|
France has had its own dramatic and operatic tradition. While Italian opera has had some influence, affected itself by its contact with the principles of French classical drama, French opera has remained true to its own cultural and linguistic traditions.
Comédie- ballet and Tragédie- lyrique
Paradoxically French opera owes its origin to a composer of Italian origin. Jean- Baptiste Lully was brought to France as a boy and as time went on established himself in a leading position in the musical life of his adopted country. In collaboration with Molière he contributed to the art of the comédie-ballet and with the poet Quinault he created the French five- act tragédie lyrique , itself indebted both to earlier French forms of ballet and drama and to Italy. Lully came to hold a dominant position, with a royal monopoly that gave him control over music in the theatre. While it is now usual to perform Molière's comedies without their music or their ballet, the plays were originally conceived with a closely related element of dance and music. Le bourgeois gentilhomme , for example, which has had other more recent musical offshoots, finds a natural place for music as Monsieur Jourdain, the nouveau riche of the title, tries to acquire the arts of a gentleman. Apart from the comic musical episodes of his singing lesson and the scene in which he is supposedly ennobled by a Turkish Mufti, there is also a final comic ballet for a mixture of French, Spanish, Italian and other dancers and singers. The form was stifled when Lully claimed ownership not only of the music but of the texts and succeeded in exercising intolerable control over Molière's collaboration with another composer.
Comic opera
As in Italy, comic opera itself developed from more popular sources in the 18 th century, notably from the Paris Fair Theatres. Here existing tunes were often used for new words, as they were to be in The Beggar's Opera in England. Travelling companies of players and the actors of the Italian theatre played an important part in the development of a form that mixed speech and music and closely involved a popular audience. As the century went on, what had often been a coarse form of entertainment developed into something much more acceptable to the educated. Writers like Favart and the social philosopher Rousseau turned to simple country life for their plots, although the picture they offer is highly idealised.
|
contact 
View opera CARMEN