Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Acknowledgments
- Chronology of Plays Discussed
- List of Illustrations
- Act One The Back Story
- Act Two The Agon
- Act Three The Comic Relief
- XI Blessèd Laughter
- XII Classic Routines
- XIII Musical Comedy
- XIV The Bones of Farce
- Act Four And Leave 'em Laughin'
- Notes
- Works Cited and Consulted
- Index
XIII - Musical Comedy
from Act Three - The Comic Relief
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 July 2012
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Acknowledgments
- Chronology of Plays Discussed
- List of Illustrations
- Act One The Back Story
- Act Two The Agon
- Act Three The Comic Relief
- XI Blessèd Laughter
- XII Classic Routines
- XIII Musical Comedy
- XIV The Bones of Farce
- Act Four And Leave 'em Laughin'
- Notes
- Works Cited and Consulted
- Index
Summary
George Dandin; ou, le Mari Confondu
Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme
as conceived by Molière
as ordered by Louis XIV, King of France
Here we deal with what might be called the first stirrings of musical comedy. While Molière's personal choice as an actor, playwright, and company manager, was for farce and the classics, he was increasingly subject to the choices made for him by Louis XIV. The King was Absolute. The king was not a modest man. His philosophy of life was set down in his Memoirs (italics mine):
In my heart I prefer fame above all else, even life itself … Love of glory has the same subtleties as the most tender passions … (code for sexual pleasure)
Louis dictated much of what, when, where and even how Molière was to write during the next five years. Between 1667 and his death in 1673, eight of his remaining fourteen plays were court entertainments given in the gardens of various palaces, and his collaborator on six of them was Jean-Baptiste Lully. Lully had been for some time the supervisor of music for the king, and when, back in 1661 at Vaux-le-Vicomte, he and Molière hurriedly devised a new form that alternated interludes of music and dance with the novel addition of comic acts, the two artists became an ongoing team working at the pleasure of the king. Their collaboration may have begun in Les Fâcheux (The Bores) with a simple scheme in which the play stopped now and then and the dancers came out and did a short number.
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- Information
- Molière on StageWhat's So Funny?, pp. 127 - 136Publisher: Anthem PressPrint publication year: 2012