn from an episode of Greek literature. Although the story is not a parody of any specific pre-existing piece, it is loosely based on the story of Odysseus and Circe from book 10 of Homer’s Odyssey.

In Homer’s account, Odysseus stumbles upon the island of the sorceress Circe who is notorious for changing people into animals. After half of his crew has been turned into pigs, Odysseus ingratiates himself with Circe and convinces her to return his crew to their human form. She obliges his request and Odysseus’s crew happily enjoys their remaining stay on the island.

Parisian audiences were well acquainted with the Homeric story as well as other versions of the

Odysseus and Circe myth.77 Claude Boyer wrote a tragicomedy Ulysse dans l’isle de Circé; ou,

Euriloche foudroyé in 1648 based mainly on Homer’s version. In 1661, the story was revisited in

Montfleury’s Les bêtes raisonnables. The premiere of Corneille’s machine play Circé in 1675 was apparently troubling enough to prompt Lully to seek the prohibition of professional singers or dancers at performances by the French comedians.78 However, Corneille’s Circé is based on a

Les chevrons. 8. Les forces de la magie. 9. La grande posture.”

76 Circé en postures (Paris, 1678). The title page from the libretto that was distributed at the fair theaters describes the piece as a “récit du divertissement comique divisé en trois parties, et representé par les sauteurs ètablis au Jeu de paulme d’Orléans, Fauxbourg Saint Germain, pendant la foire, par permission du roi, sous le nom de la troupe des forces de l’amour et de la magie (story of a comic divertissement divided into three parts, performed by the acrobats established at the Jeu de paulme d’Orléans, Faubourg Saint Germain, during the fair, by permission of the king, under the name of the troupe des forces de l’amour et de la magie.”

77 Derek F. Connon, “Animal Instincts: Homer, Plutarch, and La Fontaine Go to the Fair,” in French Seventeenth-Century Literature: Influences and Transformations: Essays in Honour of Christopher J. Gossip, ed. Jane Southwood and Bernard Bourque (New York: Peter Lang, 2009), 82.

78 Powell, Music and Theatre in France, 65. Powell writes, “This new ordinance noted that professional singers were hired under the pretense of being regular company members; it therefore stipulated that the two singers permitted them were to be actors. The company’s forced compliance prompted Pierre Bayle to remark: ‘if Molière’s troupe were permitted to perform with music, dance, and instruments according to their wishes, Circé would tower above all operas performed until now.’”

103 love story about Glaucus, Scylla, and Circe from book 14 of Ovid’s of Metamorphoses.79 While the constituent elements of the Homeric story are there, Circé en postures is only loosely based on the original myth. The story acts instead as a familiar background for acrobatics, dancing, stage effects, and, a socially-instructive moral. In Circé en postures, Odysseus’s crew has already been turned into animals. Circe, who is in love with Odysseus, agrees to turn his crew back into humans if he will return her affections. Odysseus reluctantly acquiesces to the arrangement while Circe threatens him not to break his end of the deal. Offended by her reaction,

Odysseus leads his crew away from the island. In the final act, Circe admits her wrongdoing and a celebration takes place in which laurels are presented at a temple in honor of Apollo. A troupe of dancers dressed in Apollo masks performs while promising to celebrate Apollo’s name every year. Louis XIV, who famously compared himself to Apollo, the god of the sun, derived the epithet of “Sun King” from this association. It is perhaps this scene that prompted Campardon to assert that Louis XIV attended a performance of this piece at the fair theaters. However, there is no evidence of this claim.

As we have seen with the other works in this chapter, the fair theater repertory in the seventeenth century greatly appropriated the form and style of the royal theatrical repertory.

Moreover, the fair theater repertory imitated the allegorical function of the royal theatrical repertory with its use of epilogues that glorified the king. In addition to these aspects, the fair theater repertory of the seventeenth century is further linked to the royal theatrical repertory through the borrowing of particular scenes from specific works. For example, a scene from Circé en postures in which Circe summons up a storm from the underworld with demons and furies is reminiscent of a scene from La Grille’s Les amours de Microton in which Orcan does the same.

79 Connon, 82. Connon also explores how the Circe story later appeared, particularly in La Fontaine’s twelfth book of fables and a vaudeville comedy titled Les animaux raisonnables by Louis Fuzelier. 104

La Gorce has already pointed out the similarity between this scene in La Grille’s Les amours de

Microton and act III of Lully’s Thésée.

Like Les forces de l’amour et de la magie, Circé en postures also contained a substantial musical component (see Table 2.5). It is possible that stricter enforcement of the Académie royale de musique’s restrictions caused the musical component to be reduced. There is no indication of an overture, though an instrumental number likely preceded the performance.

Again, the main role of the music was in the balletic or acrobatic numbers, many of which were ensemble dances. In act I, for example, after having been turned into polichinelles, Odysseus’s men join the animals in an acrobatic routine. There is also a grandiose underworld scene with aerial effects, monsters, and demons. A few specific dance forms are given. For example,

Elpenor dances a sarabande while Love descends to Odysseus from the top of the stage with a bow and arrow.

The closing diverstissement in honor of the king, still remained the most important musical number. The description of the closing scene also indicates that it was the most substantial musical scene in the piece:

The [twelve] influences make eight of the most surprising postures one after the other, interspersed with extraordinarily perilous sauts, alternatively, the genies accompany different figures, now with basque drums, now with castanets, now with faces of Apollo, and thus concludes the plays of Apollo with the third part of the comic divertissement.80

It is in the divertissement honoring Louis XIV that the music and staging most resembled court spectacle through the use of a large ensemble, elaborate costumes, dancing, acrobatics, and additional percussion instruments.

80 Circé en postures, 16. “Les influences font huit postures plus surprenantes les unes que les autres, entremêlées de sauts périlleux extraordinaires, que les genies accompagnent alternativement de différentes figures, tantôt avec des tambours de basques, tantôt avec des castagnettes, tantôt avec des faces de Soleil, et finissent ainsi les jeux du Soleil avec la troisième partie du divertissement comique.”

105

Table 2.5. Musical Structure of Circé en postures (1678) Part I “…make two postures, one called the force of 1. Odysseus’s crew as animals and polichinelles dance animals and the other la tour.” 2. Odysseus’s crew as animals and polichinelles incidental acrobatic scene 3. demons incidental acrobatic scene Part II 4. Elpenor, Sinaric incidental acrobatic scene 5. Circé, demons, monsters incidental storm scene 6. Elpenor sarabande “shepherds, fauns, and woodcutters join together 7. shepherds, fauns, woodcutters dance and finish the second part” Act III 8. Elpenor air “the influences make eight of the most surprising 9. Elpenor, Sinaric, genies, influences dance postures…with extraordinary perilous acrobatics…with Basque drums…with castanets.”

Connections between Molière and the Repertory of the Troupe of Alard and Vondrebeck

Les forces de l’amour et de la magie and Circé en postures are further connected to the royal theatrical repertory via a common plot archetype from Molière’s oeuvre. This connection to Molière’s comedies may be attributable to Alard’s and Vondrebeck’s past experience dancing the repertory of Molière. Alard’s and Vondrebeck’s comedy Les forces de l’amour et de la magie is also reminiscent of Molière through its emphasis on social reversal. Albert Bermel has shown that the plot archetype of a servant outwitting his master is characteristic of the majority of

Molière’s works when a servant character has a main role.81 Les forces de l’amour et de la magie clearly follows the archetypal plot of a servant getting the better of his master in the form of a fable or conte moral. Also like the plays of Molière, there is a socially-instructive maxim at the

81 Albert Bermel, Molière’s Theatrical Bounty: A New View of the Plays (Carbonville and Edwardsville, Illinois, Southern Illinois University Press, 1990), 221. Bermel states, “In most of his plays with a principal servant’s role, male or female, Molière observes the tradition of the intriguer who is smarter than the master, honored since the days of Plautus and sustained by the commedia zanni, the Spanish graciosos, and the gallery of valets and domestics in his own comedies.”

106 conclusion. In Les forces de l’amour et de la magie the moral is delivered by Merlin in his closing monologue, “Everything through friendship and nothing by force.” This would prove to be quite an ironic message in light of the history of the fair theaters—it was the royal theaters, mainly the Comédie-Française, who continually tried to coerce the suppression of the fair theaters over the next fifty years. While Circé en postures does not feature social reversal, it has a similar plot trajectory to Les forces de l’amour et de la magie wherein an antagonistic sorcerer or sorceress uses magic to attempt to force a mortal to fall in love with him or her. In both, the protagonist ultimately overcomes this affront, Grésinde outsmarting Zoroaster through the use of magic while Odysseus abandons Circe. The antagonists in both plays, Zoroaster and Circe, undergo changes of heart and reiterate the same moral lesson. Yet in Circé en postures the king’s role in shaping morality is more prominent. Whereas Zoroaster recognizes his folly on his own, for Circe it is only through the grace of Apollo that she becomes remorseful, “Finally, my father,

Apollo, has opened my eyes; he has made known to me my error that I detest, and the betrayal of

Odysseus that I forget.”82 This type of rex ex machina ending is reminiscent of those in

Molière’s comedies. Just as the king intervenes to help Orgon’s family in Tartuffe, it is only

Apollo who can restore order on Circe’s island.

Les Divertissements de la Foire (1678)

While the third and final extant libretto from the troupe of Alard and Vondrebeck represents a departure from the preceding Molieresque comedies, it suggests differences between the audiences of the Fair of Saint Laurent, where it was performed, and the Fair of Saint

Germain, where both Les forces de l’amour et de la magie and Circé en postures were

82 Circé en postures, 15–16. “Enfin le Soleil mon père m’a ouvert les yeux; il m’a fait connaître mon erreur que je déteste, et la trahison d’Ulisse que j’oublie.”

107 performed. Martin has argued that the Fairs of Saint Laurent and Saint Germain had different social compositions based on the vendors that appeared at each fair. For example, the vendors at the Fair of Saint Laurent sold everyday merchandise such as pottery and earthenware while the primary vendors at the Fair of Saint Germain were goldsmiths and jewelers.83 In Les divertissements de la foire, performed in 1678 at the Fair of Saint Laurent, the fantastical characters of classic literature are traded for everyday people and the mythological locales for the contemporary fairgrounds of Paris.84 This type of self-referential subject matter, staging the entertainments of the fairgrounds at the fair theaters themselves, foreshadows the later polemical pieces that appeared at the fair theaters in the 1710s. There is some precedent for using the

Parisian fairgrounds as the setting and subject of a musical-theatrical work. In collaboration with a dancer for the royal household Du Moustier, Lully, at the age of nineteen, composed the music to a ballet-mascarade titled Mascarade de la Foire Saint-Germain performed at the palace of

Louis XIV’s cousin Anne-Marie-Louise d’Orléans in March 1652. Though the music is lost, the libretto of Mascarade contains nine brief entrées depicting people commonly seen at the fairgrounds. Alongside Du Moustier, who appeared dressed as a merchant, Lully himself danced

83 Martin, 10–11.

84 Récit des divertissements de la foire (Paris, 1678). “Récit des divertissements de la foire, performed by the troupe of acrobats of the forces of love and magic, Paris, is distributed in the hall where the performances are given at the fair, 1678, with the privilege of the king. The troupe of the forces of love and magic received so much applause from all the illustrious people in France at the Fair of Saint Germain, that they are committed to let new marvels be seen, of which Sirs Maurice and Alard are the creators, at the Fair of Saint Laurent, where they intend with care to earn once again the advantage of pleasing, and to let these sauteurs and these grand postures be seen, they have been obliged to add here through these sauteurs the line that follows. One will see all these beauties during the fair two times per day. (Récit des divertissements de la foire, représenté par la troupe des sauteurs des forces de l’amour et de la magie, à Paris, et se distribué dans la salle où se font les representations, à la foire. 1678. Avec privilege du roi. La troupe des forces de l’amour et de la magie a reçu tant d’applaudissements à la Foire Saint Germain par tout ce qu’il y a de personnes illustres en France, qu’elle s’est trouvée engagée de faire voir de nouveaux prodiges, dont les Sieurs Maurice et Alard sont les inventeurs, à la Foire S. Laurent, où elle pretend par ses soins de meriter encore mieux l’avantage de plaire; et pour faire voir ces sauteurs et ces grandes postures, elle a été obligée d’y joindre par ces sauteurs la liaison qui suit. L’on verra toutes ces beautes pendant la foire deux fois par jour).”

108 and sang the role of a vender of cheese pastries (crieur de ratons). In the fifth entrée, Lully boasts to the crowd of women, “I am illustrious in my métier.”85 The seventh entrée depicts a danseur de corde who is concerned only with peace, love, and harmony. A swindler is portrayed in the eighth entrée while a characterization of the exotic appears in the closing entrée of two

Egyptians and two Moors. This interpretation presented a courtly, idealized version of the fairs: a place of leisure, delight, and spectacle.

Although it shares its subject matter and setting with Lully’s Mascarade de la Foire

Saint-Germain, Les divertissements de la foire is not balletic. The semblance of a plot is vague.

The story centers on two servants, Colin and Lisette, who journey from the countryside to the

Parisian fairgrounds to organize a performance for their master Valere. During these tableaus, various entertainments and spectacles of the fairgrounds are recreated within the comedy. For example, in act II Colin and Lisette view a series of curiosities including a stone swallower, exotic animals, and a marionette performance accompanied by violins. Lacking the funds to organize the performance for Valere, Colin takes on the role of Arlequin at a fair theater troupe to earn some money. Valere, seeing that Colin and Lisette do not have the money to fund his performance, offers them his financial support. The piece ends as the audiences are invited to come see the “Troupe de la Forces de l’Amour et de la Magie” the next day.

85 Mascarade de la foire Saint Germain, 5. No publisher or date is given. “Je suis illustre en mon métier.” This libretto is currently available online at the Bibliothèque nationale de France’s digital collection “Gallica,” https://gallica.bnf.fr. 109

Troupes and Repertory of the Fair Theaters 1680–1697

Not much is known of the performing troupes of the fairs during the 1680s nor do any librettos survive from 1679–1695. However, there is documentary evidence of a performing troupe in the form of an advertising flyer (affiche) from 1681 republished by Bonnassies.86 The affiche is for a “troupe de tous les plaisirs” led by a danseur de corde named Languichard. It also announces the performance of a comedy titled L’âne de Lucien ou le voyageur ridicule. The title may again point to classical subject matter. Apuleius’s Metamorphoses is based on the misadventures of a character named Lucius (Lucien) who accidentally transforms himself into a donkey (âne) while attempting to learn the art of sorcery. Apuleius’s Metamorphoses also supplied the story of Psyché and Cupid, which formed the basis of the plots of Molière’s and

Corneille’s tragicomedy Pysché (1671) and subsequently Quinault’s and Lully’s opera Psyché

(1678). Languichard billed L’âne de Lucien as a “new comedy, ornamented with a quantity of scenery changes and surprising machines” and promised it would include “both perilous leaps and extraordinary postures with a gigue worthy of attracting the admiration of all of Paris; without forgetting the incomparable little Gilles, who holds the premiere role in the piece.”87 The announcement also provides important information about a theater located at the Fair of Saint

Germain. Here, it is learned that tickets were sold at the door and that there were also three price tiers: thirty sols to sit in a box, fifteen sols for a seat in the amphitheater, and “only seven sols” for the parterre. Thus, it can be confirmed that a veritable theater had been constructed for the

Fair of Saint Germain as early as 1681. However, Languichard’s theater did not last long as the newly-formed Comédie-Française requested that the lieutenant de police demolish

86 Bonnassies, 7.

87 Ibid., “…des saults aussi perilleux que de postures extraordinaires, avec une gigue digne d’attirer l’admiration de tout Paris; sans oublier l’incomparable petit Gilles, qui tient le premier rolle dans la piece.”

110

Languichard’s theater after his troupe violated the Comédie-Française’s monopoly privilege. The history of the “troupe de tous les plaisirs” is unknown after this point, but the name Languichard is mentioned as a danseur de corde in Alard’s troupe in 1697.88

The Troupe of Alexandre Bertrand

In 1684 a troupe of marionette performers who would enjoy a forty-year performance run debuted at the fair theaters. The troupe was established by a talented performer and ambitious entrepreneur named Alexandre Bertrand. The long history of this troupe is characterized by

Bertrand’s stubborn refusal to be suppressed by the Comédie-Française, despite numerous attempts. In the summer of 1689, Bertrand’s troupe had performed a comedy titled Le docteur de verre at the Fair of Saint Laurent.89 After having used live actors onstage alongside their marionettes, Bertrand attracted the attention of the Comédie-Française who filed a formal complaint with the lieutenant de police, La Reynie. The first sentence de police rendered against

Bertrand’s troupe is dated February 10, 1690. The commissioner Gazon had their theater demolished that same day, fined the troupe 100 livres, and threatened to imprison them if they violated the order again.90 Bertrand’s troupe may have stopped using live actors at that point because they filed an official complaint, which was written on September 30, 1694 confirming that their theater was still open.91 Though the title of a work is not given, the report concerns a man who tried to enter Bertrand’s theater without paying. When Bertrand’s sister-in-law tried to stop this unruly citizen from entering the theater he became extremely violent, drew his sword,

88 Claude Parfaict and François Parfaict, Mémoires, vol. 1, 5.

89 Bonnassies, 10.

90 Campardon, Les spectacles de la foire, vol. 2, 250.

91 Campardon, Les spectacles de la foire, vol. 1, 128.

111 and injured one of troupe’s workers. This is the last document regarding Bertrand’s troupe prior to 1699.

L’enlèvement de Proserpine, Lully, and Ballet

The last extant libretto from the fair theaters in the seventeenth century dates from 1695.

This work, L’enlèvement de Proserpine, provides yet another important example of a work from the fair theaters that borrows extensively from the royal theatrical repertory. L’enlèvement de

Proserpine is a three-act ballet based on the abduction of Persephone by Pluto, a familiar story for Parisian audiences in the late seventeenth century. Lully’s Proserpine, which premiered in a court performance at Saint-Germain-en-Laye in 1680, also focused on the story of Persephone’s abduction. Though drawn from Greek mythology, Lully’s Proserpine is unique among his operatic output since it lacks the usual protagonist-hero in the mold of Hercules or Theseus. The typical dramatic intrigue for a Quinault libretto, such as a hero conquering death (Alceste), the near-poisoning of a son by his father (Thésée), or a heroic slaying of a sea monster (Persée), is also absent. The plot instead centers on the celebration of love between Pluto and Persephone and the coronation of Persephone as queen of the underworld. Thus the emphasis falls on the visual and musical spectacle via the divertissements in a varied and elaborate staging that included the Elysian Fields, Pluto’s palace, the wilderness, and the heavens replete with flying chariots.

The anonymous fair theater piece L’enlèvement de Proserpine, though not a parody, follows the trajectory of Lully’s Prosperpine on a reduced scale. While audiences would have recognized the similarities between L’enlèvement de Proserpine and Lully’s Proserpine, there are key differences between the two pieces in the simplification of the plot. Whereas Proserpine

112 opens with Ceres leaving her daughter Persephone in her palace to be watched by Arethusa,

L’enlèvement de Proserpine begins in the palace of Pluto where a feast takes place in honor of

Persephone. Act II of L’enlèvement de Proserpine corresponds somewhat to act II of Proserpine insofar as it takes place in the countryside of Ceres and contains a celebratory divertissement performed by nymphs. Act III of L’enlèvement de Proserpine, still in Ceres’ garden, begins with

Pluto and his retinue abducting Persephone and taking her to his palace. The ballet ends with a celebratory divertissement danced by goblins, shades, and furies.

The works of the fair theaters that borrowed from contemporaneous works of the royal theaters often reduced elements of the originals, most likely due to the availability of resources and an audience preference for shorter, miniature works. L’enlèvement de Proserpine reduced the original five-act form of Quinault’s and Lully’s Proserpine down to just three acts. The cast for L’enlèvement de Proserpine was also smaller than in Proserpine. For example, there is no

Ceres, Alpheus, or Arethusa. The musical component is also reduced, but remains substantial.

There are twenty-four musical numbers in total: thirteen vocal pieces, ten dances, and one acrobatic scene (see Table 2.6). There are two lead singing roles: Pluto, who has four solo airs and a duet, and Persephone, who has two airs and a duet. Minor roles are not excluded from the singing. Pluto’s confidant, for example, has two solo airs and three duets. The dance numbers also specify relatively small ensembles. Act III, entrée 5 calls for six furies and four shades, the largest number of performers at any point in the ballet. In the absence of a score it is difficult to determine if L’enlèvement de Proserpine contains any musical borrowings from Lully’s

Proserpine. Although there are textual similarities, no textual quotations from Prosperpine appear in L’enlèvement de Proserpine. Still, audiences would have recognized similarities to act

II of Lully’s Proserpine, in which Persephone dances and sings with her

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Table 2.6. Musical Structure of L’enlèvement de Proserpine. Act I entrée 1 Pluto air entrée 2 six calibes dance entrée 3 Pluto air entrée 4 confidant, shade duet a calibe solo dance entrée 5 confidant air entrée 6 six blacksmiths dance “six blacksmiths striking hammers in cadence” entrée 7 confidant, shade duet Act II entrée 1 Persephone air entrée 2 three nymphs dance entrée 3 a nymph solo dance entrée 4 Pluto, confidant duet entrée 5 two nymphs dance entrée 6 Persephone, confidant duet entrée 7 three nymphs, three confidants dance entrée 8 a nymph solo dance entrée 9 Persephone air three female and three male entrée 10 chorus followers of Persephone entrée 11 a nymph solo dance Act III entrée 1 confidant of Pluto air entrée 2 Pluto air entrée 3 Pluto air entrée 4 goblins acrobatics “the goblins make perilous leaps and fly…” entrée 5 six furies, four shades dance

retinue of nymphs, and act II of L’enlèvement de Proserpine, entrées 5–11, in which a rustic divertissement with Persephone and her nymphs occurs.

Conclusions

The year 1697 marked the end of an era in the repertory of the fair theaters. With the dismissal of the royal Italian troupe on May 14, the fair theater troupes of the first decade of the eighteenth century turned to the characters of the commedia dell’arte and simultaneously enjoyed the collaboration of some prominent authors, several of whom had written for or would 114 later write for the Comédie-Française. Louis Fuzelier began writing for the fair theaters in 1701 followed a decade later by Alain-René Lesage.92 It is around this time that the form of the comédie en vaudevilles first emerges. Though the circumstances of the Italian troupe’s dismissal remains uncertain, it is clear that their absence provided an opportunity for the entrepreneurs of the fair theater troupes.93

The repertory of the fair theaters of the seventeenth century greatly borrowed from and imitated the repertory of the royal theaters. Here, the typical conventions of the pastorale, opera, the tragédie en machines, and ballet were appropriated to create lighthearted imitations of the royal theatrical repertory. Importantly, the primary function of the repertory of the royal theaters, its glorification and reaffirmation of the monarchy’s power and grandeur, which was acted out through allegorical prologues, is also present in the seventeenth-century repertory of the fair theaters. Whereas the fair theater pieces of the late seventeenth century seem to borrow elements from contemporaneous genres, the eighteenth-century repertory of the fair theaters that followed it had a more explicit relationship with pre-existing repertory. This relationship is seen primarily through the lens of the stock characters of the commedia dell’arte. Parody, both of opera and spoken theater, remained an important subject too.

92 Heartz, Music in European Capitals, 701.

93 For a discussion of the reason for the Italian troupe’s dismissal, see Scott, 324–331. The dismal financial state of the monarchy probably was an important factor along with the Italian troupe’s problematic and continued use of lewd references and obscenities in their plays despite several warnings from the king. There seems to be no record of a play La fausse prude ever being performed at this time, casting doubt on the popular myth that the comedians had been expelled because Madame de Maintenon had become the subject of an unflattering satire. 115

Chapter 3: Repertory of the Fair Theaters, 1697–1712

Grout chose the year 1715 as an important line dividing the early works of the fair theaters (‘popular entertainment’ as he called them) and the later works that fall clearly into the category of comédies en vaudevilles. More recently, scholars have pointed to the year 1713 as the birth of the genre comédie en vaudevilles, identifying the first piece in Lesage’s anthology to include spoken dialogue, Arlequin roi de Sérendib, as the first comédie en vaudevilles.1 Daniel

Heartz has argued, “With Arlequin roi de Sérendib for the Foire Saint-Germain in 1713, Lesage made the breakthrough from sketchy dramas using a handful of vaudeville tunes to a well- constructed drama in three acts, using over a hundred melodies.”2 While Arlequin roi de

Sérendib was one of the first comédies en vaudevilles to incorporate spoken dialogue, a set of librettos from 1697–1712 (which were often performed in pantomime because the use of spoken dialogue was prohibited at the fair theaters), show that the sung vaudeville structure had already been developed at the fair theaters in the years preceding Lesage’s debut. In fact, the majority of these pre-1712 works contain twenty or more vaudeville tunes, most of which appeared later in the Lesage collection. While Lesage’s important role in the history of the comédie en vaudevilles should not be understated, these claims have tended to exaggerate Lesage’s singular role in the creation of the genre comédie en vaudevilles. For example, Heartz has claimed, “Little of lasting value might have come from these coarse entertainments at the fairs had not a prominent author,

Alain Lesage, joined ranks with the Forains.”3 However, this perspective is founded on assertions that can be traced back to hagiographic scholarship from the nineteenth century,

1 See Heartz, “Terpsichore at the Fair,” 138–9.

2 Ibid., 139.

3 Heartz, Music in European Capitals, 701. 116

primarily Vincent Barberet’s 1887 dissertation on Lesage.4 In this chapter, I argue that the creation of the genre comédie en vaudevilles was not the invention of a single author’s hand, but rather the result of a developmental process by several authors who borrowed extensively from pre-existing theatrical repertory and traditions. As this chapter will show, the early comédies en vaudevilles borrowed and parodied classical subjects and elements of the commedia dell’arte tradition. While these new troupes at the fair theaters relied heavily on the commedia dell’arte tradition, appropriating from it the stock characters, titles of works, subject matter, comic routines (known as lazzi, or even general plot archetypes at times, they also sought to create a new repertory that catered to audiences’ demands for novelty.

Orality and Textuality: The Libretto Sources

One aspect that has contributed greatly to the notion of Lesage’s primacy in the creation of the comédie en vaudevilles is the philological emphasis on textuality over orality, which in this case refers to a semi-improvised theatrical tradition. The importance of Lesage’s monumental anthology has tended to overshadow the works that preceded it, many of which do not survive. It is important to understand that Lesage’s anthology was primarily an historical edition that contains inscribed versions of a particular work. For example, Lesage’s anthology of librettos were published eight or more years after the premieres of the works. Thus they were not necessarily strictly memorized and performed verbatim with a reverence towards the original text in the same way that Shakespeare is often performed today. Moreover, Lesage explicitly stated

4 Vincent Barberet, Lesage et le théâtre de la foire (Nancy, France: Paul Sordoillet 1887).

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that his intention for the collection was to “leave a monument for the future.”5 While it is possible that the actors and actresses of the fair theaters were faithful to manuscript librettos in their performances of Lesage’s works, it is also important to note that these performers excelled in improvisation. Thus what is preserved in the Lesage collection may not have been strictly performed this way on a given night.

The fair theater librettos that survive from 1697–1712 (see Table 3.1) were printed with a very different function than Lesage’s collection and thus have largely been overlooked. These twelve extant librettos have mostly been attributed to Louis Fuzelier, an important author who would later collaborate with Lesage on numerous comédies en vaudevilles. These early librettos were intended to help advertise performances to the crowds and were sold outside the fair theaters as documentary evidence confirms.6 They were not historical versions meant to be preserved for later audiences. Instead they served primarily as promotional materials, often touting the performers as the “greatest” or “inimitable.” They commonly withheld descriptions of certain scenes, hoping to pique the interest of potential spectators. One such libretto states:

“[These scenes] are not described here in order to leave the pleasure of the surprise for those who will see them.”7 Unlike the royal theaters, where a strict schedule governed performances, acting

5 Lesage, Théâtre de la Foire, ou l’Opéra Comique, vol. 1, i. “C’est pour laisser à l’avenir un monument…”

6 A police report published in Campardon, Les spectacles de la foire, vol. 1, 92, documents a performance at the fair theaters in 1710 of “the comedy Arlequin à la guinguette, composed of several scenes and ballet entrées and an orchestra composed of several instruments, that this comedy was printed and sold and distributed to the public…we are required to initial with them a print [libretto] of said comedy covered in marbled paper that they have shown us entitled Arlequin à la guinguette, containing 31 pages…(la comédie elle a fait imprimer et la fait vendre et distribuer au public…nous ont requis de parapher avec eux un imprimé de ladite comédie couvert de papier marbré qu’ils représenté intitulé Arlequin à la guinguette, contenant 31 feuillets…)” A copy of this libretto survives from the following year and appears to have received the necessary permissions from the lieutenant général de police in July 1711 to be printed. It also contains thirty-one pages.

7 Simon-Joseph Pellegrin, Arlequin à la guinguette (Paris: Rebuffé, 1711), 20. “…on ne les décrit pas ici pour laisser le plaisir de la surprise à ceux qui les verront.” 118

Table 3.1. Extant Repertory of the Fair Theaters, 1697–1712 Premiere Title Author 1701 Thésée, ou la défaite des Amazones N/A 1701 Les amours de Tremblotin et de Marinette N/A 1705 Le ravissement d’Hélène, le siege et l’embrasement de Troie Fuzelier 1710 Arlequin et Scaramouche vendangeurs Fuzelier 1710 Pierrot Sancho Pansa gouverner de l’Ile de Barataria Fuzelier 1711 Scaramouche pedant Fuzelier 1711 Orphée ou Arlequin aux enfers Fuzelier 1711 La femme juge et partie N/A 1711 Jupiter curieux impertinent Fuzelier 1711 Arlequin Énée ou la prise de Troie Fuzelier 1711 Arlequin à la guinguette Pellegrin 1712 Les fêtes parisiennes N/A

troupes at the fair theaters were free to perform pieces as frequently as audience demand supported it, several times a day in some cases.8 A successful piece would typically be performed nearly every night for the duration of a fair, sometimes over the span of several weeks. Secondly, these librettos served a practical purpose as an audience aide during the performance, providing descriptions of the onstage action for a repertory in which the central action was primarily acted out in gesture (spoken dialogue was prohibited). Importantly, these librettos contain the words to the plays’ character dialogues, which were set in verse to pre- existing popular songs or vaudevilles. Thus they were essential for facilitating audience participation as they provided audiences with the texts they would sing.

8 Martin, 9. At the summer Fair of Saint Laurent, performances typically began around five o’clock in the evening. However, as one example of a very successful comedy from 1722, Pierrot Romulus ou Le Ravisseur poli (Lesage, Fuzelier, and Dorneval), Martin cites a letter that claims this piece was performed continuously from ten o’clock in the morning until midnight.

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The Theatrical Legacy of the Commedia dell’Arte in Paris

When the Italian actors were expelled in 1697, it was not due to lack of popularity. In fact, the Italian troupe had surpassed the other royal troupes in numbers of spectators in the

1690s.9 At the same time the Italian troupe began to attract a more middle-class audience they greatly reduced the frequency of their appearances at court.10 Although the reason for their sudden dismissal remains uncertain (Scott suggests it was likely a confluence factors), acting troupes at the fair theaters stood much to gain by appropriating aspects of their popular repertory.11 Numerous scholars since the eighteenth century have conjectured that the fair theater troupes immediately adopted the repertory of the Italian comedians following their dismissal in

1697. The first claim of this dates back to 1743 when the Parfaict brothers wrote that, “In the month of May of the same year 1697, the Italian comedians having been dismissed, Bertrand

(whose troupe has been briefly discussed in chapter 2) rented their [the Italian troupe’s] Hôtel

[de Bourgogne], and installed himself with his troupe: an order of the king stopped this spectacle after eight days.”12 In the nineteenth century, Barberet reiterated that “the public eagerly went there [to the fair theaters] to once again see the image of a theater disappeared. The forains were

9 Scott, 317.

10 Ibid. Scott quotes the marquis Dangeau who wrote in 1692 that “the king never goes to any [Italian] play now.”

11 Ibid., 326–31. The reason commonly given for the Italians’ dismissal is that they had performed a satirical comedy titled La fausse prude that mocked Madame de Maintenon as a pious hypocrite. Scott finds no documentary records of a piece by such a title ever having been performed. She cites two contemporary accounts from the court that claim it was performed. She does not rule out the possibility that the performance of a piece titled La fausse prude was advertised by the Italian troupe, however. She also cites financial considerations (saving the king 15,000 livres a year in subventions to the Italian troupe) and the fact that the Italians continued to use obscene language and gestures in their comedies despite repeated warnings to remove them from their plays.

12 Claude Parfaict and François Parfaict, Mémoires, vol. 1, 10. “Au mois de Mai de la même année 1697 les Comédiens Italiens ayant été congédiés, Bertrand loüa leur Hôtel, et s’y installa avec sa troupe: un ordre de roi fit cesser ce spectacle au bout de huit jours.”

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playing some Italian pieces, in some fashion, one can imagine.”13 While Russell emphatically disputed this claim, modern scholars have echoed this assertion.14 It is true that the fair theater troupes in the first decade of the eighteenth century “appropriated much from the repertory of the

Italians,” as Heartz notes. While there is no evidence that the fair theater troupes performed specific pieces from the Gherardi repertory, they combined specific aspects of the commedia dell’arte tradition, including its stock characters, scenarios, subjects, comic routines known as lazzi, and even titles of works, with new elements or stories to create a new repertory. As the following analysis will show, the troupes of the fair theaters owed much to the theatrical legacy of the commedia dell’arte.

The repertory of the Italian theater had undergone significant changes by the 1690s.

Although it had incorporated various stylistic innovations in order to accommodate the tastes of the French public since the 1660s, their repertory continued to rely on aspects of the traditional commedia dell’arte.15 The main source for this repertory during this time in Paris is the 1700 edition of French scenes and plays published in six volumes by Evaristo Gherardi, who played

13 Barberet, 24. “Le public s’y rendit avec empressement pour revoir l’image du théâtre disparu. Les forains jouaient des pièces italiennes, de quelle façon, on peut se le figurer.”

14 See Russell’s “Le théâtre de la foire à Paris” website, http://www.foires.univ-nantes.fr, under the heading “Chronologie: 1697.” He writes, ‘It should be noted that the historical myth that the expelled comedians took refuge at the fairs, bringing their repertory and their “commedia dell’arte” style there is without foundation. No member of the troupe appears at the Paris fairs for ten years. No piece from their repertory appears on a fair theater advertisement-flyer (affiche) for five years after their expulsion. Even the widespread notion of the marionette player Alexandre Bertrand trying to seize their theater at the Hôtel de Bourgogne the day after their departure is false: it was not until 1702 that Bertrand would attempt his coup.” See Anthony, 191. He writes, “The vacuum created by their departure was rapidly filled by the Fair Theaters (Théâtres de la Foire), which took over the repertory of the Italian Comedy and continued the Italians’ tradition of satire against seemingly insurmountable odds, for now they were in direct competition with the French Comedy.”

15 Scott discusses four different stages: (1) an old repertory taken from the traditional scenarios dating back to the sixteenth century, (2) a newer repertory in 1668 combining aspects of the old pieces with references to contemporary Paris, (3) a repertory that increasingly added scenes in French, and (4) the late repertory (1688–1697) of French scenes from the Gherardi troupe which most modern scholars consider to be French literature.

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the role of Arlequin in the Italian troupe from 1689–1697.16 In the early 1700s, this is the Italian repertory as many of the performers at the fair theaters would have known it. There is even evidence of a few performers from the fair theaters in the early eighteenth century who had connections with the former Italian troupe.17 It is also important to note that because this repertory developed out of a semi-improvised tradition, what remains preserved in the Gherardi collection is only one version of a particular work. In some cases, it may have served only as a framework for a performance. Referring to the works in the Gherardi collection, Scott notes that

“a text is not necessarily an accurate representation of what was played at any given time.”18

Thus the emphasis on textuality over orality among modern scholars has led many to overlook the great degree of variation that existed from performance to performance via improvisation.

Avoiding Censorship: “Indecent Performances and Obscenities”

One important aspect of the live performances of the Gherardi repertory that is not preserved in the texts is the bawdy or obscene humor that was improvised by the actors. In 1696,

Louis XIV’s edict forbade the Italian comedians from presenting “indecent performances and

16 This collection is titled Recueil général de toutes les comédies et scènes françoises jouées par les comédiens italiens du roi, vols. (Paris: Cusson 1700). Gherardi also published a preliminary collection of these selections in 1694 in one volume and a Supplément of additional excerpts in 1697.

17 This biographical information comes from Claude Parfaict and François Parfaict. An Italian actor known as Pascariel performed with the Gherardi troupe before obtaining a privilège from the king to perform outside of Paris after the troupe was dismissed in 1697. “Pascariel” most likely refers to the actor Giuseppe Tortoriti who played the role of Pasquariel in the Gherardi troupe. For a list of the cast and characters of the Gherardi troupe in 1689 see Scott, 332. A prominent actor and troupe leader at the fairs after 1706, Antoine de La Place, had performed in Tortoriti’s troupe while in the French provinces playing the role of Pierrot. La Place’s colleague, Charles Dolet, had spent time in Italy playing the role of Mezzetin with the exiled Gherardi troupe.

18 Scott, 354.

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speaking obscenities.”19 These types of scenes were also an important part of the fair theater repertory in the early eighteenth century that was most likely appropriated from the Italian comedians. One police report describes a performance at the fair theaters from 1707 “in which there are even some scenes in words and gestures contrary to good morals.”20 A police report from March 14, 1710, written up against Catherine Vondrebeck, an important entrepreneur who maintained a troupe and theater at both fairs, also confirms this.21 The author of the report had been invited to a performance at the fair theaters at the request of Vondrebeck, who hoped to clear her name after she had been accused of performing “some operas and comedies” in violation of the “privilege of the [French] comedians and the Académie [royale] de musique.”22

The author of the police report describing the performance by Vondrebeck’s troupe claimed that

“Arlequin would return to make a third scene with the Doctor’s daughter, having with her a dialogue, mostly obscene and without order, making several indecent postures with said

Pierrot.”23 Arlequin later “responded to several dirty dialogues, very indecent and full of

19 Scott, 325. This excerpt comes from a letter written to the lieutenant général de police, La Reynie. Translated by Scott.

20 Campardon, Les spectacles de la foire, vol. 2, 117. “…dans lesquelles il y a même des scènes en paroles et gestes contraires aux bonnes moeurs…”

21 The profession of acting remained a family affair still in the early eighteenth century. Actors and actresses often married and their children often learned to act from a young age. Catherine Vondrebeck was thus the daughter of Maurice Vondrebeck, the actor and acrobat who collaborated with Charles Alard to form one of the first performing troupes at the fair theaters in the late 1670s. In 1696 Catherine married Étienne Baron, an actor among the “comédiens de roi” and the son of the Michel Baron, the famous child performer and later, lead actor of Molière’s troupe.

22 Campardon, Les spectacles de la foire, vol. 1, 87–9.

23 Ibid., 88. “…Arlequin seroit revenu faire une a troisième scène avec la fille du docteur, lui tenant plusieurs discours, la plupart obscènes et sans aucun ordre, faisant plusieurs postures indécentes avec ledit Pierrot.”

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obscenities, which finished the piece.”24 A decade later when Lesage wrote the preface to his anthology, he promised to expurgate the pieces he considered “terrible productions” that were

“full of obscenities.”25 However, Lesage’s promise could not be taken as a guarantee that the actors and actresses who performed his works did not add their own “embellishments.”

The Characters, Plots, and Scenarios of the Commedia dell’arte

The most apparent aspect of borrowing from the Italian theater was the use of the stock characters of the commedia dell’arte: Arlequin, Scaramouche, Colombine, Mezzetin, Pierrot, etc.

The plots of the commedia dell’arte repertory typically centered on the actions of the comic servant characters, the so-called zanni, as well as young lovers, and older male characters such as the Doctor. Although these same characters appeared at the fair theaters, they were slightly adapted from their analogues in the Italian repertory. For example, the Doctor of the Italian repertory was strictly a rude, old man, while in the comédies en vaudevilles of the Lesage collection he is characterized primarily by his greed, often playing the role of a father who exploits his daughter against her wishes for monetary gain.26

In addition to these stock characters, the fair theater troupes seem to have borrowed excerpts from their repertory, perhaps in the form of plot scenarios (argomenti) or simply individual scenes. Unlike the Gherardi collection, which contains fully-scripted dialogues and detailed stage directions, much of the extant traditional commedia dell’arte repertory survives in

24 Ibid., 88. “…répondait à plusieurs discours sales, fort indécents et remplis d’obscnénités qui auriaient fini la pièce.”

25 Lesage, Le théâtre de la foire, ou l’opéra comique, vol. 1, ii.

26 Martin, 275.

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the form of general plot outlines, schemes, or scenarios from which the performers could draw to improvise, expand, and embellish.27 There is some evidence of the troupes at the fair theaters performing scenes in Italian, but none prior to 1706. The author of a police report from February

21, 1706 at the Fair of Saint Germain claims to have seen “the performance of farces and pieces of comedies combining Italian and French.”28 Perhaps the best evidence of the fair theaters appropriating a specific piece from the Italian repertory comes from the following year. From

1707, there are two police reports from the fair theaters that cite the performance of specific titles from the Gherardi collection. A comedy performed on September 1, 1707 at the Fair of Saint

Laurent “was composed of several pieces from the Italian theater, the majority of the scenes from the Italian comedy that is titled La foire Saint-Germain.”29 Just a few days later the same troupe performed Arlequin, empereur dans la lune, “which appears to us to be the same [piece] that the

Italian comedians have performed previously in French at their theater at the Hôtel de

Bourgogne.”30 La foire Saint-Germain refers to a 1695 comedy by Jean-François Regnard and

Charles Dufresny and Arlequin, empereur dans la lune is a comedy from 1684 by Anne Mauduit

27 Performers of the traditional commedia dell’arte repertory worked flexibly within a system that required them to use full-length scripts in some cases and improvisatory scenarios in others. Around eight hundred of these scenarios are preserved in various manuscripts and printed collections. For more information on the sources and development of the commedia dell’arte scenarios, see Robert Henke, “Form and Freedom: Between Scenario and Stage,” in The Routledge Companion to the Commedia dell’Arte, ed. Judith Chaffee and Olly Crick (New York: Routledge, 2015), 21–29.

28 Campardon, Les spectacles de la foire, vol. 2, 117. “…représentation de farces et pièces de comédie mêlées d’italien et françois.”

29 Ibid., 118. “…est composée de fragmens de plusieurs pièces du Théâtre-Italien, la plupart des scènes de la comédie italienne, qui a pour titre: La foire Saint-Germain…”

30 Ibid., 118–9. “…qui nous a paru être la même que les comédiens italiens ont ci-devant représentée en françois sur leur théâtre de l’hôtel de Bourgogne.”

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de Fatouville, both of which are found in the Gherardi collection.31

Apart from these two instances performed by the same troupe, examples of other fair theater troupes performing specific pieces from the Italian repertory are rare. It should be further noted that other examples that may seem to demonstrate the borrowing of a title from the Italian repertory do not necessarily indicate that the same piece was performed at the fair theaters.

Instead the pieces may have shared a setting, locale, or element of a plot, but otherwise remain different pieces. For example, the comedy Arlequin et Scaramouche vendangeurs, performed at the fair theaters in 1710, bears a similar title to a piece from the old Italian repertory entitled

Arlequin vendangeur (1681). However, the excerpts of the 1681 Arlequin vendangeur bear no resemblance to the plot of the 1710 fair theater comedy Arlequin et Scaramouche vendangeurs.32

Instead, Arlequin et Scaramouche vendangeurs (1710) is a parody of Lully’s and Quinault’s

Cadmus et Hermione. At the same time, however, the general outline of the plot of the 1710

Arlequin et Scaramouche vendangeurs fits a general plot archetype of the traditional commedia dell’arte repertory. The zanni characters Arlequin and Scaramouche, grapepickers for the

Doctor, try to deceive their master so that Arlequin can be united with his love, the Doctor’s daughter, Colombine.

The fair theater authors were very sensitive to accusations of stealing repertory and they often refuted this allegation within their comedies. Interestingly, it was not the accusation of stealing from the Italian repertory, but rather from the Comédie Française, to which the fair

31 Gherardi attributed Arlequin, empereur dans la lune to Monsieur D*** whom scholars consider to be Anne Mauduit de Fatouville. He was a counselor in Rouen and a friend of the playwright Regnard. See Scott, 280.

32 The excerpts of the 1681 comedy Arlequin vendangeur are found in the 1697 Supplément to the first Gherardi anthology originally published in 1694. The scenes from the 1681 comedy are briefly summarized by Scott, 307. There is not a true plot, per se, to speak of here. In one scene Arlequin complains about losing his foster brother. In another he and Pasquariel fantasize about having a wife to cook for them. 126

theater actors and authors responded in the librettos of these early works. The fair theater actors and authors did not conceal their animosity towards the Comédie-Française, whom they explicitly ridiculed in these early comedies. In the final scene of the one-act comedy Orphée ou

Arlequin aux enfers (1711), a “Romain” arrives in the underworld and proceeds to mock

Arlequin, who is playing the part of Orpheus with his lyre. Arlequin responds in a sung vaudeville that he “detests the conceited romains” and vows to “no longer play this instrument.”

As Isherwood points out, the term “Romain” referred to the authors and actors of the Comédie-

Française. The lyre, likewise, was a symbol of lyric theater associated with antiquity, commonly depicted in artistic renderings of Apollo. Often treatments of the Romains in the fair theater repertory are outright violent towards their nemeses. In the first act of Jupiter curieux impertinent, Jupiter gives a Romain some strikes of his slapstick (baton) after the Romain laments that he has been sentenced to the underworld for all the injustices he has committed against the fair theater troupes. A similar scene featuring an episode between the fair theater actors and the Romains is found in the prologue of La femme juge et partie. The episode begins with Pierrot hanging a sign at the fair theaters to advertise the performance of a piece titled La femme juge et partie. Later a Romain and Romaine walk by and read the sign, recognizing the title as one their own comedies.33 The Romain attempts to tear the sign with his sword, but is quickly disarmed by Scaramouche. Scaramouche then beats him with a slapstick and gives the

Romaine “some kicks in the ass.” Later, Thalia, the muse of comedy, descends from the heavens to chastise the Romain and Romaine for their jealousy. Isherwood argues that this type of ridicule

33 La femme juge et partie is also the title of a comedy from 1669 by Antoine Jacob Montfleury. It remained in the repertory of the Comédie Française well into the nineteenth century, being reprised on September 5, 1669 (with some alterations, of course). See Georges d’Heylli, Journal intime de la Comédie française (1852–1871) (Paris: E. Dentu, 1879), 191. The piece was reduced from five acts to three by Onésime Leroy. Heylli claims it was one of the only pieces by Montfleury that remained in the canon.

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of the Comédie-Française, particularly the use of slapstick, was extremely popular with audiences because of its nostalgic effect of recalling childhood memories of taunting and games.34

Slapstick, Comic Violence, and Lazzi Scenes

The scenes built around comic violence described above were also a central characteristic of the commedia dell’arte repertory that became a convention of the fair theater repertory. These routines played on audiences’ perceptions of pain, whether deliberate or accidental.35 The slapstick prop, batocchio in Italian or baton in French served to create an exaggerated depiction of pain via an extremely loud sound effect. As Louise Peacock has shown, manifestations of comic violence portrayed a surreal or unrealistic world, often emphasized by ridiculously oversized props, and in which characters were unfazed by seemingly unbearable amounts of pain and vice versa, in which they might be incapacitated by the most trivial discomfort.36 In one common slapstick routine, a character’s tooth would be removed with absurdly large pliers or an altogether unsuitable tool. These scenes also commonly defied logic and ignored the natural laws of physics. In the 1710 fair theater comedy La femme juge et partie Arlequin attempts to drown his wife, Colombine, by throwing her in the ocean. However, in act I, scene 4, Scaramouche, the

Doctor, and Isabelle gut a gigantic fish they have just caught only to reveal Colombine, who is still alive. In Arlequin et Scaramouche vendangeurs, Arlequin disguises himself as a gigantic

34 Isherwood, 88.

35 Louis Peacock, “Slapstick and Comic Violence in Commedia dell’Arte,” in The Routledge Companion to the Commedia dell’Arte, ed. Judith Chaffee and Olly Crick (London: Routledge, 2015), 186.

36 Ibid., 185.

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grape only to be thrown into a large vat and crushed with the other wine grapes. However, he is not killed but instead is transformed into “two little Arlequins” who appear out of the wine spout.

Perhaps the most overlooked aspect of these early fair theater comedies that is borrowed from the commedia dell’arte repertory is the use of semi-improvised lazzi scenes. Nearly all of the librettos from 1710–1712 examined in this chapter indicate that a character performs a lazzi routine at least once in a given play. In Arlequin et Scaramouche vendangeurs alone, no less than five lazzi scenes are specified. The term “lazzi,” perhaps a derivation of the Italian “l’azione” for

“action,” referred to recurring, stock comic routines that were performed in the midst of a commedia dell’arte play.37 As early as 1728, Luigi Riccoboni had defined lazzi scenes as “the actions of Arlecchino or other masked characters when they interrupt a scene by their expressions of terror or by their fooleries.”38 There are dozens of common lazzi scenes that Mel

Gordon has catalogued and categorized, ranging from comic violence to scatological humor to scenes built around social class.39 Even in this small pre-1713 repertory of the fair theaters, a great variety of different lazzi types are found. It is often difficult to discern precisely what a particularly lazzi scene entailed as the indication “lazzi” did not always specify the action. The closing scene of Orphée ou Arlequin aux enfers calls for Arlequin to make “a thousand lazzi” before his guest. For example, this might refer to one of the common “counting” lazzi routines or

37 Mel Gordon, “Lazzi,” in The Routledge Companion to the Commedia dell’Arte, ed. Judith Chaffee and Olly Crick (London: Routledge, 2015), 167–8. This etymological theory of “lazzi” was offered in the late nineteenth century by A. Valeri. Riccoboni in the eighteenth century suggested the term derived from the Tuscan word “lacci” meaning “ribbon.”

38 Cited by Gordon, 168. Translation is by Gordon. Louis [Luigi] Riccoboni, Histoire du Théâtre Italien (Paris: Chaubert, 1728).

39 Ibid., 169–76. These categories are: “(1) acrobatic and mimic lazzi, (2) comic violence or cruel behavior, (3) food lazzi, (4) illogical lazzi, (5) sexual or scatological lazzi, (6) social rebellion or class rebellion lazzi, (7) stage duality or life duality lazzi, (8) stage properties as lazzi, (9) stupidity or inappropriate behavior lazzi, (10) transformation lazzi, (11) trickery lazzi, and (12) word play lazzi.”

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simply an acrobatic scene. Precise descriptions of the lazzi scenes are withheld to give the performers flexibility to improvise. For example, the libretto of the comedy Scaramouche pédant indicates a lazzi routine: “This scene can only be described imperfectly, it consists of a grand jeu de théâtre, it is those in which Sr. Dolet excels, and all of Paris is convinced that he is inimitable.”40 Many of these lazzi were acrobatic in nature, relying on the ability of a specific actor to perform an impossible feat, such as doing a somersault while holding a glass of wine and not spilling any of it.41 According to the Parfaict brothers, the actor mentioned above, Charles

Dolet, had experience with the Italian commedia dell’arte tradition performing the role of

Mezzetin with the Gherardi troupe in Italy after they had been dismissed from Paris in 1697.42

The sources that describe lazzi scenes are not abundant especially within the traditional commedia dell’arte repertory. There are likely a few reasons for this: (1) troupes were protective of their routines, (2) the routines contained obscene subject matter, or (3) troupes had no reason to write out their routines since they were memorized, spontaneous, or semi-improvised.43

Not all lazzi routines were obscene. Some of the most common examples involved simple scenarios. In the “lazzo of counting money,” one zanni character disproportionately gives himself a share of money, counting “one for you, two for me,” and so on.44 Another lazzo that

40 Louis Fuzelier, Scaramouche pédant (Paris: Valleyre, 1711). “Cette scène ne se peut décrire qu’imparfaitement, elle consiste dans un grand jeu de théâtre, c’est celle où le Sr. Dolet s’est surpassé, et tout Paris est convaincu qu’il y est inimitable.”

41 Peacock, 186.

42 Claude Parfaict and François Parfaict, Mémoires, vol. 1, 39–40. Dolet was born in Paris in 1683 and returned in 1704 to join the troupe of Alexandre Bertrand at the Fair of Saint Laurent. He later formed a troupe with Antoine de La Place in 1707.

43 Ibid., 169.

44 Ibid., 174.

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also involved counting played on the comic violence of a noble character flogging a servant character. In the “lazzo of counting,” a zanni character is to be flogged a certain number of times but the noble character keeps losing count and starting over. Meanwhile the zanni character tries to trick him into believing he has reached the end of his count. These lazzi scenes that involved humorous attempts at counting may have been predecessors of the famous catalogue arias of late eighteenth-century opera buffa, such as Leporello’s “Madamina, il catalogo è questo” or Figaro’s

“Cinque, dieci, venti,” in which he counts aloud while measuring the dimensions of his bedroom.

Heartz argues that a traditional lazzi scene involving a zanni character’s gluttony is the source of the banquet scene from Don Giovanni.45 Other lazzi played on the zanni characters’ exaggerated depictions of fear or horror, commonly involving ghosts or the reappearance of characters thought to be dead. In act II, scene 1 of Arlequin et Scaramouche vendangeurs Arlequin and

Scaramouche perform “leur lazzi de poltronnerie (their lazzi of cowardice),” in which they faint after they discover something horrifying in their grape baskets. In act II, scene 3 of La femme juge et partie, “Scaramouche comes to scare Arlequin [while] representing the ghost of

Colombine.” The scene ends with Arlequin fainting.

In the pre-1713 fair theater repertory, there are also examples of scenes that are not identified in the libretto with the term “lazzi,” but still match perfectly the action of some of the most popular lazzi routines. In the “lazzo of the chamber pot,” a male zanni character serenades a female zanni from below her upstairs window only to have the contents of her commode emptied upon his head. In scene 9 of Scaramouche pédant, a variation of this famous “lazzo of the chamber pot” occurs. Octave arrives at Isabelle’s house to serenade her. However, it is not

Isabelle who appears in the window, but rather the Doctor who “throws his pot de chambre on

45 Heartz, “Terpsichore at the Fair,” 143. 131

Octave’s head.” These scatological routines, which contemporary critics often condemned, were well known by Parisian audiences. In fact, these types of scenes did not exclusively appear at the fair theaters and the Italian theater. There is also a famous example of a scatological lazzi scene that appeared at the Paris Opéra. Lully’s mascarade Le Carnaval (1675) depicts several stock characters from the commedia dell’arte. In it, the character Pourceaugnac is chased by two doctors carrying oversized enema-syringes who attempt to “force Pourceaugnac to take the remedy.”46 In the eighteenth century, Rousseau referred to this scene in a satirical preface criticizing the hypocrisy of those who took issue with the Bambini’s troupe portraying bas comique character types:

…those who accuse us of dishonoring their theater simply by using the name of an apothecary even though it was not dishonored by the enema-syringes of Pourceaugnac; as if the luster of a theater could depend on the social rank of those portrayed, and as if it took more talent to act the part of a prince than that of a bourgeois or a worker.47

Such scenes seem to have had a lasting impact on audiences throughout the eighteenth century.

Themes and Subjects in the Pre-1713 Fair Theater Repertory: Classic Subjects

As chapter 2 has shown, a primary characteristic of the subject matter of the early fair theater repertory was the use of pre-existing literature. Above all, it was a theater of familiarity that relied on audiences’ knowledge of classic and contemporary stage works. What Parisian audiences saw at the fair theaters, however, were retellings of these well-known episodes intermixed with comic routines. These pieces were not strict parodies of pre-existing works, but rather were based on common episodes from classic Greco-Roman literature. In the pre-1697 fair

46 Le Carnaval (Paris: René Baudry, 1675), 17.

47 David Charlton, Opera in the Age of Rousseau: Music, Confrontation, Realism (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013), 273. Translated by Charlton. A brief discussion of this scene can be found in Charlton, Opera in the Age of Rousseau, 31–32. 132

theater repertory we have already seen stories involving Circe, Ulysses, Persephone, and Pluto.

The stories of Orpheus, Aeneas, Theseus, and the Trojan War all form the subjects of comedies in the pre-1713 fair theater repertory. Two of the first extant fair theater works after 1700,

Thésée, ou la défaite des Amazones (1701) and Le ravissement d’Hélène, ou le siège et embrasement de Troie (1705), both attributed to Fuzelier and both performed by the same troupe, center on city sieges. Thésée, a “divertissement” in three acts with a ballet, is based on a story from Greek mythology known as the “Attic War,” in which the Amazons attack Athens but are ultimately repelled by Theseus and his army. However, the plot descriptions contained in the libretto are sparse, sometimes providing only one or two sentences to summarize an entire scene.

For example, one description states that after the Amazons have been defeated in act III, a celebratory ballet occurs. A greater share of the libretto is devoted to a three-part comic

“intermède” that was performed by marionette players after each act of Thésée, including a

“ballet comique” after the closing ballet of Thésée.

Le ravissement d’Hélène, a comedy in three parts based on episodes from the Iliad and the Aeneid, demonstrates how comic elements from the commedia dell’arte were freely combined with plot motifs from classical subjects to create successful new comedies. It seems to have been well received by the public as Bertrand’s troupe reprised it the following year at the

Fair of Saint Germain. The Parfaict brothers also report that it was a “new success for the author and consequently [earned] ample receipts for the entrepreneur [Bertrand].”48 The abduction of

Helen and the larger story from which it is excerpted, known as the judgment of Paris, served as the basis for numerous artworks in seventeenth-century France. The most famous renditions

48 Claude Parfaict and François Parfaict, Mémoires, vol. 1, 43. “Nouveau succès pour l’auteur, et par conséquent, ample recette pour l’entrepreneur.”

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perhaps were Pierre Puget’s 1686 sculpture Le ravissement d’Hélène and several paintings of the judgement of Paris by Rubens dating from the 1630s. The story goes that Paris, charged with judging something of a beauty contest, awards Aphrodite the golden apple in exchange for

Helen. Although well known in French art, episodes from the Trojan War and the events leading up to it as found in the Iliad served less frequently as the basis for dramas and even more rarely as the basis for operas.49 On the stage, the judgement of Paris was the source of Sallebray’s 1639 tragicomedy, Le jugement de Pâris et le ravissement d’Hélène, revived in December 1657 as an elaborate machine play.50 At the fair theaters and under the pen of Fuzelier, the story took on a lighthearted character with the incorporation of servant and zanni characters from the commedia dell’arte. The frontispiece of Fuzelier’s libretto depicts Bertrand’s theater with Arlequin and one of the Greek or Trojan soldiers, Menelaus perhaps, as two spectators gaze upward at the stage.51

A brief prologue sets the tone for the rest of the comedy wherein Paris’s servant Francoeur appears at a cabaret (presumably in France) telling the proprietor he has been surrounded by some bad people and that Paris has abducted Helen. The first act centers primarily on Menelaus and the Greeks’ actions in the wake of Helen’s abduction. In scene 6 the Greeks attack the

Trojans and several key figures are killed: Achilles and Patroclus on the Greek side, Paris and

Hector, on the Trojan side. The dramatic events of this scene, which are described in just seven lines in the libretto, condense the majority of the Iliad (books 16–24) as well as additional stories

49 Géraldine Gaudefroy-Demombynes, “Achille et Polyxène (1687): The Trojan War and A Plea for Peace at the Académie royale de musique,” Early Music 43/3 (August 2015): 397–415. Premiering on November 23, 1687, Lully’s (who composed the prologue and act I before his death) and Pascal Collasse’s (who composed acts II–V) tragédie en musique Achille et Polyxène was the first opera in France to draw from the story of the Trojan War as found in Homer.

50 William Brooks, Philippe Quinault, Dramatist (Bern, Switzerland: Peter Lang, 2009), 84.

51 Louis Fuzelier, Le ravissement d’Hélène, ou le siège et embrasement de Troie (Paris: Antoine Chrétien, 1705). 134

recounting the death of Achilles (the Iliad ends with Hector’s funeral). While the backdrop of classical subject matter provided the audience with a source of familiarity, it also served as a canvas for slapstick humor. After a plea from the Trojans, the Greek armies agree to a truce but

Helen still remains in Troy. In act II, Odysseus plans with Sinon to invade Troy with a wooden horse full of soldiers. In a comic scene, Sinon and the Sentinel of Troy drink wine together while the Governor decides if they should accept the wooden horse as a gift. The play’s bouffon character, Sinon, relies mainly on a comic style of speech comprising word repetition. In his monologue in act II, scene 1, for example, he states, “C’est que Pyrrhus, cette juene barbe, a fait la barbe à Pâris, il l’a si bien ébarbé, que jamais barbier ne l’ébarbera, si ce n’est quelque frater du barbon de Proserpine, qui a du poil comme un barber.”52 This kind of wordplay was common in the commedia dell’arte repertory. After accepting the horse, there is a celebratory parade in

Troy where several musical numbers occur. The rest of the act plays out the sack of Troy before

Menelaus and Helen celebrate their reunion. The entirety of act III takes the form of a celebratory divertissement featuring Menelaus, Helen, Juno, Pallas, and a chorus.

A familiar topic also formed the basis of the 1711 fair theater comedy Orphée ou

Arlequin aux enfers, which was drawn loosely from elements of the Orpheus myth. Unlike the episodes from the Trojan War treated in Le ravissement d’Hélène, ou le siège et embrasement de

Troie (1705), which were better known in visual art rather than in the theater, the Orpheus myth had a long history on the Parisian stage. It first appeared as a theatrical subject in France in an interlude performed before the final act of Nicolas de Montreux’s pastorale L’Arimène, ou le

52 Fuzelier, Le ravissement d’Hélène, 16.

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Berger desespere in 1597.53 In the early seventeenth century, it was the subject of several machine plays. Outside these earlier works, though, French treatments of the Orpheus legend never reached the popularity of those in Italy. However, this was not for a lack of trying. In the

1660s and 1670s, Corneille and Racine each attempted dramatic versions of the Orpheus myth for court performances but neither project came to fruition. Operatic settings fared scarcely better. Charpentier’s chamber opera La descente d’Orphée aux enfers (1686 or 1687) seems to have been performed only at a private residence and its score was never published.54 Lully’s eldest son, Louis, composed music for a tragédie en musique Orphée performed at the Opéra in

1690, but it was not a popular success. As a comedy, however, the Orpheus myth found far greater success. It became the basis for Regnard’s popular La descente de Mezzetin aux enfers which was performed at the Théâtre Italienne in 1689. Yet the four extant scenes from it that are included in the Gherardi collection are not sufficient enough to discern any semblance of a plot.55

The rest of the piece, presumably in Italian, may have been improvised from pre-existing plot scenarios. Fuzelier’s Orphée ou Arlequin aux enfers, performed at the fair theaters in 1711, does not refer to any of these specific works. It is rather a brief, one-act comic divertissement comprising an array of acrobatic and dance scenes of the type seen in the fair theater pieces of the seventeenth century. The Orpheus myth serves only as a loose background for the musical- visual scenes. Arlequin and Scaramouche travel to Pluto’s palace to retrieve Colombine. Yet the question of her return is not addressed and the piece ends instead with a celebratory dinner and

53 For an overview of the Orpheus myth on the French stage, see Powell’s introduction to his edition of Charpentier’s opera La descente d’Orphée aux enfers currently published on his website: http://www.personal.utulsa.edu/~john-powell/LaDescenteDorpheeAuxEnfers/index.htm.

54 Ibid.

55 Scott, 359. 136

“banquet” or “table” scene, the kind that appeared frequently in the early fair theater repertory.

The central focus was on the dance scenes and the exotic. For example, a Chinese man and his retinue appear in the underworld in the final scene to perform “the most comical entrée.” The piece ends with a march danced by the Chinese man and his retinue as they reenter Pluto’s palace.

Contemporary Locales

In contrast to the mythological settings drawn from classic subject matter, several of the fair theater comedies in this repertory are set in contemporary, realistic locales, often in Paris. In general, this shift is seen at the fair theaters after 1710 (with the notable exception of Orphée ou

Arlequin aux enfers). These contemporary settings included restaurants, taverns, inns, vineyards, and even the fairgrounds themselves. The prologue of Le ravissement d’Hélène takes place in a tavern (cabaret), for example. In Arlequin à la guinguette, the title character is compelled to work at one of the popular countryside taverns called “guinguettes” that sold local wine. The guinguettes were primarily rural taverns as opposed to the urban cabarets of Paris and had become extremely popular. Increasingly in the eighteenth century the guinguettes became the main site of recreation for working-class Parisians.56 In the satirical piece Arlequin à la guinguette, the familiar setting of the guinguette becomes the site of Colombine’s infidelity, along with other targets of the author’s social and moral critique. Often these contemporary settings were not meant to be generic locales either, but often represented specific buildings or quarters in Paris. Act II of La femme juge et partie takes place at “Les Porcherons,” a well-

56 Thomas Brennan, “Beyond the Barriers: Popular Culture and Parisian Guinguettes,” Eighteenth-Century Studies 18/2 (Winter 1984–1985): 153–69. 137

known chateau located just outside of the city. The use of distinctly French settings was meant to portray an alternative to settings depicting the exotic or the “other.” In the parody Les fêtes parisiennes, the locales of Campra’s Venetian celebrations are replaced with popular settings of

Paris. It is noteworthy that none of the locales have a courtly association, but rather were the places frequented by the Parisian public. Georgia Cowart argues that the use of these “lowbrow” settings in Les fêtes parisiennes reversed the process of “othering” seen in Campra’s Les fêtes vénitiennes and other pieces set in foreign or mythic locales:

…its prologue is set, rather than in the royal court of Versailles or on the shores of Venice, on the shores of the Seine at the Porte Saint-Antoine. Instead of descending a throne to flatter Louis XIV, as in the ballet, Le Carnaval descends from a giant casserole, from which the cupids and the Pleasures are eating; and instead of a procession in honor of Louis XIV, there is a procession in honor of the fatted ox of Mardi Gras.57

This effect served to enhance the realism of the comedy for the audience, again capitalizing on their familiarity with their home city.

The Popularity of Parodies at the Fair Theaters, 1707–1710

A vogue for parody at the fair theaters is also evidenced by the numerous works from the pre-1713 repertory that took the form of parodies, particularly during the years 1707–1710.

Although there are no extant librettos from the years 1705–1710, several pieces can be identified as parodies based on an allusion in their title or a description found in the commentary of the

Parfaict brothers. I have reconstructed a partial calendar of performances at the fair theaters from these years from the Mémoires of the Parfaict brothers and police reports republished by

Campardon (see Table 3.2.). At least eight of the titles in this calendar can safely be

57 Cowart, 218.

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Table 3.2. Performance Calendar for the Fair Theaters, 1697–1712 Year Title 1701 Thesée, ou la défaite des Amazones 1701 Les amours de Tremblotin et de Marinette 1705 Le ravissement d’Hèlene, le siege et l’embrasement de Troie 1706 Sancho Pança 1707 Arlequin ecolier ignorant et Scaramouche pedant scrupuleux 1707 La fille sçavante, ou Isabelle, fille capitaine 1707 La foire Saint-Germain 1707 Arlequin, empereur dans la lune 1707 Le festin de Pierre 1708 Arlequin gentilhomme par hazard 1708 Le triomphe de l’amour 1709 Pierrot Roland 1709 Les poussins de Léda 1709 Atrée et Thyeste 1710 Arlequin Atys 1710 La foire galante 1710 Arlequin aux champs elisées 1711 Arlequin et Scaramouche vendangeurs 1711 Les aventures comiques d’Arlequin, ou le triomphe de Bacchus et de Venus 1711 Apollon à la foire 1711 Arlequin à la guinguette 1711 Les fêtes bachiques 1711 Amours de Mars et de Venus 1711 Fête de Paysans 1711 La femme juge et partie

characterized as parodies of contemporary theater pieces. Lully’s operas were the most common targets of parody. Although Lully’s operas were tragic in nature, they were not without comical aspects. Eighteenth-century writers noticed the comic potential of certain “low characters” in the early tragedies of Lully and Quinault, such as Cadmus’s cowardly confidant, Arbas, or the boatman Charon from Alceste. Barthélemy noted that these early French operas, Cadmus et

Hermione, Alceste, and Pomone (by Cambert), combined the “tragic and grotesque (ridiculous)”

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after the theatrical models of Cavalli.58 With these quasi-comic characters and the occasional irrational aspects of their plots, Lully’s operas easily became the targets of parody. Thus these characters and their stories remained reliable sources of audience laughter for the authors at the fair theaters well into the eighteenth century. Although Lully’s operas were not considered new in the early eighteenth century, parodies generally appeared in close proximity to a revival.

Lully’s Atys was revived in November of 1708 and 1709, just prior to its fair theater parody

Arlequin Atys in 1710. In one case, a parody even anticipated the revival of an opera. Lully’s

Roland (1685) was parodied as Pierrot Roland in September of 1709 at the Fair of Saint Laurent, just two months before it was to be revived at the Académie royale de musique on November 15,

1709. A revival of Lully’s ballet Le triomphe de l’amour took place on September 11, 1705 in a version reduced from twenty entrées to just four entrées and a prologue. A new prologue and a new entrée were also added to a performance just two months later on November 26, 1705 after the previous version had been suppressed. In 1708, a fair theater comedy bearing the same title as Lully’s ballet Le triomphe de l’amour appeared at the fair theaters. Andre Campra’s opéra- ballet L’europe galante (1697) was parodied in a comedy titled La foire galante (1710). His

1710 opéra-ballet Les fêtes vénitiennes was also parodied as Les fêtes parisiennes in 1712.

While opera parody was another feature of the fair theaters that is originally observed at the Italian theater in Paris, the Comédie-Française enjoyed a long tradition of opera parody since the time of Lully and Quinault. These opera parodies often played on the same criticisms of opera that appeared in later opera parodies at the fair theaters. For example, one common

58 Barthélemy, 16–17.

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criticism of French opera was its boringness.59 However, the authors of the fair theaters in the early eighteenth century not only parodied operas, but also they parodied the newest spoken plays of the Comédie-Française. A few of the titles from the performance calendar indicate that some of the most recent spoken plays from the Comédie-Française were being parodied at the fair theaters. For example, Parfaict brothers recount that Les poussins de Léda (1709) parodied

Antoine Danchet’s 1708 tragedy Tyndarides (in classical mythology Leda married Tyndareus).

Prosper Jolyot de Crébillon’s Atrée et Thyeste from 1707 was parodied at the Fair of Saint

Laurent in 1709 with the same title as the original. Finally, a comedy titled Le festin de Pierre was performed on September 28, 1707 at the Fair of Saint Laurent. A police report describing this performance claims that it appeared “to be an exact [copy] of the same one that the French comedians have performed at their theater.”60 However, as several works bear this same title, it is unclear to which piece this specifically refers.61 Unfortunately, no librettos of these dramatic parodies survive.

The Techniques of Parody

A title did not always signify a parody. Moreover, a parody did not always retain the locale or character names of the original work, a fact that creates challenges for the study and

59 For a detailed analysis of opera parody at the Comédie-Française see Powell, “The Opera Parodies of Florent Carton Dancourt,” Cambridge Opera Journal 13/2 (July 2002): 87–114. Powell notes, for example, how in Dancourt’s parody of Lully and Quinault’s Armide, the servant character Lisette criticizes the opera by saying, “The Prologue bores me, Act 1 makes me drowsy, the slumber scene puts me to sleep, and I don’t awaken until the hurly- burly at the end.”

60 Campardon, Les spectacles de la foire, vol. 2, 119. “…être un précis de la même que les comédiens françois ont représentée sur leur théâtre.”

61 Ibid. Campardon lists several possible works to which this parody could have referred: Le festin de Pierre, ou le fils criminal (1659), tragicomedy by Villiers, a tragicomedy of the same name by Dorimon from 1661, or a tragicomedy by Rosimon titled Le nouveau festin de Pierre, ou l’Thée foudroyé from 1669.

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identification of parodies. For example, the comedy Arlequin et Scaramouche vendangeurs

(Arlequin and Scaramouche grapepickers), performed at the fair theaters in 1710, is a two-act parody (with a prologue) of Quinault and Lully’s Cadmus et Hermione (1673). Initially, the piece does not appear to be a parody as it is set in a contemporary vineyard in Paris with the typical stock commedia dell’arte characters. It begins with a short prologue wherein Bacchus presents Arlequin with a hotte de vendangeur, a large basket typically worn by grapepickers, and

Scaramouche with a basket and a serpette, a small tool for cutting grape vines. Bacchus wishes

Arlequin all the best on his journey to marry Colombine. Though it has not yet been revealed that the comedy is a parody of Cadmus et Hermione, the constituent elements of the Cadmus et

Hermione plot quickly emerge in act I. Arlequin is in love with Colombine who is under the guardianship of the old Doctor. This situation is analogous to Cadmus falling in love with

Hermione, who has instead been promised to the giant and king Draco. To win Hermione’s hand,

Cadmus must overcome a series of obstacles, one of which is slaying a dragon, gathering and sowing his teeth, and defeating the warriors who spring forth from them. The comedy ends after

Arlequin and Colombine meet surreptitiously to declare their love for each other. The Doctor, after learning of their romantic tryst, sends his grapepickers after Arlequin who, disguised as a grape, is thrown into a giant vat to be crushed with the other wine grapes. As had long been the practice with parodies of operas, the author of the parody often sought to exploit aspects of the plot that were deemed absurd, irrational, or unrealistic.62 Powell has argued that these depictions of operatic “madness” in opera parodies could be considered as yet another type of literary

“madness” akin to Michel Foucault’s descriptions of similar episodes in seventeenth-century

62 Powell, “The Opera Parodies of Florent Carton Dancourt,” 92. 142

French literature.63 In Arlequin et Scaramouche vendangeurs Fuzelier took central aim at this rather fanciful “tooth” episode from Cadmus et Hermione, specifying that Arlequin, with the help of his retinue, cuts off the Doctor’s mustache and plants the loose hairs in the ground, out of which several different monsters appear. It seems what was critiqued as the absurd in Quinault’s

Cadmus et Hermione, is juxtaposed with the surreal and ridiculous stage of the commedia dell’arte.

The process of borrowing musical numbers from operas is a well-known practice in the fair theater repertory of the Lesage collection. However, textual allusions and quotations are an important aspect of this repertory that has been little discussed. Several of these textual allusions and quotations of an original libretto are found in the early repertory of the fair theaters. Here, textual allusions and quotations are set to different music, usually a popular vaudeville tune that has no apparent relation to the original score. Farewell scenes between lovers from operas were a common source for parody in these early comedies. Much like the dragon scene from Cadmus et

Hermione that highlighted Arbas’s paranoia, these farewell scenes over-dramatized the sentiments of the characters, a feature probably borrowed from Italian models. The farewell scene from act I, scene 3 of Monteverdi’s L’incoronazione di Poppea, in which Nero and Poppea utter “addio” no less than seven times, comes to mind. In act I, scene 8 of Arlequin et

Scaramouche vendangeurs the farewell scene between Cadmus and Hermione is parodied by the actions of Arlequin and Colombine after their romantic tryst. The text alludes specifically to act

II, scene 4 of Quinault’s libretto for Cadmus et Hermione. A comparison of the original text and

63 Ibid. Foucault’s categories cited by Powell are “(1) madness caused by identification with some fictional character or ideal; (2) madness brought on through delusion of superiority or omnipotence; (3) madness caused by guilt; and (4) madness of the desperate lover.” See Michel Foucault, Folie et déraison: histoire de la folie à l’âge classique (Paris: Plon, 1961). 143

the new vaudeville text from Arlequin et Scaramouche vendangeurs is shown in Figure 3.1.

Here, specific turns of phrase from Quinault’s libretto are quoted verbatim with Arlequin even referring to Colombine as Hermione, “Je vais partir, belle Hermione (I am going to leave, beautiful Hermione).” Likewise, Hermione’s reply in the last line of her verse, “Ah! Cadmus pourquoi m’aimez-vous?” would have confirmed in the mind of the audience the connection to

Cadmus et Hermione. The specific nature of these textual allusions further suggests an audience overlap between the Opéra and the fair theaters.

Another example of a textual allusion to a Quinault libretto set to a pre-existing popular song can be seen in the farewell scene from Arlequin à la guinguette (1711). Here, Arlequin and

Colombine’s “adieus” at the beginning of act II are meant to recall the dramatic closing scenes from Lully’s Armide. The librettist of Arlequin à la guinguette, Simon-Joseph Pellegrin, informs the reader that the “great seriousness of these couplets is affected, the last [couplet] is a parody of

Armide’s lament upon the departure of Renaud, and Arlequin should leave before the end of the couplet.”64 Pellegrin has also taken some excerpts verbatim from Quinault’s libretto and set them to a metered vaudeville tune, “Sarabande de l’Inconnu.” The first textual excerpt refers to act V, scene 4 of Armide (see Figure 3.2). Colombine’s next line is a textual borrowing of Armide’s famous lament from the fifth and final scene of act V before she summons a swarm of demons to destroy her palace (see Figure 3.3). In this example, the Armide’s famous line is quoted verbatim by Colombine. Whereas a parodist at the fair theaters could take aim at the seemingly absurd moments of the original opera, the parodist could also take the most serious and dramatic moment from the opera and place it in an essentially trivial place in the new work, heightening

64 Simon-Joseph Pellegrin, Harlequin à la guinguette (Paris: Rebuffé, 1711), 14. “Le grand serieux de ces couplets est affecté, le dernier est une parodie de la plainte d’Armide sur le depart de Renaud, et Arlequin doit se retirer avant la fin du couplet.”

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Figure 3.1. Textual Allusion to Quinault’s Libretto for Cadmus et Hermione (1673). Here it is compared to the corresponding scene from its parody Arlequin et Scaramouche vendangeurs.

Quinault, Cadmus et Hermione Anonymous, Arlequin et Scaramouche vendangeurs act II, scene 4 act I, scene 8

CADMUS ARLEQUIN Je vais partir, belle Hermione, Je vais partir belle Hermione, Je vais exécuter ce que l’Amour m’ordonne, Pour me procurer ce bonheur: Malgré le péril qui m’attend: Mais j’entends l’amour qui m’ordonne Je veux vous délivrer, ou me perdre moi-même; De couper la barbe au Docteur. Je vous vois, je vous dit enfin que je vous aime, C’est assez pour mourir content.

HERMIONE COLOMBINE Pourquoi vouloir chercher une mort trop certaine? Ne vengez pas mon esclavage, Eh! Que peut la valeur humaine Sur la moustache d’un jaloux: Contre le dieu Mars en courroux? L’amour vous expose à sa rage! Voyez en quels périls votre amour nous entraîne! Ah! Cadmus pourquoi m’aimez-vous? J’aurois mieux aimer votre haine: Ah! Cadmus; pourquoi m’aimez-vous?

its comical irony. In addition to alluding to the original context of a borrowed excerpt, inverting the original context of that excerpt was also an effective technique of parodists at the fair theaters.

Figure 3.2. Textual Allusion to Quinault’s Libretto for Armide (1686). Here it is compared to its corresponding scene from its parody in act II of Arlequin à la guinguette (1711).

Quinault, Armide Pellegrin, Arlequin à la guinguette act V, scene 4 act II

ARMIDE COLOMBINE Renaud! Ciel! Ô mortelle peine! Quoi? Vous partez! Arlequin, vous partez Vous partez! Renaud! Vous partez! Brillez mes charmes, Dèmons suivez ses pas, volez et l’arrêtez. Et l’arrêtez; Hélas! Tout me trahit et ma puissance est vaine! Mais tous mes cris ne sont plus écoutez; Renaud! Ciel! Ô mortelle peine! Pleurez mes yeux, et fondez vous Mes cris ne sont pas écoutés! en larmes.65 Vous partez! Renaud! Vous partez!66

65 “What? You are leaving! Arlequin, you are leaving, brighten my charms and stop. But all my cries are no longer heard; Cry, my eyes, and make a home in these tears.”

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Figure 3.3. Textual Borrowing from Quinault’s Libretto for Armide (1686). Here the textual quotation is shown as it appears in a parody scene from act II of Arlequin à la guinguette (1711).

Quinault, Armide Pellegrin, Arlequin à la guinguette act V, scene 4 act II

ARMIDE COLOMBINE L’espoir de la vengeance est le seul L’espoir de la vengeance est le seul qui me reste.67 qui me reste.

Form, Genre, and the First Comédie en vaudevilles: Audience Participatory Singing

Scholars have often commented on the cleverness and novelty of having audiences sing along to the comédies en vaudevilles when singing on stage was not permitted at the fair theaters.

Heartz has called the use of audience singing as a method of circumventing the prohibition against actors singing on stage as an “ingenious dodge.”68 However, it is important to consider the context of audience participatory singing in French theaters and that this practice was common in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Moreover, the use of popular songs on stage was also not an innovation of the fair theaters, but rather was first attempted in the 1690s by the Italian comedians. Charles Mazouer has gone so far as to suggest that audiences may have sung along to the popular vaudeville tunes that were used in a few comedies found in the

66 “Renaud! Heavens! O mortal pain! You are leaving! Renaud! You are leaving! Demons, follow his steps, fly, and arrest him! Alas! All betrays me and my power is futile! Renaud! Heavens! O mortal pain! My cries are not heard! You are leaving! Renaud! You are leaving!”

67 “The hope of revenge is the only thing left for me.”

68 Heartz, “Terpsichore at the Fair,” 139. Heartz writes, “It is a quirk of history that in prohibiting speaking at the fair theaters, the Comédie-Française unwittingly promoted the ingenious dodge of a comedy sung to popular songs, which then became a far more potent rival than what preceded it.”

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Gherardi collection.69 In light of this, it seems that scholars have tended to overstate claims about

Lesage’s role in developing the comédie en vaudevilles, starting first with Barberet in the nineteenth century. Thus the development of audience participatory singing and the expanded use of popular tunes in the fair theater repertory was a gradual and organic process that was owed more to the practices of the Italian theater than has previously been believed.

It is essential to our understanding of the creation of the genre comédie en vaudevilles to consider the context of audience participatory singing outside the fair theaters. To foreigners, the practice of audience participatory singing appeared unusual, as several contemporary documents indicate. However, audience participatory singing was quite commonplace in theaters in seventeenth- and eighteenth-century France. At the Paris Opéra, in particular, audiences commonly sang along to chorus numbers. More specifically, the audience members in the parterre would have been known for participatory singing. Jeffrey Ravel has already shown how the parterre often cultivated a rowdy and raucous environment.70 Grout has claimed that many

Parisian opera fanatics in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries knew Lully’s and Quinault’s operas so well that they had entire operas memorized from beginning to end.71 Moreover, Olivia

Bloechl has documented the reactions of several English travelers to Paris in the eighteenth- century, pointing out that John Gay, Charles Burney, and the Earl of Shaftesbury all regarded

69 Charles Mazouer, Le théâtre d’Arlequin: comédies et comédies italiens en France au XVIIe siècle (Fasano, Italy: Schena, 2002).

70 See Jeffrey S. Ravel, The Contested Parterre: Public Theater and French Political Culture 1680–1791 (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1999).

71 Grout, “Seventeenth-Century Parodies of French Opera—Part I,” The Musical Quarterly 27/2 (April 1941): 213. Grout argues, “Undoubtedly many Parisians could have sung all of Lully’s operas from beginning to end, and certain favorite scenes were so familiar that Addison in 1699 was able to observe: ‘I have sometimes known the performer on the stage do no more in a celebrated song, than the clerk of a parish church, who only serves to raise the psalm, and is afterwards drowned in the music of the congregation.”

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audience participatory singing as strange. 72 She recounts how the Earl of Shaftesbury was taken aback after hearing French audiences singing along during a performance at the Opéra:

…the Mock-Chorus’s of the French are the most ridiculouse things in the World, and a gross sort of Musick fit only for the Parterre, and in my time constantly sung by the Parterre in company with the Actors, so that I us’d to think my self rather at Church than at the Opera, where all Throats at once were let loose to joyn in this Psalm-Musick of a confus’d Multitude. 73

The fact that many vaudeville tunes originated at the Opéra casts further doubt on the notion that audience singing at the fair theaters was anything unusual. It may, however, suggest an audience overlap between the Parisian theaters. Audience participatory singing would have only enhanced the popularity and mobility of these songs while fostering a deeper familiarity with the repertory of theatrical music. If Opéra audiences were already singing along to their favorite choruses, then it would have been only natural for the fair theater authors to appropriate those popular numbers.

While Barnes made the first attempt to identify melodies from the fair theaters that were borrowed from the operatic repertory, it is only recently that a more extensive catalog has appeared.74

Vaudeville Use in the Repertory of the Italian Troupe

The innovation of using popular songs set to new texts in a theatrical work long predates

Lesage’s debut at the fair theaters. In France in the 1690s, there are a few examples of popular

72 Olivia Bloechl, Opera and the Political Imaginary in Old Regime France (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2017).

73 Ibid., 223. Originally cited in Thomas McGeary, “Shaftesbury on Opera, Spectacle, and Liberty,” Music and Letters 74, no. 4 (1993): 540.

74 See Barnes, “The Théâtre de la Foire (Paris, 1697–1762), Its Music and Composers,” (PhD diss., University of Southern California, 1965); and Judith le Blanc, Avatars d’opéras: pratiques de la parodie et circulation des airs chantés sur la scène des théâtres parisiens (1672–1745) (Paris: Classiques Garnier, 2014).

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songs that appear in the repertory of the Italian theater. Moreover, several of the specific tunes used by the authors of the Italian comedies can be identified from the librettos in the Gherardi collection.75 However, there are methodological problems with identifying specific tunes. For one, the original tune is not always given in the libretto. Mazouer suggests that the best method of identifying these timbres is to search for a well-known textual refrain or to match the syllabic- metrical structure of the poetry to the structure of well-known tunes. These methods are not consistently accurate. In his 1902 dissertation on the Italian theater in Paris, for example, Oskar

Klinger failed to identify the most-commonly-used vaudeville timbre in the Gherardi collection,

“Réveillez-vous, belle endormie.”76 The tunes used in the Italian repertory of the 1690s have already been discussed by several scholars, including Grout, Scott, and most recently, Charles

Mazouer.77 However, there are several discrepancies among their accounts. Grout remarked that there were “at least” thirty-five vaudevilles in the plays of the Gherardi collection.78 Moreover, he claimed that twenty-nine of them were still in the repertory of the fair theaters from 1715–

1730. While he may have been able to successfully identify many of their timbres, he unfortunately did not provide a list of his findings. Grout is also not clear about whether he refers to the total number of unique tunes that were used or simply to the total number of instances of vaudevilles, including repetitions of a single tune. Mazouer provides details on twenty-five

75 Op. cit.

76 Oskar Klinger, “Die Comédie-Italienne in Paris nach der Sammlung von Gherardi” (PhD diss., Universität Zürich, 1902), 190.

77 See Grout, “The Music of the Italian Theatre at Paris, 1682–97” in Papers of the American Musicological Society: Annual Meeting, 1941, Minneapolis, Minnesota, ed. Gustave Reese (Richmond, Virginia: William Byrd Press, 1946), 158–70.

78 Grout, “Italian Theater,” 165.

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different timbres found in the Gherardi collection, several of which appeared more than once.79

Klinger had identified only twenty-eight vaudevilles in the Gherardi collection.80 Auguste Font identified additional tunes that are not mentioned by Klinger. I have compiled the findings of the aforementioned studies to provide a list of twenty-eight different timbres that appear in the

Gherardi collection (see Table 3.3). I also suggest that an additional number, “Pata pata pon,” which is sung by Mezzetin as the final number of the comedy Arlequin l’homme à bonne fortune by Regnard (1690), is a popular vaudeville tune.81 Table 3.2 also demonstrates that there was a considerable overlap between the popular vaudeville tunes that were used in the Gherardi comedies in the 1690s and the comedies of the fair theaters that appeared in the first half of the eighteenth century. One timbre found in the Gherardi collection, “Vous m’entendez bien,” even appears in a 1754 comédie mêlée d’ariettes by Louis Anseaume, Bertholde à la ville, whose vaudeville melodies, Charlton points out, have not yet been identified.82 While only one of the fifty-six vaudevilles from Bertholde à la ville are found in the Gherardi collection, more than thirty others are found in the Lesage anthology. Thus many of the same songs seem to have been popular for decades. Moreover, Table 3.3 shows that despite the existence of thousands of popular songs in France in the eighteenth century, a smaller core repertory of songs predominates the various song collections of the eighteenth century. Twenty-one of the twenty- nine timbres found in the Gherardi collection appear in later printed song collections. Ten of the tunes from the Gherardi repertory are printed in a popular song collection by Ballard titled

79 Mazouer, 148.

80 Klinger, 190.

81 Jean-François Regnard, Arlequin l’homme à bonne fortune in Le théâtre italien de Gherardi, vol. 2 (Paris: Pierre Witte, 1700), 532.

82 Charlton, Opera in the Age of Rousseau, 292.

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Table 3.3. List of Vaudeville Timbres in the Gherardi Collection. The three columns on the right indicate whether or not the particular timbre appears in Ballard’s La Clef de Chansonniers (La Clef) published in 1717, Lesage’s anthology Le Théâtre de la Foire (ThdlF), or in any of the librettos from the pre-1713 repertory of the fair theaters (Pre-1713).

No. Timbre La Clef ThdlF Pre-1713 1. Ami ne quittons point Créteil ● 2. Air de Pierre Bagnolet ● ● 3. Air des Forgerons 4. Air des Trembleurs ● 5. Beaucoup de vin et peu de tendresse 6. Jean de Vert ● ● 7. De mon pot je vous en répons ● ● 8. Et brin, bron, brac ● 9. Et toulouronton, ton, tontaine 10. Falarida don daine, falarida 11. Flon, flon ● ● 12.. Je mène une agréable vie ● ● 13. J’entends déjà le bruit des armes ● ● 14. Jean Gille, Gille joly Jean ● 15. La, landeriette, la landerira ● 16. Lanturlu ● ● 17. Oh le bon vin, tu as endormy ma Mere 18. Robin turelure ● ● ● 19. Rossignolet joli 20. Si vous étiez fidèle 21. Pont d’Avignon ● 22. Ton re lon, ton, ton, tontaine ● ● 23. Toure, loure, loure, loure ● 24. Vous m’entendez bien ● ● ● 25. Réveillez-vous, belle endormie ● ● ● 26. Du pont mon ami ● ● 27. Pata pata pon ● 28. Tire lire lira liron fa fa fa ●

La Clef des Chansonniers and Lesage’s anthology. Tunes such as “Robin turelure,” “Vous m’entendez bien,” and “Réveillez-vous, belle endormie,” appeared in the Italian comedies of the

Gherardi collection, the pre-1713 repertory of the fair theaters, the Lesage anthology, and several

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popular song collections published by Ballard, in addition to his La Clef des Chansonniers. Some of these tunes can also be found in the comédies mêlée d’ariettes of the 1750s.

Early Examples of the Vaudeville Structure

While several comedies from the Gherardi collection contained one or more vaudevilles, it is important to note that these works should not be not considered comédies en vaudevilles.

Instead, they are primarily spoken comedies that contain one or only a handful of vaudeville tunes. Thus the use of vaudevilles in the Gherardi collection is greatly limited in comparison to the repertory of comédies en vaudevilles in the eighteenth century. In contrast, a single comédie en vaudevilles from the fair theaters during the 1710s could contain as many as 100 tunes.

Although it is difficult to identify with any certainty the first piece that featured a significant number of vaudevilles, I suggest that the vaudeville form, that is, a comedy in which a substantial number of vaudevilles (more than a dozen) are used to communicate aspects of the plot or character reactions, predated Lesage’s first comédies en vaudevilles for the fair theaters in 1713.

While these pieces most likely did not contain dialogue (though it is difficult to account for performance practices when authority figures or police were not present at performances), they demonstrate that the idea of using a popular song as the primary vehicle for advancing the plot of a comedy was already being developed as early as 1709. In the following section I analyze the works of the fair theaters prior to 1713 to demonstrate the development of the vaudeville form.

Performed at the fair theaters in 1701, Thésée, ou la défaite des Amazones is not a comédie en vaudevilles. It is, however, the first piece at the fair theaters to bear the inscription

“vaudeville,” which appears as a title to a closing number to its ballet comique. Le ravissement d’Hélène, ou le siège et embrasement de Troie (1705), which followed Thésée, ou la défaite des 152

Amazones, is also not a comédie en vaudevilles. Both are more akin to the pre-1697 repertory discussed in chapter 2: stage works that borrowed aspects of the pastorale, ballet, opera, and other theatrical genres. It was not until 1709, or perhaps 1710, that the first examples of the vaudeville form appeared at the fair theaters. To be clear, these works did not yet contain spoken dialogue as it was still prohibited on the fair theater stages. The main action of the plot was thus conveyed through pantomime, gesture, monologues, and vaudevilles often sung by the audience.

After Le ravissement d’Hélène, ou le siège et embrasement de Troie (1705), there are no other extant librettos from the fair theaters before 1710. Although there are a handful of works from

1705–1710 (at least fifteen) shown in the performance calendar in Table 3.2, the interventions of the Comédie-Française may have partially stifled performances of new comedies. Nonetheless, the fair theater troupes continued to perform during this crucial period in the development of the vaudeville form. However, the vaudeville form does not arise suddenly nor is it the innovation of a single author. Instead it is the result of theatrical experimentation, improvisation, and careful circumvention of the rules governing theatrical performance in Paris. The numerous restrictions against the fair theater troupes also led to the creation of several different and unorthodox theatrical forms, such as the piece à la muette (pantomime), the pièce en monologues, and the pièce par écriteaux. These pièces par écriteaux represent the first examples of the vaudeville form insofar as their structures generally comprise around twenty or more sung vaudevilles. As these écriteaux pieces contained no dialogue prior to 1714, the action of their plots takes the form of pantomime. In fact, the first three pieces in the Lesage collection, all from 1713, are denoted as “pièces par écriteaux” and likewise contain no spoken dialogue. The following is a survey of those legal actions taken by the Comédie-Française and a discussion of the various performances that resulted at the fair theaters. In the absence of librettos, one can rely only on 153

descriptions of performances found in police reports, several of which inform us that music played a significant role already in these early works. One police report also describes what appears to be the first performance of a comedy that used the vaudeville form.

On June 26, 1703 Parlement denied the appeals of the fair theater entrepreneurs, and confirmed the original sentences de police that had prohibited them from performing “any comedy or farce, and for offending, condemnation of 1,500 livres in damages and interest to the comedians of the king.”83 Prohibited from performing any pieces with a plot, the fair theater troupes turned to scénés détachées, a series of tableaus in which the semblance of a coherent story was meant to be obfuscated. Despite their attempts to avoid the overt use of coherent plots in their repertory, the fair theater troupes still faced this allegation from the Comédie-Française.

The following year in January 1704, the Comédie-Française had the scénés détachées banned.

The fair theater troupes immediately appealed but their request remained pending for two years.

A sentence from February 1706 further prohibited them from “performing at their theaters any spectacles in which there are dialogues.”84 They appealed again, meanwhile continuing their performances. The author of a police report from February 21, 1706 at the Fair of Saint Germain states, “We saw a little farce performed by several actors, men and women, mixed with dance and intermèdes.”85 Meanwhile, hoping for a more favorable ruling than their previous appeals, the fair theater troupes sought to engage the clergy—who were the proprietors of the Fair of

Saint Germain as well as powerful political figures in Paris—to appeal on their behalf. However,

83 Claude Parfaict and François Parfaict, Mémoires, vol. 1, 18. “…aucune comédie ni farce, et pour y avoir contrevenu, condemnation de quinze cens livres de dommages et intérêtes en vers les Comédiens du roi.”

84 Ibid., 48. “…de représenter sur leur théâtres aucuns spectacles où il y ait des dialogues…”

85 Campardon, Les spectacles de la foire, vol. 2, 116. “…nous avons vu représenter une petite farce par plusieurs acteurs, hommes et femmes, entremêlée de danse et interèdes.” No title is specified here like they commonly are in other reports.

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the fair theater troupes were dealt another loss in 1707 when a new ruling upheld the previous interdiction against dialogue.

As they had done before in the scénés détachées the fair theater troupes circumvented the specific language of the ruling. Now that dialogue had been prohibited they began performing pieces entirely in monologues. However, these so-called monologue pieces hardly used monologues in the true sense of the word. In one description of a performance of a monologue piece an actor quickly jumped behind the scenes after he had finished his lines only to return immediately after another actor finished his lines.86 It is clear this type of scene was simply a dialogue in which no more than one actor remained onstage at any given time. Another method of using “monologues” involved keeping other members of the cast on stage. A police report from August 3, 1708 specifies that:

…first an actor appeared wearing the costume of Arlequin, who made a dialogue, then came another actor dressed as Scaramouche, and another dressed as the Doctor, who, one after the other spoke alone, making dialogues with one another, and responding now by sign and now half-whispering: to which case, those who spoke loudly succeeded in explaining what could not be heard of the discourse from the other, and after several other scenes of the same nature, dances and songs, that together composed a comedy in three acts, under the title Scaramouche pédant scrupuleux, d’Arlequin ecolier ignorant; and the piece was finished by a machine in the form of a dragon which was killed by one of the actors and Arlequin.87

The use of “monologues” described in this example amounted to one actor or actress reciting two or more parts of a dialogue aloud. The Comédie-Française obviously objected to this definition,

86 Claude Parfaict and François Parfaict, Mémoires, vol. 1, 63.

87 Republished in Claude Parfaict and François Parfaict, Mémoires I, 82–83. “…a paru d’abord un acteur sous l’habit d’Arlequin, qui a fait un dialogue, ensuite il est venu un autre acteur habillé en Scaramouche, et un autre habillé en Docteur, lesquels, l’un après l’autre parlant seuls, se faisaient des dialogues les uns aux autres, et se réponaient tantôt par signe et tantôt à demi bas: auquel cas, celui qui parlait haut achevait d’expliquer ce qu’on pouvoit n’avoir pas entendu du discours de l’autre, et après plusieurs autres scènes de même nature, danses et chansons, qui composent ensemble une comédie en trois actes, sous le titre Scaramouche pédant scrupuleux, d’Arlequin ecolier ignorant; et la pièce étant finie par une machine en forme de dragon qui a été tué par un des acteurs et Arlequin…”

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stating as much in one of their formal complaints:

We do not play comedies at all, they [the forains] say. We make scenes where only one of our actors speaks at a time. They call these monologues. It is necessary to define the term monologue to see the falsehood in their claims. The monologue is a dramatic scene in which an actor speaks alone to himself to explain something necessary to the understanding of the piece.”88

On January 9, 1709, after several more complaints had been filed by the French comedians,

Parlement delivered an arrêt that authorized strict enforcement of all previous police sentences rendered against the fair theaters. However, later police reports indicate that the fair theater performers continued to use these monologue pieces as late as 1710 at the Fair of Saint Germain.

The new arrêt from Parlement in January 1709 still obliged some of the troupes at the fair theaters to invent another means of circumventing it. That year the fair theater troupes began to perform comedies in pantomime. These pieces were referred to as pièces à la muette and pièces à écriteaux. The écriteaux were signs originally used by the actors and actresses to communicate with each other onstage. One is reminded of the dialogue box used in modern printed comic books. Campardon offers six examples of such pieces that combined pantomime and écriteaux from the years 1710–1712.89 In fact, the only character dialogues found in these librettos were sung in the form of vaudevilles. And while some have a strict plot, such as La femme juge et partie, others fall under the category of a divertissement and relied on singing,

88 Ibid., 70. “…Nous ne jouons point, disent-ils, des comédies, nous ne faisons que des scènes où il n’y a qu’un de nos acteurs qui parle à la fois. Ils appellant cela des monologues: il ne faut que définir le terme monologue pour faire voir la fausseté de leurs pretentions. Le monologue est une scéne dramatique dans laquelle un acteur parle seul à lui-même, pour expliquer quelque chose necessaire à l’intelligence de la pièce…”

89 Campardon, Les spectacles de la foire, vol. 1, 256. The titles given are “Arlequin aux Champs-Élysées, pièce en trois actes, à la muette et par écriteaux (25 juillet 1710); les Aventures comiques d’Arlequin, ou le Triomphe de Bacchus et Vénus, pièce en trois actes et par écriteaux, attribuée à Raguenet (3 février 17); le Mariage d’Arlequin, divertissement à la muette et par écriteaux, en trois actes, avec un prologue (16 juillet 1711); Scaramouche pédant scrupuleux, pièce en deux actes et un prologue, par Fuzelier, suivie d’Orphée, ou Arlequin aux enfers (12 septembre 1711); les Plaideurs, pièce en trois actes, en scènes muettes et par écriteaux (février 1712)…”

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dancing, and visual spectacle rather than a dramatic intrigue. In Arlequin Énée, ou la prise de

Troies (1711), which was performed by the “pantomimes of the grand jeu du préau de la Foire de

Saint Laurent,” Fuzelier informs his audience in a brief foreword that what remains in the libretto can hardly capture the full effect of the visual spectacle created by its talented performers: “One can only sketch an outline of the pleasing lazzi and comic plays, [and] only supply them with a piece that they perfect while executing it.” Many of the scenes contain only the sparsest descriptions. For example, one describes an entire scene simply as: “The gods who are friends of the Greeks form some dances.” The emphasis on dance and visual spectacle in these early comedies should not be understated. In the opening prologue of Arlequin Énée, there are two different chariot descents. All of the extant librettos from 1710–1712 contain multiple dance scenes. In the one-act Orphée, ou Arlequin aux enfers, for example, six of the seven scenes have dance numbers.

These pantomime pieces are also the first pieces to use vaudevilles as a functional device for character dialogue. As dialogue remained strictly forbidden, the use of song presented an opportunity to again circumvent the language of the 1709 arrêt. By 1710, the sung vaudeville form, mixed with pantomime scenes, dance numbers, and other visual displays, had been firmly established. All of the extant librettos from the fair theaters from 1710–1712 employ the vaudeville structure. In most of these examples, audiences were called upon to sing the texts of the dialogues from large banners called écriteaux as singing on stage was still prohibited at the fair theaters. Lesage reported that these first comedies were entirely sung before spoken dialogue was slowly incorporated, a claim that is confirmed by these librettos.90 Porot has gone so far as

90 Alain-René Lesage, Louis Fuzelier, and Jacques Philippe d’Orneval, Le théâtre de la Foire, ou l’Opéra Comique, vol. 1 (Paris: Etienne Ganeau, 1721).

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to claim that it was precisely this prohibition of monologues that led the fair theater authors to incorporate singing into the first “opéras comiques.”91 It is important to add, though, that music, in particular divertissements with singing and dancing, already played an important role in the fair theater repertory prior to the advent of the first comédies en vaudevilles. This is evidenced in the police reports from 1706–1709 as well as the works of the seventeenth century examined in chapter 2.

While the earliest extant libretto that demonstrates the vaudeville form comes from 1710

(Arlequin et Scaramouche vendangeurs), I argue that another comedy or other experiments with the sung, vaudeville structure likely preceded it during the year 1709. I suggest that a police report documenting a performance of a comedy at the Fair of Saint Germain on February 7, 1709

(less than a month after the new arrêt) appears to describe characters singing vaudevilles in dialogue with each other. The piece is titled Pierrot Roland and is clearly a parody of Quinault’s and Lully’s opera Roland (1685), which had been recently revived in 1705 and would be revived again at the Paris Opéra in November of 1709.92 Unfortunately, no libretto survives for Pierrot

Roland and the comédie en vaudevilles of the same name from 1717 that survives in manuscript form, Pierrot furieux, ou Pierrot Roland by Fuzelier, Charles-François Panard, and Claude-

91 Bertrand Porot, “Aux origines de l’opéra-comique: étude musicale du Théâtre de la foire de Lesage et d’Orneval (1713–1734),” in The Opéra-comique in the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries, ed. Lorenzo Frassà (Turnhout, Belgium: Brepols, 2011), 285. “Placing the importance of the music reveals, in reality, a paradox that defines well the complexity of the first opéras-comiques: at their origins, its [music’s] inclusion is made in an accidental manner, at least a pragmatic one—it was necessary to sing because speaking was prohibited (Poser l’importance de la musique révèle en réalité un paradoxe qui définit bien la complexité des premiers opéras- comiques—il faut chanter parce qu’il est interdit de parler).”

92 Théodore de Lajarte, Bibliothèque musical du théâtre de l’Opéra: catalogue historique, chronologique, anecdotique, vol. 1 (Paris: Librairie des Bibliophiles), 48–9.

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Florimond Boizard de Pontau, is an entirely different piece. 93 Moreover, the plot does not match the description of the performance in the 1709 police report. It states that:

One played a piece titled: Pierrot Roland, after a danse de corde there appeared on the stage an individual who played the role of Pierrot Roland and a little boy who played the role of his son; the former sung several couplets of chansons in verse to which the latter responded also while singing. Several other actors and actresses appeared dressed in the costumes of Arlequin, Scaramouche, in the Italian style, who likewise sang, one in the presence of the other on the stage, several couplets of chansons both French and Italian, one serving most often to ask and the other to respond. An individual arrived several times playing the role of Pierrot Roland even singing some songs in prose without any rhyme, affecting the writing down of this defiance of the prohibition made against them of holding dialogues.94

I suggest that the performance described above, which appears to have been almost entirely sung with the exception of some spoken lines by Arlequin “at the end of his songs,” represents the first documentary evidence of the sung, vaudeville form. Here, the action of two performers taking part in a sung dialogue through “couplets of chansons in verse” describes well the vaudeville form.

It is important to note that the sung vaudeville structure emerges clearly during the years

1709–1712. All of the extant librettos from the years 1710–1712 contain a substantial number of vaudeville tunes. Seven of the nine comedies contain more than fifteen vaudevilles. Les fêtes

93 MS ff. fr. 9335, fols. 331–47, Bibliothèque nationale de Paris, accessed online at https://gallica.bnf.fr. The description of Fuzelier’s, Panard’s, and Pontau’s comedy (1717) does not match the description in the police report of Pierrot Roland from 1709. As the 1709 police report states, Pierrot was the first to appear on the stage, followed by Arlequin and Scaramouche, followed by some scenes in Italian. However, in the 1717 comedy Pierrot does not appear until the middle of the comedy in scene 5, nor is there a Scaramouche, nor are there any scenes in Italian.

94 Campardon, Les spectacles de la foire, vol. 2, 121–2. “…on y jouait une pièce qui avoit pour titre: Pierrot Roland; qu’après la danse de corde il a paru sur le théâtre un particulier qui faisait le role de Pierrot Roland et un petit garcon qui faisait le rôle de son fils; que le premier a chanté plusieurs couplets de chansons en vers auxquels le second a répondu aussi en chantant. Qu’il est survenu plusieurs autres acteurs et actrices vêtus tant en habits d’Arlequin, Scaramouche, qu’habits à l aromaine, qui ont pareillement chanté, l’un en présence de l’autre sur le théâtre, plusieurs couplets de chansons tant en françois qu’en italien, l’une servant le plus souvent de demande et l’autre de réponse. Qu’il est arrivé plusieurs fois que ledit particulier faisant le rôle de Pierrot Roland chantait même des chansons en prose et sans aucune rime, affectant de marquer le mépris de la défense qui leur était faite de tenir des dialogues.”

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parisiennes and Arlequin à la guinguette each have over thirty vaudevilles while several others have more than twenty. These counts are also consistent with Barnes’s counts for the first three comedies in the Lesage collection: 46 tunes in Arlequin, roi de Serendib, 28 tunes in Arlequin

Thétis, and 23 tunes in Arlequin invisible (all from 1713).95 Lesage designated all three of these works from 1713 as pièces par écriteaux. They also follow the same form as the 1710–1712 librettos, comprising sung vaudevilles indicated as écriteaux along with descriptions of the stage action, and no spoken dialogue. Barberet erroneously believed that prior to Lesage, the fair theater authors of these early comedies used only a handful of different tunes:

The first authors of the pieces en vaudevilles did not intend malice; a half dozen airs, and even less, sufficed them: ‘Réveillez-vous, belle endormie,’ ‘Mon père, je viens devant vous,’ ‘Je ne suis né ni roi ni prince,’ and three or four others, here is all of their musical repertoire.96

However, there are at least seventy-three different vaudeville tunes in these nine librettos. There are also many more that are most likely different tunes, but I have not included them here since it is possible they are duplicates of other tunes. Barnes has already pointed out Barberet’s false claim that Lesage’s Arlequin, roi de Serendib contained 150 different tunes. It is clear that in his hagiography of Lesage, Barberet has attempted to exaggerate Lesage’s contribution to the development of the vaudeville form, while downplaying the use of vaudevilles prior to his debut.

While Lesage’s important role should not be understated, Barberet’s claims have persisted in modern scholarship.97

95 Clifford Barnes, “The Théâtre de la Foire (Paris, 1697–1762), Its Music and Composers,” (PhD diss., University of Southern California, 1965), 150.

96 Barberet, 85. “Les premiers auteurs de pièces en vaudevilles n’y entendaient pas malice; une demi douzaine d’airs, et même moins, leur suffisaient: ‘Réveillez-vous, belle endormie,’ ‘Mon père, je viens devant vous,’ ‘Je ne suis né ni roi ni prince,’ et trois ou quatre autres, voilà tout leur repertoire musical.”

97 See Heartz, “Terpsichore at the Fair,” 139.

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Musical Structure in the Fair Theater Repertory, 1710–1712: Vaudeville Tunes, Sources, and

Meanings

The average number of vaudevilles in these early comedies is around twenty. Although the number of vaudevilles increased considerably in the following years, there are still at least seventy-three different tunes that appeared in the pre-1713 repertory. Of these seventy-three tunes, around a dozen emerge as favorites, as they appear several times and in multiple pieces.

These same tunes, perhaps the most popular and well-known tunes of the day, are also found in the works of the Lesage collection. As Table 3.4 shows, the timbre “Joconde” is the most- frequently-used tune in these early comedies, appearing thirteen times and in five different comedies. “Joconde” is followed by another popular timbre “Réveillez-vous, belle endormie,” which appears twelve times in three different comedies. Often misattributed to Charles Dufresny, the origins of this tune probably date back to the early seventeenth century. Jean-Baptiste

Weckerlin cites a manuscript from 1643 bearing the inscription, “sur l’air Réveillez-vous, belle endormie.”98 However, the provenance of many of the most popular songs, including “Joconde” and “Réveillez-vous, belle endormie” remains unknown.

The original sources of several tunes are identifiable. One of the most common sources of popular vaudeville tunes was operas, primarily those of Lully. “Quand le péril est agréable,” which appears a total of six times in four different comedies from 1710–1712 and in dozens of comedies after 1713, has already been identified as an air from Lully’s Atys (1676). In its original context, “Quand le péril” is sung towards the end of act I, scene 3 by Sangaride, who is

98 Jean-Baptiste Weckerlin, Chansons populaires du pays de France: Notice et accompagnement de piano (Paris: Fischbacher, 1903), 60. As Weckerlin claims, the song predates Dufresny, who was born only in 1648. He believes the confusion arises from a song text written by Dufresny titled, “Réveillez-vous, belle dormeuse,” which is set to the tune “Réveillez-vous, belle endormie,” found in his collected works published in 1747.

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Table 3.4. Vaudeville Tunes Used in the Fair Theater Repertory, 1710–1712. The right-most column indicates the total number of comedies in which a specific tune appeared. The middle column indicates the total number of times a tune appears in the repertory, including repeated uses within a single comedy.

Timbre Total Appearances Number of Comedies Grimaudin 6 4 Joconde 13 5 Vous qui vous mocquez par vos ris 4 4 Ne m’entendez-vous pas 4 3 La nuit et le jour 4 4 Vous m’entendez bien 6 5 Quand le péril est agréable 6 4 Tu croyais en aimant Colette 8 4 Amis sans regretter Paris 2 2 Réveillez-vous belle endormie 12 3 Allons gai 2 2 Saranbande de l’Inconnu 2 2 La verte jeunesse 2 2 Folies d’Espagne 6 3 Tout cela m’est indifférent 8 3 Lampons lampons 2 2

secretly in love with Atys. Here Sangaride asks Atys why he is so resistant to falling in love. Its triple meter, emphasis on the second beat, and characteristic rhythm ( ), all recall the affect of a sarabande. Another vaudeville tune that is borrowed from Atys, “La beauté la plus sévere” appears in one comedy from 1711, Arlequin Énée ou la prise de troyes, and in the appendix to volume 5 of the Lesage collection (no. 67). Its popularity outside the opera is further evidenced by its appearance in a song collection titled Parodies Bachiques (1696), in which it was set to a new chanson à boire text, “I ask only to drink good wine, evening and morning.”99 Not all

99 Parodies Bachiques, sur les airs et symphonies des Opéra: recueillies et mises en ordre par Monsieur Ribon, seconde edition, revûë et augmentée (Paris: Christophe Ballard, 1696), 65. “Je ne demande qu’à boire de bon vin soir et matin.” This is the text incipit of the second verse. 162

Musical Example 3.1. Source of Vaudeville “La beauté la plus sévère,” from Atys. Shown below is the choral incipit from Atys, act IV, scene 5 after manuscript VM2-30, Bibliothèque nationale de France, département Musique, fol. 141.

vaudeville tunes were taken from solo airs either. “La beauté la plus sévere” is excerpted from a choral number in act IV, scene 5 rather than a solo air. After Atys has proclaimed his love for

Sangaride and has vowed to contend her betrothal to Celenus, a chorus of river gods and divinities of the springs and streams sings this celebratory chorus. The tune is first heard in a recorder duet before it is reprised as a choral trio. Here, the recorders maintain their association with the pastoral in their portrayal of the fantastical world of river nymphs and divinities. The lighthearted character of this vaudeville, which shares the features of a gavotte, is further created by the prominent use of parallel thirds in the upper voices (shown above in Musical Example

3.1).

Outside of opera, vaudeville tunes originated from works at the other royal theaters. Two examples that were particularly popular not only in these early works, but also in the comedies of the Lesage collection, demonstrate how certain undertones could be expressed by the use of a particular tune within a new comedy. The first is “Adieu panier vendanges sont faites,” which 163

appears three times in Arlequin et Scaramouche vendangeurs. Mark Darlow has traced the history of the tune associated with this text and determined that it was commonly used to express nostalgia.100 The text comes from a song in the last scene of a comedy performed at the

Comédie-Française in 1694, Florent Carton Dancourt’s Les vendanges de Suresnes. In this original work, an elder grapepicker attempts to bestow some wisdom upon the young grapepickers, imploring them to take advantage of their working years:

Garçons et fillettes, Boys and girls, Aiguisez vos serpettes, Sharpen your serpettes,101 Profitez de l’Automne et de votre printemps. You profit from autumn and your spring. Quand vous serez à l’hiver de vos ans, When you are in the winter of your years, Adieu paniers, vendanges Farewell baskets, grape harvests seront faites.102 will be done.

Given its placement at the end of the comedy, this text would have also be understood as the moral of the play. Thus the advice was not intended simply for the fictional grapepickers on the stage, but rather was meant as a socially-instructive maxim for the audience: youth is not to be squandered. Although the timbre is not always labeled in the libretto of Arlequin et Scaramouche vendangeurs, several vaudevilles can safely be identified as “Adieu panier vendanges sont faites” via comparative analysis of their syllable structure. One such excerpt is shown clearly in Musical

Example 3.2, in which I have typeset Fuzelier’s new text to the tune of “Adieu panier vendanges sont faites” as it appears notated in the Lesage collection. The use of this tune, “Adieu panier

100 Mark Darlow, “Fonctionnement des timbres dans Les Amours de Bastien et Bastienne de Mme Favart et Harny de Guerville,” in Timbre und Vaudeville: Zue Geschichte und Problematik einer populären Gattung im 17. und 18. Jahrhunderts. Bericht über den Kongreß in Bad Homburg 1996, 226–43, ed. Herbert Schneider (Hildesheim, Germany: Georg Olms Verlag, 1999).

101 Serpettes were tools used for cutting grapes from the vine.

102 Mark Darlow has republished this text in “Fonctionnement des timbres,” 238. Here I have modernized the original spellings of “eguisez,” “printems,” and “hyver.”

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Musical Example 3.2. Arlequin et Scaramouche vendangeurs, act I, scene 8. The following is a textual allusion to Quinault’s original libretto for Cadmus et Hermione set to the vaudeville tune “Adieu panier vendanges sont faites.”

ARLEQUIN I am going to leave, beautiful Hermione, To bring myself this happiness: But I hear Love who orders me To cut the beard of the Doctor.

COLOMBINE Avenge not my enslavement Upon the mustache of a jealous one: Love shows you to your rage! Ah! Cadmus, why do you love me?

vendanges sont faites,” was also a musical allusion to Dancourt’s Les vendanges de Suresnes, a comedy written in the villageois style. The villageois style attempted to depict peasant life from an idealized perspective. Thus, its use in the new comedy would have brought to mind the pastoral imagery of Dancourt’s original play.103 The musical numbers for Dancourt’s Les vendanges de Suresnes were written by Jean-Claude Gillier and later published in a melody-only format in 1700. Gillier’s music likewise sought a musical characterization of folk song, apparent in its narrow melodic range and parallel phrase structure (shown above in Musical Example

103 Philip Koch, “In Search of Angélique: The Dancourt Connection,” Studies in Eighteenth-Century Culture 24 (1995): 212.

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3.2).104 Another popular vaudeville, “Sarabande de l’Inconnu” (also indicated in other works as

“De l’Inconnu”), appears in two comedies from 1711, Arlequin à la guinguette and Scaramouche pédant. A testament to its popularity in the following decades, the melody can be found in the appendices of the Lesage collection (vols. 1–4) under the title “Un inconnu pour vos charmes soupier (No. 89).” I have located the source of this tune in a piece that premiered at the Comédie-

Française. It is found in the five-act “comédie héroique” by Thomas Corneille and Visé from

1675 titled L’Inconnu. Like “Adieu panier vendanges sont faites,” “Sarabande de l’Inconnu” originates in a musical score by Gillier. Gillier composed a new score for a 1703 revival of

L’Inconnu that enjoyed a successful run of twenty-nine performances.105 Gillier’s score for

L’Inconnu survives in a manuscript at the Bibliothèque nationale de Paris that allows its basso continuo and implied harmonies to be reconstructed (see Musical Example 3.3).106 A comparison of this tune and the notated version in the Lesage collection (shown in Musical Example 3.4) also demonstrates how melodic variants of vaudeville tunes often appeared in new settings. In this example, the final phrase of this tune, while still following the contour of the original melody, is quite different in terms of its pitches and rhythms. Given his role as a musical arranger and composer of vaudeville comedies at the fair theaters, it is even possible that Gillier adapted the tune as it is found in the Lesage collection. Another possibility is that this is an example of a version that was collectively remembered and widely sung throughout Paris. In

Gillier’s original score for L’Inconnu, the tune first appears as an instrumental sarabande scored

104 Jean-Claude Gillier, Airs de la comédie des vendanges de Suresne (Paris: Christophe Ballard, 1700), 7– 8.

105 Babault, Annales dramatiques, ou dictionnaire général des théâtres, vol. 5 (Paris: Babault, 1810), 59.

106 Jean-Claude Gillier, Partition des Divertissements nouveaux pour la piece de l’Inconnu, MS. (1703, copied by André Danican Philidor), 39–41.

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Musical Example 3.3. “Air” from Manuscript Score of L’Inconnu by Jean-Claude Gillier. Bass part, vocal part, text, and ornaments are as found in original. The harmonic realization, indicated via small note heads, is my own for the purposes of demonstration.

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Musical Example 3.4. Vaudeville tune “Sarabande de l’Inconnu.” Below is the version that appears in the Lesage collection, vol. 1 (No. 89).

for melody instrument (treble clef) and basso continuo before two verses of text are set to the same sarabande tune. The text of the first verse, “Un inconnu pour vos charmes soupire,” also matches the text incipit provided in the appendix of the Lesage collection. This is an example in which the timbre referred directly to the origin of the tune. “Un inconnu” is another triple-meter, major-mode (originally in B-flat but notated in G in the Lesage collection) vaudeville that further shows the adaptability of dance numbers as songs. The sources of these two popular vaudeville tunes also suggest that Gillier had a greater role as the composer of popular tunes than has previously been thought. Moreover, it is likely that musical scores for other contemporaneous theater pieces, not just operas, supplied the sources for more vaudeville tunes than have yet been identified.

Other vaudeville tunes were older. Heartz has suggested that many vaudeville tunes have the characteristics of sixteenth-century branles. It is also possible that these tunes were still written in the eighteenth century but attempted to recall an earlier musical style. For example,

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Lully composed a set of branles for royal balls that were published by Ballard in 1699.107

However, the origins of a musical style or genre did not necessarily indicate its contemporaneous associations. For example, though the branle originated as a type of country dance, it was strictly associated with ballroom dancing in seventeenth-century France.108 Another old vaudeville tune that remained popular in the early eighteenth century, “Les folies d’Espagne,” is a variant of a melody that appeared in Portugal as early as 1577. At that time “Les folies d’Espagne” was a popular guitar piece in Spain and Italy.109 However, in eighteenth-century France “Les folies d’Espagne” would have had a martial or militaristic connotation as it appears in a collection of marches and batteries transcribed by André Danican Philidor.110 In this manuscript, “Les folies d’Espagne” is identified as an air des hautbois by Lully for three oboes and basso continuo (see

Musical Example 3.5). To the eighteenth-century Parisian listener, “Les folies d’Espagne” would not have conjured up imagery of a Renaissance lutenist in the Spanish countryside but rather would have recalled military marches. Thus when Arlequin sings his response to the Romains

(members of the Comédie Française) to the tune “Les folies d’Espagne” at the end of Fuzelier’s

Orphée ou Arlequin aux enfers, it may have had multiple meanings for the audience. First, its martial connotations might have suggested the continuous battle between the fair theaters and the

Comédie Française. More likely, though, its pompous, militaristic imagery might have been used to associate the French comedians and their monopoly privilege with the monarchy while mocking their condescending attitudes towards anything perceived as “low-brow.”

107 Harris-Warrick, 274. Lully’s branles were published as Suite de danses pour les violons et hautbois, qui se jouent ordinarement aux bals chez le roi, ed. Philidor l’ainé (Paris: Ballard, 1699).

108 Ibid., 93.

109 Richard Hudson, “The Folia Melodies,” Acta Musicologica 45 (January–June 1973): 98.

110 Ibid., 110.

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Musical Example 3.5. “Air des hautbois Les folies d’Espagne.” The following reproduced from the manuscript Partition de plusieurs marches et batteries de tambour tant françoises qu’étrangères avec les airs de fifre et de hautbois à 3 et 4 parties after a facsimile of musical manuscript 168 of the Bibliothèque municipal de Versailles (1705; Paris: Minkoff, 1994).

Beyond Vaudevilles: Other Musical Borrowings and Vocal Music

In the comédies en vaudevilles of the Lesage collection there is a significant musical component beyond the use of vaudevilles that includes borrowings of musical numbers from operas. Though no such borrowed numbers are notated in the fair theater librettos from the years

1710–1712, it seems that this practice of borrowing operatic numbers also predated the comedies

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of the Lesage collection. There are several examples from the fair theater librettos from 1710–

1712 that suggest operatic borrowings as indicated by stage directions or textual references.

The best example of this practice can be found in act I, scene 9 of Arlequin et Scaramouche vendangeurs. Here, the libretto states that Arlequin (who is dressed as Cadmus) and Pierrot

“imitate the recitative from the opera [Cadmus et Hermione] and in order to cut the Doctor’s beard, he calls to his aid some of his friends disguised as goblins.” The “recitative from the opera” most likely referred to the recitative from act III, scene 3 of Cadmus et Hermione, in which Cadmus slays the dragon (see Musical Example 3.6). Quinault greatly emphasized

Arbas’s cowardice in the moments before Cadmus confronts the dragon. This scene lent itself well to comical histrionics. Even in the 2008 production of Cadmus et Hermione at the Opéra

Comique111 directed by Martin Fraudeau and Vincent Dumestre a very humorous interpretation of Arbas is offered in this scene:

ARBAS ARBAS Quelle hâte avez-vous que le Dragon Why do you hurry so that the dragon vous mange? eats you? Laissez-le se cacher. Ah! Le voilà qui sort! Leave him hiding. Ah! Here he comes! Au secours! Au secours! Je suis mort! Help! Help! I am dying! Je suis mort! I am dying! O ciel! Où sera mon asile? O heavens! Where will I take refuge! La frayeur me rend immobile; Fear has rendered me unable to move! Je ne sçaurois plus faire un pas: I no longer know how to take a step: Ah! Cachons-nous, ne soufflons pas. Ah! Let us hide, let us not gasp.

It is not difficult to see how this scene could have been borrowed and adapted to the new comedy by simply changing the occurrences of the words “Le dragon” to “Le Docteur.”

111 This production is available in DVD format by Alpha Productions.

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Musical Example 3.6. Recitative from Cadmus et Hermione, act III, scene 3. This scene is presumably the source of a borrowed musical number in Arlequin et Scaramouche vendangeurs, act I, scene 9. “Le Docteur” could have easily been substituted for “Le dragon” as Arlequin sung the role of Cadmus while Pierrot sung the role of Arbas.

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Instrumental Music: Incidental Music, Interludes, and Overtures

The simple notion of the comédie en vaudevilles as a combination of spoken dialogue with popular songs inadequately describes the full musical component of these pieces. Despite being a primarily spoken repertory, the plays of the Italian theater and the Comédie-Française had substantial musical components. In addition to vocal numbers, the repertory of spoken theater pieces also featured incidental music. Likewise, instrumental music seems to have played a crucial role in the fair theater repertory already in the years 1710–1712. Chapter 2 has shown how music accompanied nearly every spectacle at the fair theaters and was often integral to a performance. In the absence of musical scores for this repertory, the instrumental numbers can be examined only through other sources: directions in the librettos, contemporary accounts of performances, and police reports. Instrumental music in the fair theater repertory functioned similarly to the way it did at the other theaters. Thus it served to enhance the drama, emphasize key moments in the plot, accompany or signal particular actions, and recall a specific setting or locale. Barnes states:

The orchestra was frequently called upon throughout the opéra-comique to describe events of nature on stage or off stage, to set the scene (e.g. pastoral, exotic, etc.), to accompany stage business, to announce the arrival of important characters or special events by fanfares, and even to provide sound effects.112

The arrival of important characters, such as a deity or monarch, was almost always announced by the orchestra. In the prologue of Jupiter curieux impertinent, in the palace of Folly, “one hears a symphony which announces Folly, who descends with two little followers.” Later in act I, “one hears thunder which announces Jupiter who descends to test Isabelle.” Contrary to descents of deities at the Paris Opéra, descents of deities at the fair theaters were intended to be facetious.

112 Barnes, “Instruments and Instrumental Music at the ‘Théâtres de la Foire’ (1697–1762),” Recherches sur la musique française classique V (1965): 150. 173

More specifically, they were meant to ridicule to overused convention of chariot descents in the operatic repertory. Lully’s Isis (1677) is a famous example in which there are eight separate descents before the end of act II. Orchestral music likewise depicted the setting, whether a rustic scene or a loud, urban tavern. Act III of Arlequin à la guinguette takes place in the woods. When a “troupe of hunters” suddenly appears, the libretto indicates that “one hears the noise of horns.”

Musicians could also be on stage as a part of the action. In a crowded tavern scene from the second act of Jupiter curieux impertinent, “a band of violins of the cabaret come to the table of the procureurs, who dance a minuet.” In scene 4 of Orphée ou Arlequin aux enfers Arlequin plays his lyre to calm Cerberus upon entering the underworld.

In addition to accompanying the action onstage, instrumental numbers were used even when the onstage action stopped. Although most librettos did not indicate the presence of an overture, these comedies most likely all contained overtures, whether they were borrowed from an opera or other theatrical work or were newly-composed. Barnes cites the 1715 comédie en vaudevilles Télémaque, a parody of Destouches’s opera of the same name, as the “earliest mention of an overture at a fair theater.”113 To this I can add two earlier examples from 1711 in the librettos of Arlequin Énée and Jupiter curieux impertinent. Both examples contain a note in the stage directions that states: “after the overture.” There is also evidence for the use of standalone orchestral numbers that did not accompany dancing. In scene 6 of Orphée ou

Arlequin aux enfers, for example, the libretto specifically indicates that “one hears a pleasing symphony” only after “the dances have finished.” Numbers such as this probably accompanied changes in scenery and breaks in between acts. Yet the few indications found in these librettos

113 Barnes, “Instruments,” 149. The libretto directs that “the orchestra plays an overture, and then the “Tempest of Alcione,” during which one sees two ships that the agitated sea batters. (L’Orchestre jouë l’ouverture, et ensuite « la Tempête d’Alcione », pendant laquelle on voit deux vaisseaux que la mer agitée bat.”

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still do not likely portray the full extent of instrumental music in this repertory. The author of a police report from March 22, 1710 at the Fair of Saint Germain noted that “the violins play” a musical number at least four different times in his report.114

The size of orchestras at the Parisian theaters was governed by an ordonnance from 1673 that restricted the total number of musicians at every theater except the Paris Opéra to only six instruments and two singers at any given time.115 Moreover, the other theaters were not allowed to have offstage singers or a pit for the orchestra.116 Thus the orchestras at the fair theaters were probably consistent with those at the Comédie-Française and Théâtre Italien. As police reports indicate, however, the fair theater orchestras rarely complied with this limitation of six instrumentalists. The following details come from Barnes’s insightful survey of police reports mentioning instrumental music at the fair theaters.117 The typical orchestra at the fair theaters from 1708–1712 consisted of eight instrumentalists. Of the eight police reports from these years that specify a total number of musicians, only two give a count of less than eight musicians in the orchestra, one from 1711 specifying six instrumentalists and another from 1709 mentioning just three. Strings predominate, though the presence of winds is also observed. The most common configuration was five violins, one bass, one oboe, and one bassoon. Two pieces from the fair theater repertory from 1710–1712 for which there are librettos, Arlequin à la guinguette and La femme juge, have performances described by police reports. On August 13, 1711 at the Fair of

114 Campardon, Les spectacles de la foire, vol. 1, 89–90.

115 Powell, Music and Theatre in France, 61.

116 Ibid.

117 Barnes, “Instruments,” 142–168.

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Saint Laurent, one troupe had “an orchestra of eight musicians” for La femme juge et partie.118

The next night at a different troupe’s theater at the same Fair of Saint Laurent, a performance of

Arlequin à la guinguette employed an orchestra of “three violins, an oboe, and two bass violins.”119 As for the quality of the orchestras, there is only one anecdote, from 1743, that seems to indicate that the musicians were very skilled. Jean Monnet, who later directed the Opéra-

Comique, claimed that “the excellent violins who had for a long time accompanied the couplets and vaudevilles [at the fair theaters], the singular instrument players and exotic singers, were replaced by the poor devils who were made to dance in the guinguettes and popular balls.”120

Moreover, it seems that instrumental numbers were played from written-out arrangements, likely the work of a musician such as Gillier. The author of a police report from 1721 observed that

“the whole sound of said instruments, which did not cease from playing different pieces of music in the entr’actes having their notated papers in front of them.”121

Dance Music

In the comédies en vaudevilles, dancing occurred simultaneously with singing. Heartz has shown with two comédies en vaudevilles from the Lesage collection that many of the popular

118 Bonnassies, 38.

119 Campardon, Les spectacles de la foire, vol. 2, 92.

120 Cited originally by Barnes, “Instruments,” 146. See Jean Monnet, Supplément au Roman comique ou Mémoires pour server à la vie de Jean Monnet, ci-devant directeur de l’Opéra-Comique à Paris, vol. 1 (London: 1773); and Maurice Albert, Les Théâtres de la Foire (1660–1789) (Paris: Hachette, 1900), 181. “Les excellents violons qui avaient longtemps accompagné les couplets et les vaudevilles, les joueurs d’instruments singuliers et les chanteurs exotiques, furent remplacés par de pauvres diables qui faisaient danser dans les guinguettes et les bals populaires.” 3-7 121 Campardon, Les spectacles de la foire, vol. 1, 16. “…le tout au son des susdits instrumens qui dans les entr’actes n’ont cessé de jouer différentes pièces de musique ayant devant eux leurs papiers notés.”

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vaudeville tunes contained the phrase structures and meters of older dances, especially the sixteenth-century branles.122 Barnes has likewise remarked on some examples of dance numbers found in the Lesage collection, noting the importance of the use of the branle in the closing

“vaudeville final,” a grandiose vaudeville number accompanied by dancing and the ensemble cast of dancers or actors.123 The crucial role of dance in the fair theater repertory from the years

1710–1712 should not be understated. Here, the use of true, balletic numbers further embellished a visual, gesture-based comedy, highlighting the talents of the actors and actresses, most of whose backgrounds were in dance and acrobatics.

Balletic numbers are differentiated from acrobatic routines in the librettos by the terms

“entrée” or “ballet,” while the latter are referred to as “lazzi,” “sauts,” or “jeux.” For example, in scene 1 from Orphée ou Arlequin aux enfers, “several pleasant dreams flutter around him

[Arlequin] and form a ballet.” Later, in scene 4, Arlequin makes several jeux de théâtre with the monsters, which finish this scene.” In total, this brief comedy contains at least five balletic numbers and four acrobatic scenes. As was typical of French theater, dances were often placed at the end of a scene or act. While the majority of these indications do not specify the type of dance, there are several that demonstrate a variety of dance types. In act II of Jupiter curieux impertinent, which is set in a cabaret, two Bohemians perform a passepied. Later in the act, still in the cabaret, a group of violinists plays a minuet. In this particular example, the dancing was well integrated into the action of the plot as these performers portrayed the common entertainments of a cabaret. In Arlequin à la guinguette, a branle is danced to the timbre “Robin

122 Heartz, “Terpsichore at the Fair.” The two comédies en vaudevilles are Arlequin roi de Sérendib from 1713 and Les couplets en procès from 1729–1730, both written by Lesage.

123 Barnes, “Instruments,” 153–5.

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ture lure lure.” This tune shares some rhythmic characteristics with the branle gay, which Heartz suggests is the oldest type of branle dances derived from Brittany.124 Shown in Musical Example

3.7, the opening pattern of durations ( ) and irregular meter of “Robin ture lure lure” suggest the style of the branle gay. However, a clear duple meter and quicker rhythms emerge bringing to mind the livelier style of the Burgundian branle. This tune also conforms to

Rousseau’s definition of the branle found in the 1768 Dictionnaire as it ends “with a same refrain at the end of each couplet,” here with the words “Robin ture lure lure.”125

Often dances in the fair theater comedies were solo dances. There is also evidence for ensemble dances. For example, a few accounts specify an actual number of dancers. Often heard as the opening number at masquerade balls, the branle was danced by couples, usually in a circle (though it was occasionally a line dance). Orphée ou Arlequin aux enfers calls for “four furies” to form an “entrée” in scene 6. Though these dance ensemble numbers were small, some could contain as many as twelve dancers. A police report from August 7, 1711 at a performance of Arlequin à la guinguette noted that:

The piece is composed of several acts in which there are some dances and entrées de ballets by different actors and actresses who dance now individually and now as a troupe numbering sometimes six, eight, and twelve, both in the costumes of men and women.126

Even numbers of dancers seem to have been the norm. Another report from August 14 of the same year from a different performance of Arlequin à la guinguette recalled there were “several dances of one, two, four, six, and even eight of said actors and actresses to the sound of airs

124 Heartz, “Terpsichore,” 142.

125 Heartz and Patricia Rader. “Branle.” Grove Music Online. 16 Oct. 2018. https://www.oxfordmusiconline.com/grovemusic. “…avec un meme refrain à la fin de chaque couplet.”

126 Campardon, Les spectacles de la foire I, 91. “…la pièce est composée de plusieurs actes dans lesquels il y a des danses et entrées de ballets par différens acteurs et actrices qui dansent tantôt en particulier et tantôt en troupe au nombre quelquefois de six, de huit, et de douze, tan ten habits d’homme que de femme.”

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Musical Example 3.7. Vaudeville tune “Robin ture lure lure.” The version below is from the Lesage collection, vol. 1 (No. 47).

which the orchestra played.”127 The same report indicates that the performance finished with “the new dance Caprice from the Opéra, which is playing presently, that Arlequin danced [it] while imitating Mademoiselle Prévost, who dances it at the Opéra.”128 Françoise Prévost had been première danseuse at the Opéra since 1705. In 1711 she had begun performing an innovative type of solo dance to a symphony by Jean-Féry Rebel titled Caprice. This dance preceded her famous dance for Rebel’s 1715 Les Caractères de la danse which Harris-Warrick describes as requiring “the dancer to change style every few seconds—from a sarabande to a gigue to a rigaudon, in one section—and thus demands an ability both to inhabit different styles convincingly and to alter them in the blink of an eye.”129

Prior to the expanded use of the vaudeville form (before 1710), dance seems to have played an even greater role in the repertory of the fair theaters. Les amours de Tremblotin et de

Marinette (1701) concludes with a “ballet comique.” The musical structure of Le ravissement

127 Ibid., 92. “…plusieurs danses d’un, de deux, de quatre, de six, et même de huit desdits acteurs et actrices, au son des airs que l’orchestre a joués.”

128 Ibid., 92–93. “…la nouvelle dance du caprice de l’opéra, qui se joue à present, qu’Arlequin a dansée en contrefaisant la demoiselle Prévost, qui la danse à l’Opéra.”

129 Harris-Warrick, 390–2.

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Table 3.5. Musical Structure of the divertissement from act III of Le ravissement d’Hélène, le siege et l’embrasement de Troie (1705) Specified Characters Specified Genre 1. Juno air, verse 2. Pallas, chorus air and chorus 3. Helen air 4. four Greek men entrée 5. Menelaus not specified 6. Greek man and woman entrée 7. Menelaus, Helen duet 8. two Greek men and two Greek women entrée 9. Menelaus, Helen duet 10. two Greek men entrée 11. ritournelle instrumental 12. three Greeks, chorus trio 13. two Greek men entrée 14. Greek man, chorus air 15. not specified entrée grotesque 16. not specified chaconne

d’Hélène, le siege et l’embrasement de Troie (1705) imitates those of the courtly entertainments, operas, pastorales, machine plays, and other contemporary genres. There are also two separate divertissements in Le ravissement d’Hélène, le siege et l’embrasement de Troie. The first, appearing in act II, is well integrated into the plot as the Trojans celebrate the acquisition of the wooden horse they believe will lead them to victory. A brief divertissement followed this scene comprising two songs, minuets danced by four Trojan men, a brief choral reprise of “without

Bacchus, one cannot live,” and an entrée danced by a drunkard (ivrogne). The best evidence of the substantial dance music component of the early fair theater repertory is found in the act III divertissement of Le ravissement d’Hélène, le siege et l’embrasement de Troie (shown above in

Table 3.4). Here, there are sixteen different musical numbers. Variety is also emphasized in the arrangements of the different ensembles and dance types. There are several airs, choruses, danced entrées, duets, a trio, a ritournelle, an entrée grotesque, and a chaconne to conclude the

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piece. One of the longest dances from this time, the chaconne, was almost always danced either by a soloist or a couple.130 The chaconne had a comic association since the 1680s after Lully had used it for commedia dell’arte characters in some of his ballets.131 Similarly, Manto le fée

(1711), a tragédie en musique by J. B. Stuck with a libretto by Mennesson, contains an instrumental chaconne “for Arlequin and Scaramouche.”132

Conclusions

Although there are few examples of the fair theater troupes appropriating specific pieces from the repertory of the Italian theater, their theatrical legacy, nonetheless, left an indelible imprint on the repertory of the fair theaters. The use of commedia dell’arte characters, plot scenarios, styles, lazzi routines, and comic violence all remained a central characteristic of the fair theater repertory throughout the Regency (1715–1723). Moreover, the librettos from 1697–

1712 demonstrate the important role dancing, acrobatics, and visual spectacle played in the early repertory of the fair theater. It is clear that the vaudeville structure did not suddenly appear in

1713 as descriptions of the performances of the vaudeville structure are found as early as 1709.

Lesage, who had a crucial role in trying to legitimize the fair theaters, built upon the popular success of these early works. In the following decade, Lesage, the fair theater troupes, and the other authors of the fair theaters took further steps to legitimize their theater and improve the personnel. Here, the theatrical politics of Paris from the first decade of the eighteenth century

130 Harris-Warrick, 117–8.

131 Ibid., 167. For Le carnaval, Lully composed a chaconne that was to be danced by Arlequin.

132 Jean-Baptiste Stuck and Mennesson, Manto le fée opéra mis en musique (Paris: Christophe Ballard: 1710), 260–3.

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were further brought to the fore through the comédies en vaudevilles during the Regency.

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Chapter 4: Parody, Satire, and Polemics at the Parisian Fair Theaters, 1713–1723

In the Lesage collection, the frontispiece for the comedy titled Le rappel de la Foire à la vie depicts the cast of fair theater actors and actresses from a 1721 performance. Front and center are the comedy’s main characters, anthropomorphized representations of the Parisian theaters, the Opéra and La Foire (fair theaters). With the exception of his characteristic, diamond- patterned clown suit, which is visible just above his boots, Arlequin is costumed as Hercules from Lully’s and Quinault’s opera Alceste. To the right stands La Foire, portrayed by the troupe’s Pierrot en travesti as Alceste. Why were the stock characters of the commedia dell’arte dressed as the tragic-heroic characters of classic French opera? And why were they portraying the theaters of Paris, the Académie royale de musique itself? This seemingly unusual setting in

Le rappel de la Foire à la vie comes from a new type of comédie en vaudevilles that appeared in the fair theater repertory in 1718 and enjoyed a brief period of popularity into the 1730s. These works staged the theatrical polemics of Paris via personified versions of the theaters acting out their legal disputes.

Theatrical polemics were just one of several sources of subject matter for the comédies en vaudevilles of the fair theaters. In her discussion of the repertoire of the fair theaters from 1697–

1762, Martin describes six such categories: (1) the pièce exotique, (2) the pièce littéraire, (3) the pièce polemique, (4) the pièce anecdotique, (5) the pièce parodique, and (6) the pièce satirique.1

Often based on the topic of escapism and thus set in a foreign locale, the pièce exotique has been studied extensively by Jama Stilwell.2 The pièce parodique has too become the focus of scholars

1 For a detailed description of these categories with examples see Martin, 196–252.

2 Jama Stilwell, “‘A Story Altogether Foolish, Bizarre, and Buffoonish’: The Théâtres de la Foire and the Eighteenth-Century Captivity Opera,” (PhD diss., University of Iowa, 2003) and “A New View of the Eighteenth- 183

recently.3 Outside this literature, though, other subgenres of comédies en vaudevilles have drawn little scholarly attention. In this chapter, I examine the pièce polemique through a case study of two comédies en vaudevilles, Les funerailles de la Foire and Le rappel de la Foire à la vie to reveal that these works were far from simple slapstick comedies. On the contrary, their success relied on the audience’s ability to recognize and appreciate a deep range of intertextual references to current events and figures, theatrical life, morality, operatic works, and musical numbers. While the main plot of these two comedies features personified theaters who act out an important event in the legal disputes between the Parisian theaters (the closing and reopening of the fair theaters during the years 1718–1721), a parody of Quinault’s and Lully’s Alceste unfolds simultaneously. Moreover, numerous scenes and musical numbers from several Lully operas, in addition to Alceste, are borrowed, edited, and rearranged in these comedies. In this chapter I also compare the librettos of the original operas with those of the two comédies en vaudevilles Les funerailles de la Foire and Le rappel de la Foire à la vie to shed light on the authorial processes of musical-theatrical borrowing. I also show how the new comedy engaged with a body of pre- existing theatrical works to suggest information about specific operatic scenes that were especially popular with Parisian audiences in the early eighteenth century. I also extrapolate the

Century ‘Abduction’ Opera: Edification and Escape at the Parisian Théâtres de la Foire” Music and Letters 91/1 (February 2010): 51–82. Stilwell argues that scholars have focused too much on viewing escape operas as Enlightenment texts, and thus have applied this reading too broadly to a large repertoire. She further demonstrates how Parisian authors and audiences of the fair theaters in the early eighteenth century viewed these works via the political and social issues of the day rather than through symbolic interpretations of their characters as enlightened monarchs.

3 Antonia Louise Banducci was one of the first musicologists to study opera parody after Donald J. Grout’s essay, “Seventeenth-Century Parodies of French Opera—Part I,” The Musical Quarterly 27, no. 2 (April 1941): 211–9. For Grout’s preliminary attempt to catalogue all parodies at the fair theaters see, “Supplement I: A List of Parodies in the Early Opéra-Comique” in “The Origins of the Opéra-Comique.” In her dissertation, “Tancrède by Antoine Danchet and André Campra: Performance History and Reception (1702–1764)” (PhD diss., Washington University, 1990), Banducci provides a comparative analysis of two parodies of Tancrède. Susan Louise Harvey examined a larger repertory of parodies in her dissertation, “Opera Parody in Eighteenth-Century France: Genesis, Genre, and Critical Function,” (PhD diss., Stanford University, 2002).

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numerous intertextual references in these comedies in order to situate them within the long tradition of satire and satirical song in France. The satirical commentary of these works offers further insights into audience attitudes, public taste, and theatrical politics. The chapter begins with a background discussion of the context of theatrical parody in eighteenth-century France. In the following sections I examine how the fair theater comedies overlapped with the world of satirical song. In the final section I analyze the satirical commentary, musical-borrowings, and meanings found in the polemical comédies en vaudevilles Les funerailles de la Foire and Le rappel de la Foire à la vie.

Theatrical Parody in Seventeenth- and Eighteenth-Century France

The vogue for theatrical parody in eighteenth-century France can be traced back to the late seventeenth century when parodists attempted to capitalize on the popularity of Lully’s operas. Louise Harvey contends that the Italian troupe of Gherardi, one of the first to perform opera parodies, increasingly added music to their comedies after 1680 to cater to the French public.4 Le Blanc attributes this penchant for Lully parodies to the musical restrictions imposed on the other theaters by the Académie royale de musique. She claims that these restrictions helped cultivate a rivalry among the theaters that led to the appearance of the comic caricature of the musician at the other theaters.5 In 1736, Luigi Riccoboni blamed the popularity of parody on what he viewed as a decline of classic French tragedy. He believed that these newer, inferior tragedies were thus more susceptible to parody, “In my view, what has contributed more to the

4 Harvey, 59–61.

5 Le Blanc, 33–34. An ordinance from April 30, 1673 limited the number of musicians allowed in the other theaters to no more than six.

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proliferation of parodies, which needs to be brought to the attention of today’s poets, is that they have dealt with subjects or have chosen events which lend themselves to parody.”6 Moreover, the level of audience familiarity with Lully’s operas further contributed to this favorable environment for opera parodies.

By the eighteenth century, parodying the most successful operas had nearly become a tacit convention of French theater, prompting Grout to describe parodies as satellites orbiting the planet of the original work.7 He argued that even by the seventeenth century the genre of parody had been elevated “to the status of a distinct art, with its own special practitioners, its own rules, and its own theorists.”8 The great number of parodies performed from this period affirms this.

Valleria Belt Grannis estimated that seven to eight hundred different theatrical parodies were produced in eighteenth-century France.9 Though the process of creating parodies was hardly uniform, some conventions can be observed. The time between an opera premiere or revival and the appearance of its parody or parodies varied. In the seventeenth century, parodies were often

6 Riccoboni, 279–80. “Une autre cause, à mon avis, qui a le plus contribué à multiplier les parodies, et qu’il faut aussi rapporter aux poëtes de nos jours; c’est qu’ils ont traité des sujets, ou qu’ils ont choisi des incidents qui se prêtaient d’eux-mêmes à la Parodie.”

7 Ibid., 214. He adds, “Every revival [in the eighteenth century] produced a new one [parody], so that the Mercure de France habitually reported on “the parody” of Armide, etc.—the use of the definite article being in this case a significant indication of the usualness of the practice.”

8 Ibid., 211.

9 Originally cited by Banducci, 213. Valleria Belt Grannis, Dramatic Parody in Eighteenth-Century France (New York: Publications of the Institute of French Studies, 1931). This publication is a reprint of Grannis’s dissertation. Grannis was then a doctoral advisee of prominent literary scholar Gustave Leopold van Roosbroeck. Van Roosbroeck had in preparation at that time a bibliographic catalogue of theatrical parodies from eighteenth- century France. However, this title appears never to have been published at the time of Roosbroeck’s death in 1936, nor does it seem to have appeared posthumously since. Grannis claims that this list contained 700 or 800 different examples of theatrical parody.

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performed within three months of the original opera.10 In the eighteenth century, the authors of parodies at the fair theaters always shortened the plots of the originals or excerpted only fragments from them. Some parodies were abridged versions of the original work, while others parodied only a small number of scenes. In some cases, a seemingly spontaneous parody could emerge right in the midst of an original comedy. For example, a parody of Lully’s Cadmus et

Hermione interrupts act I, scenes 7–10 of Fuzelier’s 1710 comedy Arlequin et Scaramouche vendangeurs.

In the 1730s, writings on parody begin to appear. These theorists sought to define the nature, function, and aesthetics of parody.11 The most influential writing of the period on parody was perhaps L’Abbé Claude Sallier’s 1733 essay, “Discours sur l’origine et sur le caractére de la parodie.” In it, Sallier attempted to define the genre of parody, trace its origins, and offer a prescriptive method for writing good parodies. Sallier was widely regarded as a scholar, who made his living primarily as a librarian for the king, but also as a philologist, linguist, professor, author, historian, archivist, and academician.12 True to the encyclopedic mindset of the times,

10 Banducci, 237–8. Some parodies appeared years after the performance of the parodied work, but Banducci notes that two to eight weeks after the revival of an opera was the most common time frame for a parody to appear. This observation is based on performance dates given in Grout, “The Origins of the Opéra-Comique,” Supplement I.

11 For a contextual analysis of eighteenth-century writings on parody, see Harvey, “Chapter 2: Theories of Dramatic Parody in Eighteenth-Century France,” in “Opera Parody,” 19–47. Harvey examines six primary source writings on parody: (1) Antoine Houdar de la Motte, “Troisiéme discours à l’occasion de la tragédie d’Inés,” Oeuvres de Monsieur Houdar de la Motte, vol. 4 (Paris: Prault l’aîné, 1754), 255–314, written in 1723–1724, (2) L’Abbé Claude Sallier, “Discours sur l’origine et sur le caractére de la parodie,” Histoire de l’Académie royale des inscriptions et belles-lettres (Paris: Imprimerie royale, 1733), 398–410, (3) Luigi Riccoboni, “Observations sur la parodie,” Observations sur la comédie et sur le génie de Molière, vol. 4 (Paris: Pissot, 1736), 275–348, (4) Louis Fuzelier, “Discours à l’occasion d’un discours de M. D. L. M [de la Motte] sur les parodies,” Les parodies du nouveau théâtre italien (Paris: Briasson, 1738), xx–xxxv, (5) François Riccoboni, “Discours sur la parodie,” Le Prince de Suresne, parodie (Paris: Delormel, 1746), 45–52, and (6) L’Abbé Iraihl, “Les Parodies,” Querelles Littéraires, vol. 2 (Paris: Durand, 1761), 382–94.

12 Laurent Portes, “Claude Sallier (1685–1761) dans la république des lettres,” Revue de la Bibliothèque nationale de France 38/2 (2011): 57–63. 187

Sallier concerned himself with establishing five different types or species (espéces) of parody.13

The first type he defines as changing one word in a verse. Often drawn from literature, these circulated in the form of witty or facetious epigrams. The second type refers to the process of changing a single letter in a verse or phrase. He cites as an example Cato’s speech in which Cato sarcastically changed Marcus Fulvius Nobilior’s surname to “Mobilior.” The third type does not alter the text of a pre-existing verse, but instead places it in a new or different context, often ironically or with the intent of ridiculing the source material. The fourth type of parody Sallier describes is a newly-composed verse that ridicules another author by mocking his or her particular style of writing. Lastly, what Sallier calls the “principal type of parody” is a work that imitates a significant part of or an entire pre-existing work. Reducing these five types to just two general ones, he calls the first four parodie simple or parodie narrative and the fifth type parodie dramatique. It is clear that the distinction Sallier makes is between literary parody and theatrical parody. Theatrical parody or parodie dramatique, he claims, is the genre the ancient Greeks spoke about most often and attributes the first theatrical parody to the ancient Greek dramatists.14

Sallier also attempts to describe the aims of parodists while defining the criteria for writing good parodies. For Sallier, parody was intended to criticize aspects of the original work,

13 These five species are briefly quoted in Grannis, 5.

14 Sallier, 403–7. Sallier speculates that the originators of parody were itinerant merchants of Homeric poetry who recited excerpts of it in a buffoonish style to entertain their listeners. Citing the work of the sixteenth- century French scholar Henry Estienne, Sallier credits Hipponax with the first true parody, a view held by the ancients since Athenaeus first made the assertion. Sallier recounts how Hipponax purportedly created the first parody in a spirit of bitter revenge against two sculptors who had created an unflattering likeness of the author. Sallier credits Hegemon of Thasos for bringing parody into the theater as the fourth number of a Greek dramatic tetralogy and compares Hegemon’s parodies to the pièces satyriques that were often performed after or as intermèdes between dramas as a type of comic relief. Furthermore, he claims that Euripides’ Cyclops is the only surviving satyr piece and that it parodies aspects from the ninth book of Homer’s Odyssey. He concludes with a brief discussion of Timon’s parodies of Homer.

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exposing its ‘false beauty.’ This, he argued, invited the author of the parodied work to address those faults. For Sallier, parody, much like satire, could also ridicule social conventions or perceived immorality (though in modern definitions of parody and satire, ridicule beyond the scope of the original work is what separates satire from parody). In both cases, he emphasizes the instructive or corrective function of parody and acknowledges its value to society and the ultimate goal of the “advancement of letters.” 15 Parody was not strictly a negative critique, but could also be a type of homage. Sallier claims that parody becomes “in the hands of the critic, a torch that one shines on the faults of an author who has captured their admiration.”16 Sallier also declares that successful parody should be tempered with “pleasant taste” while being instructive.

Criticism should always be focused on the source work, never on the author’s character. Here,

Aristotelian principles and Enlightenment aesthetics are clear in Sallier’s thinking.17 On the choice of a subject, Sallier argues that only famous and esteemed works should be parodied, warning that “criticism of a mediocre piece can never be interesting or pique one’s curiosity.”18

Moreover, he adds that imitation in a parody should be faithful and exact to the original.

Obscenity or baseness of expression is also an important concern. He cites Boileau’s previous condemnation of ribaldry and the burlesque style in late-seventeenth century theater.19 Sallier

15 Ibid., 409.

16 Ibid., 398–410.

17 Aristotle, “Poetics” in The Norton Anthology of Theory and Criticism, edited by Vincent B. Leitch (New York: Norton, 2001), 117. Aristotle argued that the art of poetry, and representation more generally, should be simultaneously pleasing and instructive.

18 Sallier, 408.

19 Nicolas Boileau-Despréaux, L’art poétique in Oeuvres complètes de Boileau-Despréaux, vol. 2, edited by Pierre-Claude-François Daunou (Paris: Chez Peytieux, 1825), 127–205. Sallier most likely refers to Boileau’s suggestion from the first book of L’art poétique, “Quoi que vous écriviez évitez la bassesse: Le style le moins noble a pourtant sa noblesse. Au mépris du bon sens, le burlesque effronté, trompa les yeux d’abord, plut par sa nouveauté. 189

laments the obscenity still present in many of the parodies of his time. Lesage also acknowledged this problem in the preface to his collection. Here, he promised his readers that any works containing obscenities or crude humor had been excluded.20 Sallier’s and Boileau’s sentiments are echoed later in the infamous letter by Anne-Marie DuBocage who described the fair theater comedies as full of “crude double-meanings and puerile puns.”21 She decried what she perceived as a decline in public taste after attending the Opéra-Comique:

Should we suffer this pitiful kind of writing [parodies] in the Republic of Letters? What benefit does it produce? That of spoiling good taste and becoming accustomed to false wit. We see very striking examples everyday: the Comédie-Française, the most esteemed theater of Europe by foreigners, this spectacle, which has contributed so strongly to the glory of the French nation, has become deserted. We abandon Corneille, Racine, Molière, Regnard, to run after dramatic monsters, which have no other merit than novelty and peculiarity.22

A parody of Lully’s Thésée proved especially problematic for DuBocage, “Yes—I am certain— the nasty images that have assaulted me today shall replay in my memory at the mere name of

(Whatever you write, avoid baseness: the least noble style, nevertheless, still has its nobility. In defiance of good sense; the insolent burlesque at first deceives the eyes, pleases through its novelty.” 134.

20 Lesage, Théâtre de la Foire, ou l’Opéra Comique, vol. 1, ii. “On y a vû tant de mauvaises productions, tant d’obscénités, que les lecteurs pourraient d’abord n’être pas favorable à ces ouvrage: mais reflexion doit l’arracher au mépris, et détruire le préjugé. Ces productions, qu’on ne peut rappeler que désagréablement pour ce théâtre, n’y sont point employées. (One has seen [at the fair theaters] bad productions and obscenities, readers might not look favorably on this collection at first: but reflection must remove contempt and destroy prejudice. These productions that are only be remembered disagreeably for this theater are not used.)”

21 Cited originally in David Charlton, “Genre and Form in French Opera,” in Cambridge Companion to Eighteenth-Century Opera, edited by Anthony R. DelDonna and Pierpaolo Polzonetti (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009), 175. Translation by David Charlton.

22 Anne-Marie Lepage DuBocage, Lettre de Madame *** à une de ses amies sur les spectacles, et principalement sur l’Opéra Comique (Paris: 1745), 19–20. “Devroit-on souffrir ce pitoyable genre d’écrire dans la République des lettres? Quel avantage produit-il? Celui de gâter le bon gout, et d’accoutumer l’esprit au faux. Nous en voyons tous les jours des exemples bien frapants: La Comédie Française, le théâtre de l’Europe le plus estimé par les estrangers, ce spectacle, qui a tant contibué à la gloire de la nation française, deviant desert. On abandonne Corneille, Racine, Molière, Regnard, pour courir après des monstres dramatiques, qui n’ont d’autre mérite que de la nouveauté et de la singularité.”

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Thésée.”23

Riccoboni acknowledged Sallier’s writing on parody a few years later. Echoing his prescriptions for good parody, he further emphasized that it should (1) imitate a successful work,

(2) adhere to a humorous or mocking tone (rather than one of bitterness), and (3) simultaneously entertain and instruct the audience. However, Banducci points out that few parodists from this time conformed to a single conception of parody. Many parodies were critiques of theatrical models. Others were written solely as lighthearted homages or as humorous alternate versions of serious works. Parody in eighteenth-century France was not always understood as mean-spirited.

In fact, some authors regarded a parody of their work as a symbol of the original’s success. In fact, Fuzelier undertook parodies of his own works. Rameau on one occasion contributed to the production of a parody of his Les Indes galantes.24

Ridiculing the Royal Theaters

Despite the new prescriptions for writing “good” parodies that appeared in the 1730s, parodies had for a long time derived their humor from seeing the tragic-heroic characters of serious theater detached from their proper setting and portrayed by the stock comic characters of the commedia dell’arte. For example, Arlequin played the role of the protagonist Atys in the parody Arlequin Atys in 1710. Opera parodies also commonly featured en travesti roles. In

Arlequin Thétis (1713), a parody of Pascal Collasse’s tragédie lyrique Thétis et Pélée (1689),

Arlequin plays the role of the goddess Thetis. Another example from the same parody calls for

23 Cited originally in David Charlton, “Genre and Form in French Opera,” in Cambridge Companion to Eighteenth-Century Opera, edited by Anthony R. DelDonna and Pierpaolo Polzonetti (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009), 175. Translation by Charlton.

24 Banducci, 230–1.

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male stock characters to play the role of the three sirens who enter in scene 2 with their enchanting song, presumably sung in a comic style of falsetto.

In addition to operatic characters, parodies at the fair theaters also referenced the specific actors and actresses of the Opéra. Harvey has documented several instances of imitation of opera actors and actresses in the plays of the Théâtre Italienne of Gherardi.25 While impersonations of opera singers at the Italian theater were always done in a panegyric tone, impersonations of opera singers at the fair theaters were done in a tone of ridicule. In Lesage’s one-act Arlequin Thétis

(1713), a specific actress from the Opéra is mocked. In scene 7 the libretto indicates that Thetis, played by Arlequin, was to imitate an actress from the Opéra who must have been famous for brandishing a handkerchief: “One plays [here] the tender ritornello from the opera [Thétis et

Pélée], during which Thetis goes around the theater with handkerchief in hand, imitating the actress from the Opéra.”26 The singer in question was most likely soprano Françoise Journet who played the role of Thetis in the 1708 revival (April 16) and the 1712 revival (May 13). The

1712 revival most likely prompted Lesage’s parody the following year. Journet had reached the pinnacle of her popularity in 1711 with a highly-acclaimed portrayal of Iphigénie in the revival of Desmarets’s and Campra’s tragédie lyrique Iphigénie en Tauride. Her fame earned her a small

25 Harvey, 66–67. In the 1684 comedy Arlequin Jason ou la toison d’or, Arlequin mimics the maître de ballet for the Académie royale de musique, Guillaume Louis Pécour, while performing a dance. The reference is accompanied by praise for Pécour’s imaginative choreography. The singer Dumenil is mentioned in two comedies, Les intrigues d’Arlequin and L’Opéra de campagne. The Opéra actress Marthe Le Rochois is also referenced in the latter.

26 Lesage, Arlequin Thétis in Le théâtre de la Foire, ou l’Opéra Comique, vol. 1, 57. “On jouë la ritournelle tendre de l’opéra, pendant que Thétis le mouchoir à la main fait le tour de théâtre, à l’imitation de l’actrice de l’Opéra.”

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fortune during the height of her career from 1703–20.27 Even in fair theater comedies that were not opera parodies, the Paris Opéra is still a target of ridicule. The authors often likened the

Opéra’s actions to those of the immoral figures of French society. In the 1716 comedy Arlequin traitant, Arlequin is transported to the underworld where a singing choir of guilty financiers greets him. Arlequin is taken aback by their harsh voices and claims to hear a few singers from the Opéra among the chorus:

Ah! Quelle musique endiablée! Ah! What frenzied music! Quel chien de chorus28 est-ce là! What a dreadful chorus this is! Je démêle en cette assemblée I am picking out from this assembly Nombre de voix de l’Opéra.29 A number of voices from the Opéra.

The ridicule was twofold. Not only did they mock the quality of the singing at the Opéra, but also they condemned the Opéra’s greedy business practices. Here the authors allude to the

Opéra’s selling of the privilege of the Opéra-Comique to the fair theaters for 35,000 livres. This corrupt practice, implies the author, placed the management of the Académie royale de musique squarely on the same level as the corrupt financiers of the 1716 Chamber of Justice.

The ability of the performers at the fair theaters to impersonate opera singers contributed greatly to the success of a parody. Several contemporary accounts praise actors’ and actresses’ abilities of impersonation right alongside their talents for singing, dancing, and acrobatics. One of the fair theaters’ most famous interpreters of Arlequin, an actor who went by the name Baxter,

27 Claude Parfaict and François Parfaict, Dictionnaire des théâtres, vol. 3 (Paris: 1756), 202. Campra and Danchet are credited with the staging of the opera, the text and music of the prologue, and the last two scenes of the fifth act. Desmarets is credited with the music for the rest of opera.

28 The expression of ‘chien de’ was a commonly used to deride bad music. The second definition in the 1694 Dictionnaire de L’Académie française offers chien de musicien as a prime example, “Chien, se dit fig. des personnes et des choses par injure et par mépris. Quel chien de musicien! Quel chien de poëte! (Dog, is said figuratively of people and things through insult and contempt. What a dreadful musician! What a bad poet!)”

29 Dorneval, Arlequin traitaint in Théâtre de la Foire, ou l’Opéra Comique, vol. 2, 177.

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is described as:

…a tenor and very handsome figure under the mask and costume of Arlequin, a role he adopted while debuting at the home of Nivelon; a rather good dancer, and extremely light; dressed as a woman he perfectly copied the inimitable Demoiselle Prévost in her dance of the Caprice and the tempest from Alcyone.”30

Françoise Prévost was a well-known dancer and central figure at the Opéra from the early 1700s into the 1720s, starring in over 30 operas and ballets during her career. Rameau praised her dancing in his 1734 Le Maître à danser. The monarchy even awarded her a large bonus in 1711 for her contributions to the success of the Opéra.31 Another description of fair theater performers imitating figures from the royal theaters explains how a troupe made a successful run through an entire season simply by mimicking the actors and actresses at the Comédie-Française. This account comes from the Fair of Saint Laurent in 1709 and describes a parody of Prosper Jolyot de Crébillon’s 1707 tragedy Atrée et Thyeste. Its success was attributed to the troupe of Selles and the:

…comic manner in which the fair theater performers mimicked the best actors of the Comédie-Française. They [the French comedians] were made recognizable not only through the characters they [the troupe of Selles] represented at the theater, but also by copying their gestures and the sounds of their voices. This last manner of portrayal was made by pronouncing meaningless words in a tragic tone, but that still measured as Alexandrine verses. This buffoonery had such an effect that during several fairs, no pieces appeared that did not introduce this genre of jargon…32

Audiences’ appreciation of this allusion suggests a familiarity with French literature and the

30 Claude Parfaict and François Parfaict, Mémoires, vol. 1, 118–9. “…une taille et d’une figure trés-jolie sous le masque et l’habit d’Arlequin, role qu’il adopta en débutant chez Nivelon; assez bon danseur, et extrêmement leger: travesti en femme, il copiait parfaitement l’inimitable Demoiselle Prévost dans sa danse du caprice, et celle de la tempête d’Alcyone.”

31 Spire Pitou, The Paris Opéra: An Encyclopedia of Operas, Ballets, Composers, and Performers, vol. 1 “Genesis and Glory, 1671–1715” (Westport, Connecticut: Greenwood Press, 1983), 296. See the entry “Prévost, Françoise” for a list of the dramatic works in which she appeared at the Opéra.

32 Claude Parfaict and François Parfaict, Mémoires, vol. 1, 101.

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theatrical works of the Comédie-Française.33

References to Public Figures

References and impersonations at the fair theaters were not limited to theatrical figures.

The mention of local persons occurs sporadically throughout the fair theater repertory. In La querelle des théâtres the opening vaudeville recalls a famous vendor from the fairgrounds:

Répondez donc à mon attente; Respond to my hope; Mes enfants, venez, il est temps, My children, come, it is time, Déjà le marchand se tourmente Already the merchant worries, Sa voix appelle les chalands; His voice calls the customers, Et l’obligeant Massy présente And the obliging Massy presents Du tabac aux honnêtes-gens.34 Tobacco to good people.

With a sense of historical awareness, Lesage explains in a footnote to his readers that Massy was a limonadier at the fairgrounds. Isherwood describes another instance where a cultural figure from Paris appears in a fair theater comedy.35 Set in Paris on the Pont-Neuf, Lesage’s 1722 comedy L’ombre du cocher poète centers on a famous Parisian street performer named Monsieur

Etienne. Etienne was better known on the Pont-Neuf as the “Coachman” because he wore the costume of a servant’s livery, which he had kept from his former career as a coachman.

Polichinelle laments that he cannot sing, a reference to the recent rulings against the fair theaters that prohibited singing by the actors. Polichinelle meets a sorcerer, Gribouri, who promises to

33 The alexandrine is the primary poetic meter of Classic French Theater consisting of twelve-syllable lines divided into two groups of six syllables.

34 Lesage and Fuzelier, La querelle des théâtres, in Théâtre de la Foire, ou l’Opéra Comique, vol. 3, 40.

35 Isherwood, 7. In chapter 1, Isherwood discusses the famous performers and singers of the Pont-Neuf, the bridge that had been a commercial center and gathering place for public spectacles since its construction during the reign of Henri IV.

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resolve his dilemma. In scene 4, Gribouri casts a spell summoning “the poetic spirit of the famous Coachman, who has for so long maintained the ‘Travelling Opera of Paris’ through his

[singing of] Turelure.”36 The Coachman then appears wearing his livery costume and holding his whip, singing some well-known vaudevilles. The comedy ends with the Coachman whipping several of the marionette actors thus magically imparting to them the ability to sing.37

In several cases, members of the aristocracy or the court are alluded to in the comedies of the fair theaters. Typically these did not explicitly reference a person’s identity, but instead used false names in the manner of a roman à clef. The veil of pseudonyms provided a safe haven for the authors and actors of the fair theaters to ridicule members of the privileged classes without the risk of being considered subversive. In Le rappel de la Foire à la vie the authors refer to the

Paris Opéra as the “home of the gods,” an obvious allusion to the mythological subject matter of its works but also a subtle insult to the nobility who attended its performances at the Palais-Royal

(who may have considered themselves to be gods). In Le monde renversé the wise Philosophe from the ‘upside-down world’ appears to Pierrot and Arlequin to be crazy when he enters the stage merrily singing and dancing. After the Philosophe concludes his brief vaudeville, “With wisdom let us pass the days. Let us drink without ceasing, let us love always,” Pierrot whispers to Arlequin: “It’s some buffoon from the court.”38 Spectacle, indulgence in food and drink, bacchanal entertainments, and leisure were all associated with the court. There are several instances of the regent himself, Philippe II, attending performances at the fair theaters. He

36 Lesage, L’Ombre du cocher poète, in Théâtre de la Foire, ou l’Opéra Comique, vol. 5, 57. “L’ombre poëtique du célébre Cocher, qui a si longtemps entretenu les opéra ambulans de Paris par ses Turelure.”

37 To circumvent the recent ruling that prohibited singing on the fair theater stages, marionettes were used in lieu of actual actors.

38 Lesage, Le monde renversé, in Théâtre de la Foire, ou l’Opéra Comique, vol. 3, 221. “Le Philosophe: Avec sagesse passons nos jours: buvons sans cesse, aimons toujours. Pierrot: C’est quelque bouffon de la cour.”

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purportedly enjoyed a handful of comédies en vaudevilles enough to have ordered private performances of them at the Palais-Royal. In one of these comedies, Le rappel de la Foire à la vie, the authors alluded to Philippe II’s first-cousin relationship to his wife, Françoise-Marie de

Bourbon. In Le rappel de la Foire à la vie the main characters are personifications of the Parisian theaters themselves, the Opéra and La Foire. While they are not married, a first-cousin relationship between the Opéra and La Foire is specified in a recurring vaudeville, sung here by the Opéra:

Malgré l’implacable haîne Despite the implacable hatred Des ennemis jaloux du Of the jealous enemies of the comique opéra, Opéra-Comique, Ma cousine germaine, My first cousin, Faridondaine, Faridondaine, Et lon-lan-la.39 And la-la-la.

It should be noted that this reference was not meant to be subversive. Philippe II and Françoise-

Marie were married when they were only seventeen and fourteen years old respectively. Nearly thirty years later their marriage remained largely symbolic, a formality of monarchical procedures. Moreover, the issue of their consanguinity was hardly controversial in the eighteenth century.40

39 Lesage, Fuzelier, and Dorneval, Le rappel de la Foire à la vie, in Théâtre de la Foire, ou l’Opéra Comique, vol. 3, 418.

40 For the circumstances of Philippe II and Françoise-Marie’s marriage see Jean-Christian Petitfils, “Amours, guerre et mariage,” in Le Régent (Paris: Fayard, 1986), 33; Jean Meyer, “Du mariage et des bâtardes,” in Le Régent (Paris: Ramsay, 1985), 53–61; and Christine Pevitt, Philippe, duc d’Orléans: Regent of France (New York: Atlantic Monthly Press, 1997). For the monarchy and especially for Philippe’s mother (Louis XIV’s sister-in- law), the most controversial aspect of their marriage was that Françoise-Marie was an illegitimate daughter of the king. Although neither Philippe nor his mother were pleased with Louis XIV’s decision to marry Philippe and Françoise-Marie, the arrangement had its political advantages. Moreover, rejecting the king’s proposal would have required an adolescent to defy the most powerful person in Europe. For a discussion of Philippe II’s love of music see Don Fader, “Musical Thought and Patronage of the Italian Style at the Court of Philippe II, duc d’Orléans (1674–1723),” (PhD diss., Stanford University, 2000).

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Satire in Eighteenth-Century France

While similar to parody, satire is generally considered a technique or genre distinct from parody. The distinction between parody and satire lies in the relation to its source material or a pre-existing work. In parody, the original or borrowed source material becomes the subject itself of the new work. By contrast, the source material of a satire is not necessarily the subject of the new work. Most often satires were political or social critiques, ridiculing immorality, social conventions, or religion. Thus satirical songs became extremely popular as an expressive medium and thus maintained long tradition in France. The history of satirical songs in France can be traced back at least to the fourteenth-century Roman de Fauvel, which ridiculed the corruption of morals at the French royal court.41 In the sixteenth century, the writings of Pierre de Ronsard,

François Rabelais, and Agrippa d’Aubigné continued to function as social critiques.

Nicolas Boileau and Seventeenth-Century Satire

Despite its longstanding place in French history, satire was not yet considered a distinct genre throughout most of the seventeenth century. Instead it was understood as a style or manner of writing characterized by irreverence or ridicule.42 It was not until the end of the seventeenth century that satire as a poetic genre began to gain equal footing to formal literary genres. The influential Nicolas Boileau was one of the writers who sought to elevate satire to the level of serious poetry. For example, in his twelve books of satirical poems, Boileau used the classic

41 Scholars have suggested it may have likely referred specifically to the infamous royal counselor Enguerran de Marigny. See Emma Dillon, Medieval Music-Making and the “Roman de Fauvel” (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002), 16–17.

42 Russell Goulbourne, “Satire in Seventeenth- and Eighteenth-Century France,” in A Companion to Satire, edited by Ruben Quintero (Malden, Massachusetts: Blackwell, 2007), 140.

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French metrical structure of alexandrines. Thus he was not parodying classical poetry in these satires, but rather was using the pre-existing form of classical poetry as a vehicle to express social critique.

The most important writings on satire from the seventeenth century are those by Boileau.

Seventeenth-century conceptions of satire, Boileau’s work in particular, coincided with a resurgence of interest in Aristotle’s Poetics. He was also strongly influenced by ancient Greek satirists such as Juvenal, Horace, and Persius. 43 Thus the same themes from ancient Greek satire reappear in seventeenth-century French satire: the tribulations of city life, poverty, and the decadence of the nobility.44 Boileau’s aim was to expose the immorality of French society through ridicule and a morally-instructive satire. His Discours sur la satire is a diatribe against satirical writers who had attacked him. However, Boileau’s ninth satire is considered the best explanation of his conception of good satire. In it he argues that good satire must adhere to an elevated style of writing warning that “an insipid and foolishly flattering poem dishonors simultaneously the hero and the author.”45 He takes further issue with the vanity of writers who insult and write in a rash style all for the sake of enriching the bookseller. He warns that their book may sell for a short time but after a while it will:

Follow the grocer Neuf-Germain and La Serre; Or from thirty sheets be reduced to nine, To adorn the edges of the Pont-Neuf, half eaten, What a wonderful honor for you, to see your works Occupy the leisure time of lackeys and pages,

43 Ibid., 142.

44 Ibid., 142.

45 Nicolas Boileau, “Satire IX: À son esprit,” in Oeuvres poétiques de Boileau (Paris: Imprimerie générale, 1872), 135. “Un poëme insipide et sottement flatteur déshonore à la fois le héros et l’auteur.”

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And often in a corner sent away To serve as the second volume of airs of Le Savoyard!46

It is clear from Boileau’s reference to Le Savoyard, whose real name was Philippot, that he considered locales such as the Pont-Neuf to be the home of a low-brow style of satire.

Satirical Songs in Seventeenth-Century France

Le Savoyard was a blind singer and street performer on the Pont-Neuf in the late seventeenth century. He famously attracted large crowds of workers including “cooks, lackeys, clerks, bourgeois, soldiers, and pick-pockets.”47 Le Savoyard’s songs appeared in a printed anthology as early as 1645.48 The topics of the songs were almost always satirical, targeting any subject including the monarchy, nobility, religious clerics, current events, scandals, and even theater. Because these songs were sold illegally directly from the bags or carts of the street singers themselves, they circumvented political censorship and often reveled in a bawdy and irreverent style of writing. Isherwood has argued that many of these street songs functioned as a medium for political expression:

The writers and hucksters of songs were less restrained and inhibited than other groups in the marketplace. The highest-placed persons of French society felt their invective the most, and the rimers had no compunctions about lying and defaming. Their excess is understandable when it is realized that songs were almost their only form of protest, their

46 Ibid., 136. “Suivre chez l’épicier Neuf-Germain et La Serre; Ou, de trente feuillets réduits peut-être à neuf, Parer, demi-rongés, les rebords du Pont-Neuf. Le bel honneur pour vous, en voyant vos ouvrages occuper le loisir des laquais et des pages, et souvent dans un coin renvoyés à l’écart servir de second tome aux airs du Savoyard.”

47 Isherwood, 7.

48 Recueil general des chansons de capitaine Savoyard: faictes et composées par les meilleurs autheurs de ce temps (Paris: Jean Promé, 1645). A second volume appeared in 1656 under the title Recueil nouveau, des chansons du Savoyart: par lui seul chantée dans Paris (Paris: Jean Promé, 1656) that was subsequently reprinted in 1661 and 1665.

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only way of expressing their contempt for the high orders and their irritation at having to submit to a political order not run in their interests.49

Other scholars have attributed the surge in satirical writings and songs in the late seventeenth century and early eighteenth century to the lenient censorship during the tumultuous years of the

French civil wars known as the Fronde. During the Fronde Cardinal Mazarin attempted to carry out a controversial agenda to consolidate the monarchy’s power during the minority rule of Louis

XIV. Satirical writings, poems, and songs proliferated during the war years 1648–1653 and became a primary outlet for political expression in a time of extreme uncertainty and civil unrest.

Within five years, more than 5,000 printed polemical texts appeared, largely satirical in nature.

Hubert Carrier argues that this outpouring of satirical writings in the small geographic area of

Paris’s nine districts remains a phenomenon unequalled during any other time during the ancien régime in France.50 A large share of these satirical texts were known as mazarinades as they ridiculed Cardinal Mazarin, denouncing his leadership of the French nation and blaming him for the overall state of disorder. Authors of mazarinade texts criticized Mazarin’s alleged homosexuality with explicit and metaphorical references to sodomy, exploiting its common association in the seventeenth century with depravity, effeminacy, bestiality, tyranny, and satanic behavior.51 Other texts commonly preyed on the people’s fears that a foreigner had seized control of the French crown, reminding the public of Mazarin’s Italian birth:

Grand Cardinal, que la fortune Great Cardinal, let not Fortune, Qui t’elève en un si haut rang, Who has raised you to such a high rank,

49 Isherwood, 9.

50 Hubert Carrier, Les Muses guerrières: les mazarinades et la vie littéraire au milieu du XVIIe siècle (Paris: Klincksieck, 1996), 12.

51 Jeffrey Merrick, “The Cardinal and the Queen: Sexual and Political Disorders in the Mazarinades” French Historical Studies 18/3 (Spring 1994): 679–80.

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Ne te fasse oublier ton sang. Let you forget your blood.

The song continues in the second stanza:

Fais en sorte qu’il te souvienne See that he will remember you, Qu’un Italien comme toi Let an Italian like you Dans la minorité d’un roi, In the minority of a king, Après avoir bien fait des siennes, After making yours, Fut enfin par revers du sort, Finally by a reversal of fate, Quoique favori de la reine. Even though favored by the queen. Fut enfin par revers du sort, Finally by a reversal of fate, Justement puni de la mort. Justly punished by death. 52

These were the same critiques that had been made during Louis XIII’s reign about the Italian- born Concino Concini, who like Mazarin had amassed a fortune through his connections to the royal court just a few decades earlier. Although the tune of this song is not indicated, many other mazarinades and satirical texts took the form of vaudevilles as they were set to a well-known tunes.

Satirical Songs in Eighteenth-Century France

Satirical song-writing continued well into the eighteenth century with a persistent focus on current events, especially political corruption. During the Regency appeared the philippics aimed at Philippe II. In the 1740s followed the poissonades ridiculing Madame de Pompadour née Poisson, the most famous mistress of Louis XV. Every significant event of the early eighteenth century—the 1713 papal bull Unigenitus, the death of Louis XIV, the advent of the

Regency of Philippe II, John Law and the infamous bankruptcy of the Mississippi Company, the establishment of the Chamber of Justice of 1716, the death of the regent, and the birth of the

52 Ms. ff. fr. 12617, 21. Originally cited in Pierre Barbier and France Vernillat, Histoire de France par les chansons, vol. 2 (Paris: Gallimard, 1957), 13. The text of this song, “Avertissemens des enfarinez à Mazarin de ce qu’il doit craindre,” is from 1648 and was originally sung to ‘un air nouveau.’ The authors mistakenly cite ms. ff. fr. 12616 and have notated it to a later vaudeville tune. 202

dauphin in 1729—prompted an outpouring of satirical texts. The final years of Louis XIV’s reign were characterized by religious debates, mainly the Jansenist and Jesuit quarrels preceding the

Unigenitus bull and the climate of pious austerity during the time of Madame du Maintenon’s presence at the royal court. Thus satires often took the form of mock religious texts, prayers, and music, even if the subject of ridicule was not predominantly a religious one. In 1652 a satirical parody of the Catholic Credo text attacked Mazarin’s rise to power, “He [Mazarin] ascended the throne and is seated at the right hand of an almighty King; from thence he shall come to persecute the living and the dead.”53 Another satirical song took the form of the well-known

Catholic hymn Pange lingua, likening the new ten percent tax (the dixième) instituted in 1710 to the decline of the French empire:

Non ex mente Philipina Not from the mind of Philippe [II] haec venit taxatio: does this taxation come forth: Infernalis inimici It is a true invention Est vera invention. Of the infernal enemy, Occasus Regni Gallici, The downfall and last rites Et extrema unctio. of the French kingdom.

Indeed the satirical songs during the Regency adopted many forms and styles and commented on all the current events of the day.

Songs on the 1716 Chamber of Justice

One of the most common subjects of these satirical songs during the Regency was the

1716 Chamber of Justice. In 1716, the newly-instated regent and his chief finance minister, the duc of Noailles, sought to publicly vilify the corrupt practices of state financiers in the final decades of Louis XIV’s reign. During this time the effects of one of the worst financial crises in

53 Goulbourne, 144.

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the history of France were felt across the country. Morale and confidence in the regent’s ability to handle the fiscal problems inherited from Louis XIV were at something of a low point. The immense debt accrued by the state at the end of Louis XIV’s reign due to wartime expenditures

(which accounted for roughly three quarters of the state’s revenue at the turn of the century), led to the instatement of two additional taxes, the capitation in 1697 and the aforementioned dixième in 1710.54 Additional lines of credit were continually needed to fund the treasury. To do so, wealthy, landowning members of the aristocracy loaned money to the crown at exorbitant interest rates. As the state debt grew, so too did the fortunes of the numerous financial officials, tax collectors, and financial contractors. These corrupt financiers, known as commis and traitants, enriched themselves through a number of corrupt practices and schemes. One of

Philippe II’s first measures was to restore confidence in the monarchy’s financial capacities by prosecuting the individuals who had benefitted from this financial scheme. Adrien Maurice, duc de Noailles became the de facto finance minister in the absence of the Nicolas Desmaretz the recently-fired finance minister of Louis XIV. Charles Michel Bouvard de Fourqueux was instated as lead prosecutor, Chrétien II de Lamoignon as chief judge, and thirty other judges populated the rest of the court along with a protective detail of law-enforcing archers.55 Although more of a symbolic move than a financial solution to the state’s problems, the public trials of the

54 Jones, 56.

55 Erik Henry Goldner, “Corruption on Trial: Money, Power, and Punishment in France’s Chambre de Justice of 1716,” Crime, History, and Societies 17/1 (2013): 5–28. In his comparison of the 1716 Chamber of Justice (the last such Chamber of Justice in France’s history) with previous Chambers of Justice, Goldner argues that it was unlike any that had been held before in the country’s long history of special tribunals in terms of its scope, expansive powers, and punitive measures. Considering the 1716 Chamber of Justice as a legitimate court of law, he demonstrates how earlier historians, particularly in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries had dismissed the 1716 Chamber of Justice as a corrupt function of an authoritative state, some comparing it to the Catholic inquisition. For a more detailed history of the 1716 Chamber of Justice and its figures, see Goldner, “Public Thieves: French Financiers, Corruption, and the Public in the Chamber of Justice of 1716–17,” (PhD diss., Columbia University, 2008.)

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Chamber of Justice resulted in over 4,000 separate convictions and 219 million livres in fines.56

The notoriety of the Chamber of Justice accomplished what the regent had hoped it would, effectively vilifying the corrupt traitants (fiscal contractors of the state) in the eyes of the public. These financiers were easy targets for the satirical pens of the fair theater authors. While still writing for the Comédie-Française in 1709, Lesage wrote his acclaimed comedy Turcaret, in which he satirically poked fun at the new generation of financiers who had acquired their fortunes seemingly overnight.57 Like Molière’s Le bourgeois gentilhomme, Turcaret focused on the issue of class mobility, with the main character, Turcaret, overcoming his low birth to acquire a fortune. But whereas Molière’s Mr. Jourdain inherited his father’s fortune as a clothes merchant, Lesage’s Turcaret is a dishonest financier. Like Mr. Jourdain, however, Turcaret is the comedy’s fool, ridiculed by all, and ultimately outsmarted by his own butler. Despite acquiring a great fortune, he was still unable escape the destiny of his middle-class upbringing. Several years before the Chamber of Justice, the reference to the nouveau riche traitants like Bourvalais was obvious. The actors at its premiere in 1709 were purportedly hesitant to go on with a performance that would insult figures of such prominent stature in Paris.58

Public awareness of the Chamber of Justice and the misdoings of its defendants reached a high point through the circulation of numerous pamphlets such as Catechisme ou explication des demandes des maltôtiers et de lews réponses and Dialogue ou entretien de Bourvalais, et du diable d’argent enferme dans son coffre-fort. In the pamphlet Medailles sur la regence; the

56 Jones, 60. For a brief yet cogent explanation on the state of the monarchy’s finances leading up to the beginning of the Regency, see Jones, 52–61.

57 Ibid., 58.

58 Peter France, ed. The New Oxford Companion to Literature in French (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1995), 819. “Comedy by Lesage, first performed at the Comédie-Française in 1709, in spite of the actors’ reluctance to offend the targets of Lesage’s satire.”

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anonymous author lauds the noble actions of Philippe II and his newly-formed Chamber of

Justice in a panegyric, quasi-propagandistic tone:

Although it would be impossible to give a proper idea of what Monseigneur, the duc d’Orléans has done for the good of the state since his Regency [began], and though it seems that we should be content to admire his wisdom, perceptiveness, and his love for the people; it is nevertheless through a zeal that can only be [considered] praiseworthy, we have engraved some medals here for some of his actions.59

The author goes on vilify one of the most infamous financiers targeted by the Chamber of

Justice, Paul Poisson de Bourvalais, whom the pamphlet condemns as the premier maltôtier of the kingdom. Bourvalais was a contractor (traitant) who amassed a fortune in the early eighteenth century and hid his illicit funds with various accomplices throughout the city. In one satirical song, set facetiously to the tune of the Dies irae, the anonymous author cites Bourvalais by name while lamenting the death of the king:

Il est donc mort ce grand Bourbon He is thus dead, this great Bourbon, Regretté de la Maintenon Missed by Maintenon, De Le Tellier et de Fagon. Le Tellier and Fagon. Vous, ses sujets, la larme à l’oeil, You his subjects, with tear in eye, Regardez ce prince au cercueil, Look at this prince in his coffin, Et de sa mort portez le deuil. And upon his death wear the mourning garb. Il nous laisse à tous en mourant In dying, he leaves us all De quoi pleurer amèrement, Bitterly crying, Puisqu’il nous laisse sans argent. Because he has left us without any money. Mais cherchez et vous en trouverez But look and you will find it Dans la bourse de Desmarets, In Desmarets’s purse Et de gens comme Bourvalais. And with people like Bourvalais.

59 Medailles sur la regence, avec les tableaux symboliques du Sieur Paul Poisson de Bourvalais, premier maltôtier du royaume, et le songe funeste de sa femme (Paris: Pierre le Musca, 1716), 3. “Quoiqu’il soit impossible de donner une juste idée de ce que Monseigneur le Duc d’Orléans a fait pour le bien de l’état, depuis sa regence, et qu’il semble que l’on dût se contenter d’admirer sa sagesse, sa penetration, et son amour pour les peuples; cependant par un zele qui ne peut être que loüable, on a grave ici des médailles sur quelques-unes de ses actions.” 206

Faites de généreux efforts Make generous efforts Pour enfoncer leurs coffres-forts, To break open their safes, Puis pendez au gibet leurs corps.60 Then hang their bodies at the gallows.

Another popular song from 1717 used the metaphor of a formal ball to describe the Chamber of

Justice.61 The regent is the host of the dance, the defendants are the dancers, and the prosecutors and judges are the musicians. The author’s tone further demonstrates that many vaudevillistes approved of Chrétien II de Lamoignon’s (the Chamber of Justice’s chief judge) handling of the trials: “Lamoignon is a good musician, [he] keeps the beat; the violins are harmonizing well, so that the branle lasts.”62 In the hypothetical ball that Lamoignon has kept going, the defendants who managed to escape the trial without punishment are described as skillful dancers, but others such as Claude François Paparel, the first culprit sentenced to death for embezzling 1.5 million livres as a military financier, loses his footing despite having “danced so lightly.”63

However, not all the satirical vaudevilles about the Chamber of Justice expressed confidence in the leadership of the tribunal. Others voiced criticism and doubts about the efficacy of the actions and motives of the Chamber’s leaders like Lamoignon, Noailles, and

Fourqueux. In one song, the leadership of the Chamber is likened to a horse-drawn carriage.

Noailles is criticized for his arrogance as the author refers to him as “nouveau Phaëton,” the foolhardy sun-charioteer of Greek mythology who was struck from the skies by Jupiter.64 The

60 Cited originally in Pierre Barbier et France Vernillat, Histoire de France par chansons, vol. 3 (Paris: Gallimard, 1957), 62–3. Text comes from ms. ff. fr. 12628, 109–10. While the first five stanzas are shown here, there are an additional six stanzas.

61 Ms ff. fr. 12629, 17–20.

62 Ibid., 17–18. “Lamoignon est bon musicien, fait baitre la mesure; les violons s’accordant bien, fait que le branle dure.”

63 Ibid., 18. Paparel’s death sentence was ultimately commuted by the regent.

64 Ibid., 6. 207

author claims that the “six horses full of rage” (Noailles, Rouillé, Forts, Fourqueux, Lamoignon,

Portail) pulling the carriage were not motivated by a desire to expose corruption, but rather by greed since they stood to profit from the fines the Chamber threatened to collect from the guilty parties. The chief prosecutor Fourqueux is called a monster “who far from curing the problem of the rat, causes us much oppression.”65 The last stanza concludes with a call for a new chariot conductor:

Non, pour finir cette chanson No, in order to finish this song, Je n’aurai pas assez de chance; I will not have enough luck Car il nous faut un postillon…66 Because we need a postillon…

From Satirical Song to Theatrical Subject: Arlequin Traitant and the 1716 Chamber of Justice

While satirical songs and pamphlets on the Chamber of Justice circulated the streets of

Paris, the same themes made inroads into the fair theaters via the subject matter of comedies. The comédies en vaudevilles of the fair theaters likewise focused on the immorality of the aristocracy, emphasizing the themes of overindulgence in food and drink, greed, and lust, expressed comically through gesture and double entendre. In the opening scene of the 1718 comedy Le monde renversé, Pierrot and Arlequin, play the part of two former disgruntled valets for the sorcerer Merlin. After having been transported to a distant, unknown land, they wish aloud for various foods. Cheese, wine, and pastries suddenly descend from the top of the set. The stage directions then indicate that they are to “both eat greedily and comically.” After gorging themselves, Pierrot sings a vaudeville to the tune, “Qu’on apporte bouteille” which follows:

65 Ibid., 7.

66 Ibid., 7.

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Je souhaite une fille I wish for a girl De dix-huit à vingt ans: Eighteen to twenty years old Qu’elle soit druë et bien gentille; Who is lively and very kind; Qu’elle ait surtout des yeux friands. Who has delicate eyes above all.

In the following scene, the two nieces of Merlin, Argentine and Diamantine, appear. An excited

Arlequin and Pierrot remark not on their looks but rather on the etymology of their names:

ARGENTINE ARGENTINE Je m’appelle Argentine. My name is Argentine.

ARLEQUIN ARLEQUIN Ah! Le joli nom! J’en adore les deux Ah! Pretty name! I love its first premieres syllables. two syllables.

PIERROT à Diamantine PIERROT to Diamantine Et vous? And you?

DIAMANTINE DIAMANTINE Diamantine. Diamantine.

PIERROT PIERROT Violà deux riches noms!67 Those are two rich names!

Arlequin and Pierrot at first glance are intrigued by the resemblance of their names to silver

(argent) and diamonds (diamants).

Ridiculing greed was a common theme in the fair theater repertory, especially in satirical references to the Académie royale de musique. In their polemical comedies, the fair theater authors often reminded audiences that the fair theater troupes had to purchase from the Opéra the legal rights to perform comedies with singing. In scene 9 of Le rappel de la Foire à la vie, the

Opéra is counting money as La Foire remarks that there is no fee too high to pay the Opéra for saving her life. This is a direct reference to this purchasing of the privilege of the Opéra-

Comique from the Opéra. The authors borrowed a duet from act V, scene 4 of Lully’s Alceste in

67 Lesage, Le monde renversé, in Théâtre de la Foire, ou l’Opéra Comique, vol. 3, 209.

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which Hercules and Alcestis sing a celebratory duet:

Ah! Que ne fait-on pas pour Ah! What wouldn’t we do sauver ce qu’on aime!68 to save the one we love!

In Le rappel de la Foire à la vie this duet is now sung by the Opéra, who retains the original text verbatim, and La Foire, who slightly alters the text:

Ah! Que ne fait-on pas pour Ah! What wouldn’t we do for l’argent quand on l’aime!69 money when we love it so!

When the subject matter of a comédie en vaudevilles was based on a current event it allowed the piece to take the form of a social critique. Such is the case with Arlequin traitant, a satirical comédie en vaudevilles performed at the Fair of Saint Germain in 1716. A brief footnote from the author informs the reader, “This piece was created on the occasion of the routing of the traitants, led by the Chamber of Justice that was established at this time.”70 Despite his low birth,

Arlequin has managed to enrich himself through a contract he has signed with Belphegor.

Leandre loves Colombine, but her marriage to Arlequin has already been arranged. Her father, the Doctor, cares little about Arlequin’s former career as a butler. However, Arlequin’s deal with

Belphegor proves to be Faustian. Belphegor drops his disguise as a human and reveals that he is the devil. Holding up his end of the bargain, he drags Arlequin away to Tartarus, the dungeon of the underworld. Arlequin protests, pointing out that they are only three years into the thirty-year contract he signed. With some sleight of hand, the devil deceives him by removing the zero, rendering “30” as “3.” In the underworld Arlequin sees several other confounded souls and

68 Alceste (Paris: Baudry, 1674), 67.

69 Lesage et al, Le rappel de la Foire à la vie, 433.

70 Dorneval, Arlequin traitaint in Théâtre de la Foire, ou l’Opéra Comique, vol. 2, 133. “Cette pièce fut faite à l’occasion de la déroute des traitants, cause par la Chambre de Justice qui fut établie dans ce temps-là.”

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Belphegor explains the reason for their damnation. In the end, the Doctor abandons choosing

Arlequin for Colombine. Like Turcaret and Molière’s Jourdain, Arlequin becomes an allegory for the corrupt financier.

Theatrical Polemics

Apart from the satirical works like Arlequin traitant, an important sub-genre of comédie en vaudevilles after 1715 were the works that dealt with the theatrical polemics of Paris. These polemical comedies are defined by their subject matter, which was drawn from the numerous quarrels between the royal theaters and the fair theaters. This sub-genre enjoyed a brief stint of popularity in Paris in the 1720s and early 1730s. In comparison to the estimated 700–800 parodies from this time, there are around only twenty-five total polemical comedies from the years 1718–1734.71 However, theatrical polemics became such a popular subject during the

Regency that the Théâtre Italienne also adopted this genre. Around a dozen examples come from the Italian troupe while ten examples are found in the Lesage collection (shown in Table 4.1). As a case study, this chapter focuses on two polemical pieces from the Lesage collection, Les funerailles de la Foire and Le rappel de la Foire à la vie, a duology about the closing of the fair theaters in 1718 and its reopening in 1721. These two works provide insight into the quarrels between the Parisian theaters while elucidating audience attitudes about current events, politics, and opera. Moreover, because Les funerailles de la Foire and Le rappel de la Foire à la vie take the form of a satirical parody of Lully’s and Quinault’s Alceste, these works combine the traditions of satire and parody through the subject matter of Parisian theatrical polemics.

71 Martin, 211.

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Table 4.1. List of Examples of the Pièce polemique in the Lesage Collection, 1718–1734. Comedies that premiered at the Fair of Saint Laurent are indicated by the abbreviation “SL” and those that premiered at the Fair of Saint Germain are indicated by the abbreviation “SG.”

Title Author(s) Year Venue La querelle des théâtres Lesage, Fuzelier 1718 SL Les funerailles de la foire Lesage, Dorneval 1718 SL Le rappel de la foire à la vie Lesage, Dorneval, Fuzelier 1721 SL La fausse-foire Lesage, Dorneval, Fuzelier 1721 SL Le regiment de la Calotte Lesage, Dorneval, Fuzelier 1721 SL Les spectacles maladies Lesage, Dorneval 1729 SL L’Opéra Comique assiegé Lesage, Dorneval 1730 SG Le reveil de l’Opéra Comique Carolet 1732 SL Le retour de l’Opéra Comique Carolet 1734 SG Les audiences de Thalie Carolet 1734 SG

The Closing and Reopening of the Fair Theaters, 1718–1721

In Les funerailles de la Foire and Le rappel de la Foire à la vie, the theatrical events of the 1718 and 1721 seasons became the basis of the comedies. Contemporary accounts considered the summer of 1718 at the Fair of Saint Laurent as the “most brilliant and remarkable” season in history of the fair theaters.72 In previous years, two troupes had been in competition with each other, one managed by La Dame de Baune and the other by Les Sieur et Dame de Saint Edme.

However, the privilege of the Opéra-Comique, which had previously allowed theatrical performances with music at the fair theaters, was suppressed at the end of the 1718 season. This led the rival troupes of De Baune and Saint Edme to form a new cast comprising the best performers from both troupes. A successful run of several comedies that season included a

72 Claude Parfaict and François Parfaict, Mémoires, vol. 1, 206.

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parody of the pastoral héroïque Le Jugement de Paris and some scenes from Racine’s tragedy

Iphigénie performed in a comic style. Finally, the season closed with a new one-act comédie en vaudevilles titled Les funerailles de la Foire on Thursday, October 6, 1718. The regent himself had attended this closing performance and purportedly remarked that, “the Opéra-Comique is like a swan, who never sings more melodiously than when it is about to die.”73

The outlook for the fair theaters did not improve over the next two years. An order of the court suppressed the performance of all spectacles at the fair theaters for the 1719 and 1720 seasons as well as the winter Fair of Saint Germain in 1721. However, during the 1720 season a defiant troupe under the direction of a performer named Francisque attempted to perform a few comedies at the Fair of Saint Laurent. As a prologue to one of these comedies, they performed a piece titled Le rappel de la Foire à la vie, written as a sequel to Les funerailles de la Foire in

1718, hoping that the fair theaters would reopen in 1719. Because of the sanctions against performances at the fair theaters during the 1720 season, the troupe of Francisque first premiered

Le rappel de la Foire à la vie in a dialogue version before performing the version in vaudevilles that appeared in the Lesage collection. It was not until the Fair of Saint Laurent in 1721 that the fair theaters triumphantly reopened with the newly-reinstated privilege of the Opéra-Comique,

“arising from the tomb to appear more brilliantly than ever.”74 However, this privilege could be exercised by only one troupe at the fair theaters. From the Fair of Saint Laurent’s opening on

July 25 the privilege was held by a troupe under the direction of an entrepreneur named Lalauze until August 22 when it was transferred to Francisque’s troupe. Francisque and his troupe opened

73 Ibid., 215. “Monseigneur le Duc d’Orleans regent du royaume, qui honora cette représentation de sa présence, dit à la fin du Spectacle, “l’Opéra-Comique ressemble au cygne, qui ne chante jamais plus mélodieusement que quand il va mourir.””

74 Ibid., 227. “Ce fut à cette foire, que l’Opéra-Comique, pour me server de l’expression d’un auteur célébre, sortit du tombeau pour paraître plus brilliant que jamais.” 213

his theater on September 1 with a reprise of Les funerailles de la Foire, Le rappel de la Foire à la vie and a third comédie en vaudevilles titled Le regiment de la Calote. They were so successful that Françoise-Marie de Bourbon ordered a performance of these three comedies on Monday,

October 2 at the Palais-Royal, the royal residence and theater of the Paris Opéra.

The plot of Les funerailles de la Foire centers on the closing of the fair theaters in 1718.

It opens with La Foire dying from some unknown malady. After consulting a doctor whom

Scaramouche and Mezzetin believe to be a quack, hopes for a cure are gone. It seems La Foire will meet her end. After dictating her last will and testament to a notary, La Foire leaves some of her prized possessions to the Opéra. The enemies of La Foire, the Comédie-Française and the

Comédie-Italienne, come to pay their final respects while feigning sorrow. After La Foire dramatically faints, the Opéra briefly revives her before she finally breathes her last breath and is carried off stage. A grandiose funeral procession and mourning follows. The comedy ends with the Comédie-Française and the Comédie-Italienne celebrating La Foire’s death with a newly- composed vaudeville finale by Jean-Claude Gillier.

The plot of Le rappel de la Foire à la vie reverses the tragic storyline of Les funerailles de la Foire, instead celebrating the reopening of the fair theaters in 1721. As the curtain opened for Le rappel de la Foire à la vie, the stage represented the Fair of Saint Laurent itself, with a group of fair theater actors and actresses portraying themselves as they gathered around a mausoleum to mourn the death of La Foire. Later, they are greeted by the Opéra, who immediately consoles them. After promising to travel to the underworld and bring La Foire back, the Opéra departs while several of the comic actors such as Scaramouche, Mezzetin, and the

Doctor remain to debate the possible outcomes of the Opéra’s heroic mission. The god Mercury arrives as a messenger announcing the good news that the Opéra has successfully returned with 214

La Foire. The Opéra and La Foire return while a chorus celebrates. Later, the Comédie-Française and the Comédie-Italienne appear and feign excitement over La Foire’s return. However, they truly wish harm to La Foire. The feud is settled only after the Public arrives and in a homiletic manner, chastises the theaters for fighting, and the three theaters all embrace one another. The piece ends with a ballet scene.

The primary elements from the Alceste plot are apparent in the trajectory of Les funerailles de la Foire and Le rappel de la Foire à la vie: the female protagonist dies tragically, her death is mourned, a valiant yet foolhardy hero traverses the underworld to bring her back to life, and everyone celebrates her joyous return in the closing scenes. As was typical of opera parodies at the fair theaters, only a few key scenes from Alceste were borrowed for Les funerailles de la Foire and Le rappel de la Foire à la vie, thus shortening five acts to two (shown in Table 4.2). In addition to these repurposed scenes, other textual quotations from Quinault’s libretto appear in dialogue scenes or in a new musical setting such as a vaudeville. For example, in scene 2 of Le rappel de la Foire à la vie, the Opéra vows to Mezzetin, Scaramouche, and the other actors and actresses that he will bring La Foire back from the underworld. Here, he quotes

Hercules’s line from act III, scene 7 of Alceste verbatim:

OPÉRA: HERCULES: J’irai jusqu’au fond des Enfers J’irai jusqu’au fond des Enfers Forcer la Mort à me la rendre. Forcer la Mort à me la rendre.

The authors have cleverly fit the 8 + 9 syllable structure of the excerpt from Quinault’s libretto into the meter of a pre-existing tune (shown in Musical Example 4.1). Throughout Les funerailles de la Foire and Le rappel de la Foire à la vie the Opéra also sings phrases in the linguistic style Quinault librettos, creating a comic caricature of classic French tragédie lyrique.

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Table 4.2. List of Borrowed Scenes from Alceste. The borrowed scenes from Alceste are described on the right while the corresponding new scenes in Les funerailles de la Foire and Le rappel de la Foire à la vie are described on the left.

Les funerailles de la Foire Alceste scene 9 Tearful final goodbye between La act II, scene 8 Tearful final goodbye between Foire and the Opéra Admetus and Alceste (Admetus is dying, Alceste has not yet taken his place) scene 10 Doctor announces La Foire’s act III, scene 2 Pheres and Cleante rush to see passing, chorus of forains Admetus before he dies, chorus comments from offstage, “Alas!” comments, “Alas!” scene 11 La Foire’s funeral act III, scene 4 Alceste’s funeral act III, scene 5 Le rappel de la Foire à la vie scene 7 Mercury announces the triumphant act V, scene 1 Admetus announces Hercule’s heroic return of the Opéra with La Foire, rescue of Alceste from the chorus lauds the Opéra’s heroism underworld, chorus lauds Hercules scene 9 In return for his heroic deeds, La act V, scene 4 In return for his heroic deeds, Foire offers a countless sum of Admetus offers Alceste to Hercules money to the Opéra

The parts of the original Alceste plot that were deemed extraneous (mainly the prologue and sections from act I and act II) were discarded. For example, the abduction of Alceste and

Cephise in act I and Hercules and Admetus’s rescue of Alcestis and Cephise in the beginning of act II are removed. Hercules’s love for Alceste is replaced by a platonic, cousin relationship between the Opéra and La Foire. To further simplify the plot, the parts of Admetus and Alcestis are reversed in the scene 9 farewell duet of Les funerailles de la Foire so that the parody begins with La Foire’s impending death, thus eliminating the extra storyline of Admetus being fatally wounded in battle, Apollo offering redemption for Admetus, and Alceste sacrificing herself in his place. This process of abridging not only simplified the intricate plots of the original librettos, but also provided opportunities to insert additional scenes from other operas or to add new comic 216

Musical Example 4.1. Le rappel de la Foire à la vie, scene 2. This vaudeville was sung to the tune “Je ne suis né ni roi, ni prince,” with the textual excerpt from Quinault’s libretto highlighted.

scenes unrelated to the parody. It also allowed time for three different one-act comedies to be performed contiguously on the same evening, suggesting an audience preference for variety and brevity.

In addition to the borrowed material, there are two scenes comprising entirely new material that departs from the main storyline. While it is easy to disregard such scenes as extraneous, examining their underlying context allows us to better understand why these works were so popular among eighteenth-century audiences. Ruth Smith has argued how significant aspects of the original meaning of Handel’s oratorio librettos has been lost in modern contexts.75

Similarly, Lois Rosow has shown how the parts of Lully’s operas that would have had the most poignant meaning to eighteenth-century audiences are the same parts that seem extraneous to modern audiences.76 Thus it is vital to our understanding of the comédie en vaudevilles to

75 See Ruth Smith, Handel’s Oratorios and Eighteenth-Century Thought (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995).

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extrapolate these seemingly unnecessary or uninteresting scenes. In scene 2 of Les funerailles de la Foire, after several doctors have failed to cure La Foire, a Parisian physician arrives to offer another opinion. He explains his theory while being mocked by the other actors. There was a long tradition of ridiculing medical doctors and the field of medicine in seventeenth- and eighteenth-century France. In act II of Arlequin traitant, Arlequin discusses with the devil the identity of one of the men being punished in the underworld:

ARLEQUIN ARLEQUIN Hé-bien, dites-moi, quel homme Well then, tell me, who is this est-ce? man?

BELPHEGOR BELPHEGOR C’est un célébre medecin. He is a famous physician.

ARLEQUIN ARLEQUIN Ergo trés-célébre assassin? Therefore a famous assassin?

BELPHEGOR BELPHEGOR Justement. Correct.

However, in scene 2 of Les funerailles de la Foire, audiences would have recognized the reference to a specific doctor in Paris. Mezzetin and Scaramouche first ridicule M. Craquet for his medical training outside of Paris. They sarcastically deride him as superior to Hippocrates since M. Craquet claims to have discovered the origins of disease through the use of his

“machine.” M. Craquet most likely was an allusion to the infamous physician Nicolas Andry

Bois-Regard (1658–1742) who published in 1700 his De la generation des vers dans le corps de l’homme (The Generation of Worms in the Human Body) and a subsequent supplement in 1704.

Here, Andry argued that tiny “worms” he had observed with a microscope were the cause of all

76 See also Lois Rosow, “How Eighteenth-Century Parisians Heard Lully’s Operas: The Case of Armide's Fourth Act,” in Jean-Baptiste Lully and the Music of the French Baroque: Essays in Honor of James R. Anthony, edited by John Hajdu Heyer, 213–38. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009). Rosow notes that Act IV from Armide, with its minor characters, is often cut from modern performances. However, she argues, eighteenth- century audiences would have understood this act as a political allegory.

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diseases in the human body.77 Although an integral contribution to the modern germ theory of disease, Andry’s theory and his vehement criticism of barber-surgeons made him the target of public mockery during his lifetime. He quickly earned the epithet “homini verminoso” (worm man) and was depicted as such in a satirical engraving.78

Similarly, in scene 5 of Le rappel de la Foire à la vie the character Mr. Giblet suddenly enters the stage before Mezzetin, Scaramouche, and the Doctor arrive frantically. He is terrified after having heard that the Opéra is on a mission to bring La Foire back from the underworld.

When asked why he is so frightened by this, Mr. Giblet confesses that he has recently written a book criticizing the fair theaters and their authors since he believed they had been closed forever.

Before chasing Mr. Giblet around the stage attempting to slap him, Mezzetin, Scaramouche, and the Doctor ridicule him, claiming that his book against the fair theaters has sold only three copies in the twenty months since it appeared. Yet Mr. Giblet is no imaginary character, but instead was intended to represent the famous writer Nicolas Boindin. The book alluded to is Boindin’s

Lettres historiques sur tous les spectacles de Paris published in 1719, around twenty months prior to the premiere of Le rappel de la Foire à la vie in 1721. Moreover, the writings in the fourth part of Boindin’s Lettres are consistent with Mr. Giblet’s words. The letter opens with

Boindin boasting about how he has accurately predicted the closing of the fair theaters. He goes on to criticize some of the most recent performances:

The Opéra-Comique, or if you wish, the danseurs de corde; because the public cannot become accustomed to calling them otherwise, began very badly at the fair; I wish to say

77 Remi Kohler, “Nicolas Andry de Bois-Regard (Lyon 1658–Paris 1742): The Inventor of the Word “Orthopaedics” and the Father of Parasitology,” Journal of Children’s Orthopaedics 4/4 (August 2010): 349–55.

78 For a reproduction of this satirical pamphlet see Kohler, 351. 219

that the first piece was found very badly, also it was by an author who promises nothing of quality.79

The satirical world of the fair theaters allowed its authors to publicly refute criticism from proponents of the royal theaters, engaging Boindin in a lighthearted polemic.

The satirical aspects of Les funerailles de la Foire and Le rappel de la Foire à la vie also targeted the Opéra. In scene 2 of Le rappel de la Foire à la vie, a concerned Scaramouche mocks the “special effects” at the Palais-Royal theater by asking how the Opéra intends to traverse the perilous route to Hades. The Opéra responds, “Good question! By Jove, I will take one of my trapdoors. It is a path that has been opened by heroes.”80 The authors also critiqued the faults of

French tragic opera in a vaudeville from scene 11 sung by La Foire, who vows that nothing in her comedies will be “boring, old, or serious.”81 While the perceived greed of the Opéra was commonly brought to minds of the audience, the characterization of tragédie lyrique as “boring” recurs several times, suggesting that sleeping audience members were a common sight at the

Palais-Royal. In scene 7 of Le rappel de la Foire à la vie, Mercury explains how the Opéra was able to escape the underworld with La Foire even though Pluto had brashly scoffed at his request. He describes this pivotal moment, “The Opéra, just like a new Orpheus, began to sing a beautiful piece from a new opera. The infernal court fell into a deep sleep, and he took advantage of the opportunity and escaped with his cousin…seeing them leave, Cerberus, without a doubt

79 Nicolas Boindin, “Quatrième letter historique sur tous les spectacles de Paris: Lettre première sur les foires de S. Germain et de S. Laurent dernières,” in Lettres historiques sur tous les spectacles de Paris (Paris: Prault, 1719), 2–3. “L’Opéra-Comique, ou si vous voulez les danseurs de corde; car quelque chose qu’on fasse le public ne peut s’accoûtumer à l’appeller autrement, commença fort mal la foire, je veux dire que le première pièce fut trouvée fort mauvaise, aussi étoit elle d’un auteur qui ne promettrait rien de bon…”

80 Lesage et al, Le rappel de la foire à la vie, 416.

81 Ibid., 437.

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became restless, but after a piece of recitative, his eyelids were closed.”82 Immediately after, the chorus sings the praises of the Opéra and its “powerful poppies,” a veiled reference to Hypnos, the Greek god of sleep, and Morpheus, the god of dreams.83

Musical Borrowings from the Operatic Repertory

More directly, the repertory of the Opéra was brought into the fair theaters via the borrowing of scenes and musical numbers. The musical component of Les funerailles de la Foire and Le rappel de la Foire à la vie, in addition to numerous vaudevilles, contains ten borrowed musical numbers from six different Lully-Quinault operas, including some early tragédies en musique like Alceste (1674), Thésée (1675), later works like Persée (1682), and Phaëton (1683), and two from the late trilogy of chivalric operas, Roland (1685) and Armide (1686). The numbers chosen included airs, ensembles, choruses, and recitatives. Jean-Claude Gillier also composed a new finale for both comedies. Moreover, these borrowed scenes are not placed randomly into Les funerailles de la Foire and Le rappel de la Foire à la vie, but are instead used at key moments to further emphasize their function within the plot or to provide another layer of meaning. For example, in scene 7 of Le rappel de la Foire à la vie the fair theater actors and actresses celebrate the success of the Opéra’s heroic mission and the triumphant return of La

Foire. Rather using a vaudeville at this moment, a musical excerpt is borrowed from the corresponding action in act V, scene 1 of Alceste, “Par une ardeur impatiente,” originally sung by

Admetus:

82 Ibid., 430.

83 Ibid., 430.

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Par une ardeur impatiente With an impatient fervor, Courons, et devançons ses pas. Let us run and anticipate his steps. Il rameine Alceste vivante He brings back Alceste alive Que chacun chante.84 Let everyone sing.

Now sung by Mercury in Le rappel de la Foire à la vie, the words are little changed by the authors:

Par une ardeur impatiente With an impatient fervor, Courez, volez vers ce héros. Run, fly to this hero. Les voici. La Foire est vivante. Here they are. La Foire is alive. Que chacun chante.85 Let everyone sing.

An example of comedic irony is found in the opening scene wherein the fair theater actors and actresses mourn what they believe is the final demise of La Foire. For this scene, the authors chose one of the most dramatic and serious choruses from act IV, scene 3 of Lully’s Persée. In the prior scene, Idas had just informed the chorus of Ethiopians that Juno and Neptune will sacrifice Andromeda to the sea monster. Scene 3 then opens with the chorus of Ethiopians lamenting what they believe will be Andromeda’s end, “O ciel inexorable! O malheur déplorable!”86 Le rappel de la Foire à la vie opens with a similar announcement scene as the chorus laments La Foire’s passing. Anyone familiar with Persée, would have known that the troupe of Ethiopians cries in vain, since Andromeda’s life is ultimately saved heroically by

Perseus after he slays the sea monster. This scene from Persée well suits the dramatic action of the opening scene of Le rappel de la Foire à la vie. Moreover, it would have functioned as foreshadowing to audience members who knew Persée since Foire, like Andromeda, is

84 Philippe Quinault and Jean-Baptiste Lully, Alceste (Ballard: Paris, 1716), 162–3.

85 Lesage et al, Le rappel de la foire à la vie, 430.

86 Quinault and Lully, Persée (Ballard: Paris, 1722), 164–5.

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ultimately spared death. The use of this particular scene also served to “over-dramatize” a not- so-dramatic story, the temporary closing of the fair theaters.

Meaning in Operatic Borrowings

Operatic borrowings also conveyed meaning beyond analogous plot structures and devices such as foreshadowing. Opera was not simple entertainment. It also served an allegorical function in which its scenes and content metaphorically expressed specific ideas about society, its structure, cultural practices, the political system, and much more to the audience. For example, operatic funeral scenes carried strong cultural associations for the Parisian public, especially the portrayal of the public funeral procession or pompe funèbre. As Bloechl has shown, the purpose of recreating funeral scenes in operas served to dramatize the function of state funerals, that is, to maintain political stability and restore public morale.87 Scene 11 of Les funerailles de la Foire parodies the famous pompe funèbre scene from Lully’s Alceste, act III, scene 5.Thus it would have brought to mind not only the original scene but also the ritual of the public funeral procession itself. Moreover, the visual staging at the fair theaters did not miss the details of a public funeral. The entire cast was robed in their traditional black mourning attire or crêpes de deuil. The Opéra, also wearing a mourning crêpe, leads the procession of mourners as the orchestra plays an instrumental march from Alceste. While no specific title is given in the libretto, this most likely referred to the instrumental march that opens act III, scene 5 of Alceste

(see Musical Example 4.2). This number adheres to the traditional five-part scoring of the vingt- quatre violons du roi. While orchestra size and composition varied at the fair theaters, it is

87 Bloechl, 158.

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Musical Example 4.2. Alceste, act III, scene 5, opening instrumental number.

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possible that the fair theater orchestra could have played the five-part scoring verbatim. Police reports from 1716 indicate orchestras of 14 for one troupe at the fair theaters and 20 for another.88 However, after 1718 the fair theater orchestras appear to have been reduced, perhaps due to financial considerations or legal restrictions.89 If fewer players were available, a simplified arrangement could have easily sufficed. One example of a hypothetical arrangement for two violins and a bass violin on parts one, two, and basso continuo is shown in Musical

Example 4.3. Parts three and four could have been omitted as they frequently doubled parts one and two. After the procession, Colombine announces La Foire’s passing, “La Foire est morte,” sung to a melody from Céphise’s lament that begins act III, scene 4 of Alceste: “Alceste est morte” (see Musical Example 4.4). This particular adaptation of the text, which was proclaimed three times, had special resonance with the Parisian public as it followed the same structure used to announce the end of the burial rite at public funerals.90 This may have been especially true in its new text setting in Les funerailles de la Foire. Considering the assonant relationship between the French pronunciation of “Foire” and “roi,” many would have recalled the proclamation of the king’s death just three years earlier. The repetition by the chorus is taken from the closing cadence of the first phrase in G-minor. The arranger’s choice to skip the imitative passage and instead borrow the four-part, homophonic punctuation may have been a pragmatic decision in the absence of a professional chorus (see Musical Example 4.4 and Figure 4.1).

88 Barnes, “Instruments and Instrumental Music at the ‘Théâtres de la foire’ (1697–1762),” 146.

89 Reports from 1718–1721 show a range of six to ten instrumentalists per orchestra. For example, an orchestra of six violins, three bass violins, and one bassoon as shown in one report from 1721 could have covered the original score with two on a part.

90 Bloechl, 67.

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Musical Example 4.3. Alceste, act III, scene 5, hypothetical reduction of five-part scoring.

The Techniques of Musical Borrowing

The funeral parody in scene 11 of Les funerailles de la Foire constitutes one of the most extensive examples of musical borrowing in the fair theater repertory. It further demonstrates how the musical arranger’s role in excising, reordering, and rearranging complimented the authors’ roles in setting new texts to pre-existing operatic librettos. In scene 11 of Les funerailles de la Foire, an ABACADA structure unfolds. A short refrain is formed by Colombine’s, “La 226

Musical Example 4.4. Alceste, act III, scene 4. The refrain in Les funerailles de la Foire, scene 11 is created from the highlighted excerpts.

Foire est morte” and the chorus’s reply. This choral answer provided tonal closure to the refrain and also functioned like a chorus in Greek tragedy, heightening the emotive potential of a scene via dramatic commentary. The solo sections between the refrains are taken from solo excerpts

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from act III, scenes 4 and 5 of Alceste. Finally, they are reordered to fit the new dramatic context and thus do not preserve the chronological ordering of the original scenes (see Figure 4.1).

Editing the original material in this manner streamlined the convoluted operatic plots and condensed two scenes into a single, brief number. The new dramatic context also allowed for the elimination of characters and better suited the smaller cast of actors and actresses at the fair theaters. Often the forces of a musical number were reduced to accommodate the smaller group of performers available. The opening vocal solo of Le rappel de la Foire à la vie, scene 1, “O sort inexorable,” (shown in Musical Example 4.5) is taken from the top vocal line of the three- voice chorus in mm. 20–22 of Persée, act IV, scene 3. However, the three-part chorus that immediately answers is taken from a later passage in mm. 73–76 of the original scene. The subsequent solo is taken from the preceding section, mm. 66–72. This process of excerpting and reordering was typical in these operatic borrowings. Often parts were eliminated to accommodate these smaller performing forces. Thus the overall length of the musical number is reduced from around five or six minutes to only one or two minutes. These techniques of musical borrowing do not necessarily indicate a process that catered to a low-brow audience. Instead these musical borrowings further support the notion that audiences sought brevity, novelty, and variety. At the fair theaters audiences seem to have preferred the consecutive performance of three separate works over the performance of a longer, individual work. Moreover, a primary criticism of classic French operatic repertory was that it was boring. The numerous references in the fair theater repertory to audiences sleeping at the Paris Opéra further supports this notion.

Audiences at the fair theaters could still hear excerpts from their favorite operas in an abbreviated form. They could also listen to their favorite numbers from a variety of Lully operas, creating in essence a playlist of classic “favorites” or opera “highlights.” 228

Figure 4.1. Structure of the funeral scene in Les funerailles de la Foire from the original Alceste libretto.

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Musical Example 4.5. Le rappel de la Foire à la vie, scene 1. The vocal parts are from the appendix to the Lesage collection, vol. 3. Basso continuo has been added here from Lully’s Persée (Paris: Ballard, 1722), 165, 168–169. Realization, shown in small note heads, is my own.

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Conclusions

While the Opéra sought to transport their audiences to the distant, mythological world of ancient Greece—gods, goddesses, sorcerers, sea monsters, machines, and heroes—the fair theaters placed the city of Paris—its prominent figures, current events, vices, and theatrical debates—front and center for the public to see. Here, the royal theaters became a central subject of ridicule and social critique. While the fair theaters appear to have offered a contrast in style, subject matter, and form from the Opéra, it is precisely the interaction with the Opéra’s repertory that suggests an audience overlap between the theaters. The repertory of the fair theaters, with its musical and textual references to operas, current events, public figures, and theatrical politics, engaged audiences through a pre-existing musical-dramatic repertory. The continued use of subtle allusions and musical borrowings resulted in complex pieces that also suggests an audience well-versed in Parisian theater, its works, and its politics. It is also true that these comedies relied heavily on traditional slapstick humor, inherited from the Italian commedia dell’arte. Thus these works could still be appreciated by a demographic of the audience that was not versed on French classic opera. A reasonable conclusion may be that the repertory of the fair theaters in the early eighteenth century catered to a mixed audience, offering something for everyone to appreciate. When these comedies did not borrow musical numbers from the operatic repertory, the use of popular tunes provided audiences with an aspect of familiarity that was often participatory.

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Conclusion

Interestingly, the first historical writings on the comédie en vaudevilles appeared in 1721 while the nascent genre was still being developed. The narrative of its invention was also first shaped by one of the genre’s main practitioners, the author Alain-René Lesage. Yet by the end of the century writers still considered the comédie en vaudevilles as a genre less important than opera and spoken drama. In the nineteenth century, French scholars seeking to promote France’s cultural past attempted to elevate the historical status of opéra-comique by linking its origins to key cultural figures like Molière or Adam de la Halle. They also began to view the comédie en vaudevilles as a primitive form in the development of opéra-comique’s golden age in the nineteenth century. Here, a clear parallel to theories on sociocultural evolution that sought to understand the world through a narrative of progress can be seen with the narrative of opéra- comique’s origins and development. While the earlier comédies en vaudevilles relied on pre- existing popular songs, opéra-comique after 1760 and in the nineteenth century boasted original scores. Implicit in this perspective are notions about the importance of the composer genius and originality. This view persisted well into the twentieth century primarily through the work of

Grout, who sought to synthesize the various theories on opéra-comique’s origins and development into a single theatrical “ancestry.” The epistemological problems of these theories of theatrical lineage are clearly evident in the often conflicting viewpoints of these nineteenth- century writers—some identified opéra-comique’s origins with Adam de la Halle, others with

Molière, and others still with the farcical works at the fair theaters in the seventeenth century.

Moreover, these writers ascribed the creation of the comédie en vaudevilles almost singularly to

Lesage, often overlooking the contributions of his predecessors, Louis Fuzelier among them.

While Lesage was crucial in the development of the comédie en vaudevilles, it is perhaps that the 232

methodology of creating musical-historical narratives that center on key figures and their corpora has shaped the way scholars have viewed Lesage as the creator of the genre.

It is clear that the repertory of the seventeenth-century fair theaters was markedly different from the repertory of comédies en vaudevilles in the eighteenth century. Smaller in scale, lighter in character, and performed outside the aegis of royal privilege, these works imitated the repertory of the royal theaters in subject matter, style, and function. Several examples clearly conformed to the conventions of contemporaneous genres such as the pastorale or the machine play. Nearly all of these works are derived from classic subjects that had been treated in pre-existing works. And despite their reduced means, the emphasis on visual spectacle still played a central role, with true balletic numbers, scenery, staging, acrobatics, and music.

Many of these works also contain an epilogue that overtly celebrates Louis XIV. Others served as clear allegories for current events and sought to project the success of the monarchy’s prerogatives in empire-building, regardless of the veracity of that image.

While classic subjects remained an important source for the comedies at the fair theaters after the dismissal of the Italian comedians from Paris in 1697, several important changes are apparent in the repertory from 1697–1712, most notably, the appropriation of the stock characters and comic lazzi routines of the commedia dell’arte. Evidence from librettos and police reports from this period demonstrates that the sung vaudeville form was already being developed in the years leading up to Lesage’s debut at the fair theaters. Moreover, the fair theater repertory from 1710–1712 demonstrates a substantial musical component beyond the use of vaudevilles that included incidental numbers, overtures, sound effects, and dance music. The significant presence of balletic numbers in the fair theater repertory is a feature that has often been overlooked by scholars. 233

Rather than considering the genre of comédie en vaudevilles as part of a theatrical

‘ancestry’ or as a developmental stage of the later opéra-comique, it is important to view it within the context of eighteenth-century Parisian culture. Several important scholars, such as

Ruth Smith and Lois Rosow, have emphasized the need to interpret meaning in eighteenth- century genres with contemporary audiences in mind. Likewise, the comédie en vaudevilles from the final years of the Regency also demonstrates that despite its reliance on pre-existing popular songs and the stock characters of the commedia dell’arte, its unsanctioned legal status, the use overt social criticism, and the common ridicule of the royal theaters, public figures, and current events, the fair theater repertory was not developed solely for a lower-class audience, nor was it countercultural or subversive. On the contrary, the intertextuality of these comedies suggests a significant audience overlap between the fair theaters and the royal theaters.

The extensive use of pre-existing music in the repertory of the comédie en vaudevilles has been detrimental to the generation of scholarship on this subject. The discipline of musicology was established with the assumption that original compositions forged by the minds of geniuses were more valuable, more interesting, and a more fertile topic for intellectual discourse. More specifically, the geopolitical and economic context of the comédie en vaudeville’s historiography

(vis-à-vis opéra-comique) has framed the narrative of its development away from the extrapolation of meaning and the subjective towards notions of genre. Yet, it is the use of pre- existing music in this repertory that opens the door to new insights, interpretations, and inquiries.

Every piece of pre-existing music holds in the mind of the listener a wealth of individual meaning as well as shared cultural associations. The traditional methods of musicology are ill- suited to treat the subjective and phenomenological nature of meaning as conveyed through pre- existing music. In this dissertation, we have seen different examples of meaning conveyed 234

through vaudeville tunes and operatic borrowings which attempt to broaden our understanding of theatrical life in Paris in the eighteenth century. Music’s origins, style, and political associations, all served as poignant tools for expression. It is through these comedies from the fair theaters, which stood in stark opposition to the royal theaters, that we look deeply into the Opéra and its music, into the politics of eighteenth-century Paris, and into the center of a rich and vibrant theatrical world.

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