The Opera Parodies of Florent Carton Dancourt[1]

John S. Powell

(article originally appeared in Cambridge Opera Journal,13:1 (2001))

 

            In his landmark 1941 article ‘Seventeenth-Century Parodies of French Opera’, Donald Grout traced the practices of operatic parody as found in French plays of the early 1690s.[2]  These farces, written by the playwrights Fatouville, Monchesnay, Lenoble, Palaprat, Dufresny, and Regnard for the commedia dell’arte actors of the Comédie-Italienne, were subsequently collected and published in the Théâtre Italien de Gherardi.[3]  In addition to offering parodies of spoken plays, several of the farces targeted the operas of Jean-Philippe Quinault and Jean-Baptiste Lully—which remained staples in the repertory of the Académie Royale de Musique for nearly a century after Lully's death in 1687.  According to the 18th-century theater historian Louis Riccoboni, the Gherardi collection contained the first examples of opera parody to appear in France.[4] 

            However, opera satire and parody first appear in French comedy much earlier.  Indeed, a tradition of satire and opera parody can be traced back to 1674, two years after Lully purchased the royal opera privilège from Pierre Perrin and established the Académie Royale de Musique (the Paris Opéra).[5]  Furthermore, Dancourt’s parodies of Lully and Quinault's last two tragedies-lyriques, Roland and Armide, predate the opera parodies of the Gherardi collection.[6]  That Angélique et Médor (1685) and Renaud et Armide (1686) were performed during the lifetimes of Lully and Quinault set them apart from later opera parodies, written long after the Quinault/Lully operatic canon had been established.  The premières of Dancourt's parodies at the Comédie-Française during the first runs of Roland and Armide at the Opéra made for ready comparison—and thereby allowed the 17th-century spectator to perceive thematic connections that might be unnoticed by modern audiences.  Consequently, Dancourt's Angélique et Médor and Renaud et Armide will be the main focus of this essay.  Before examining them, however, we will consider the background of the earlier opera parodies, the ongoing rivalry among Parisian theaters, the musical limitations imposed by Lully’s privilège on public theater and subsequent restrictions, and the rationalist objections to opera expressed in spoken plays of the time.

 

Early Opera Parody.   Several earlier French plays prefigure the satiric and parodic procedures that inform Dancourt's opera parodies.  These defining features include:  (1) the satire of opera in general, and of the Quinault/Lully tragedies-lyriques in particular,  (2) the introduction of a sung ‘operatic’ performance within the context of a spoken play, (3) the portrayal of opera as a costly and irrational form of entertainment, (4) reference to the Opéra and to the current state of musical affairs in Paris theaters, and (5) an implicit connection between opera and madness. 

After Lully acquired the opera privilège from Pierre Perrin in 1672, Hauteroche's comedy Crispin musicien alluded to the shift of power that had taken place in the Paris opera scene.[7]  This musical comedy became so closely identified with the new operatic art form that a provincial company billed it as ‘l'Opéra de l'Hôtel de Bourgogne’.[8]  In this piece, the master of the house is both a singer and harpsichordist, and his household servants display varying degrees of musical talent.  The play’s overture is performed on-stage by six of his lackeys playing strings (in compliance with recent restrictions on theater music, which limited instrumentalists to six).[9]  While there is no mention of the Quinault/Lully operas then in repertory, the cast of Crispin musicien featured an opera singer from Gascony—a character no doubt inspired by the provincial opera singers which Lully inherited from Perrin's defunct Académie Royale des Opéra.  Recruited mainly from Languedoc, these singers reportedly could not speak proper French.[10]

            That same year Brécourt's L’Ombre de Molière appeared, and became the first play to include a quotation from a Quinault/Lully opera.[11]  The troupe of the Hôtel de Bourgogne paid tribute with this musical comedy to the memory of their great rival and Lully’s former collaborator.  The setting is the Elysian Fields, where a tribunal is to be held.  Molière's ghost is brought before Pluto, accused by various character types that he satirized in his comedies and comédies-ballets:  a précieuse, a marquis, an imaginary cuckold, and Monsieur de Pourceaugnac.  Quinault becomes the target of ridicule in scene 2, where a figure identified only as ‘le Poète’ bemoans finding himself among the shades.  The ferryman Charon reproaches him for having portrayed Greek heroes in Alceste as ‘very pretty boys’ (‘de fort jolis garçons’), and himself as a teller.  The poet's line ‘Hélas, Caron, hélas!’, which is then mockingly repeated by Charon, is from the underworld scene in Act 4 of Alceste.  Given that Lully's melodic setting only consists of a pleading half-step, this line could easily have been sung by the actors.

            In August of 1680, the two French companies in Paris—the Théâtre de Guénégaud and the Hôtel de Bourgogne—were joined by royal decree to form the Comédie-Française.  During its first season the new company premièred Les Fous divertissants, a comédie-ballet by the actor-playwright Raymond Poisson that borrowed material from Quinault and Lully's latest tragedies-lyriques, Proserpine (III,3) and Bellérophon (II,1).[12]  Its setting is an asylum, where the young lover Léandre gains entrance by pretending to be an opera lunatic, driven mad by having to sing repeated high notes.  In II,9, Léandre and his beloved Angélique perform for the amusement of Grognard, her fiancé and the warden of the asylum.  During the course of their operatic performance, Grognard remarks amusedly on the miraculous effect that Angélique’s singing seems to be having on the madman, and how convincingly they play the roles of lovers.  Two features of Les Fous divertissants would be further developed in Dancourt's Angélique et Médor:  the feigned madness of one of the singing lovers, and the operatic performance used to facilitate an elopement.

 

            The Musical Machine-Plays and Royal Restrictions on Music.   Dancourt’s opera parodies followed several spectacular musical productions that tested the royal restrictions imposed on music and dance.  Upon the formation of the Comédie-Française, the company began reviving its older repertory of machine-plays with music by their resident composer, Marc-Antoine Charpentier.  After its 1680 production of Poisson's Les Fous divertissants and the successful 1681 revival of Gabriel Gilbert's musical machine-play Les Amours de Diane et d'Endimion (1657), the company had every reason to expect that the King would consider lifting the ban on music and dance in the public theater.  In the fall of 1681 the Comédie-Française and the Comédie-Italienne participated in the court revival of Le Ballet des Muses.  The newly-added Prologue featured the actors Poisson and Rosimond heatedly debating with Scaramouche and Harlequin the relative merits of French vs. Italian opera.  Fiorilli (known as Cinthio), head of the Italian troupe, and La Grange, head of the Comédie-Française, finally intervene and Cinthio proposes that the Italian actors put on ‘a little Italian opera’.[13]  At the end, La Grange reconciles them ‘by pointing out the advantages of drama and music, and concludes that nothing is able to satisfy all the spectators more than a staged play combined with music’. 

            In July of 1682 the Comédie-Française revived Pierre Corneille's 1650 machine-play Andromède in a spectacular production with a new musical score by Charpentier.[14]  The performances were scheduled to coincide with the première of Persée, Quinault and Lully's tragédie-lyrique based on the same Greek fable.  However, the King (probably at Lully’s behest) upheld the ban of 1673, and further stipulated that henceforth the 2 singers permitted must be regular members of the company, not professional singers.[15]  Thereafter the Comédie-Française continued its revival of machine-plays, albeit with the amount of music significantly diminished.  Michel Baron's Le Rendez-vous des Thuilleries (1685) alluded to this sad state of musical affairs in the public theater, when one character remarks that ‘as is well known, for a long time we have been forbidden to know how to sing or dance’[16]

 

Rationalist Prejudices toward Opera.  The context in which operatic borrowings are introduced in French comedies suggests many playwrights' critical stance toward Quinault, Lully, and their operas.  In 17th-century France, classical spoken tragedy was the standard against which other forms of theater were judged.  Consequently, some felt that opera—with its absurd occurrences, its obsession with gloire and amour, its wanton disregard of the unities, and its direct appeal to ‘the pleasures of sight and hearing’—was essentially an irrational or meaningless entertainment.  In Andromède Pierre Corneille took care not to entrust anything meaningful to song:  as he explains in the Examen d'Andromède, ‘since singing usually prevents the words from being heard, nothing of importance to the understanding of the plot should be sung’.[17]  Whereas in Baron's Le Rendez-vous des Thuilleries the Marquise acknowledges that ‘it is fashionable to affect being wild about music’, she 'could not bear ‘hearing at the expense of good sense and reason all of these heroes speak of their misfortunes by singing’.[18]  A century later, Beaumarchais's Figaro would echo this common wisdom, proclaiming that ‘today whatever isn't worth the trouble of saying is sung’.[19] 

Opera's lack of appeal to the reasoning faculties was a common complaint among its critics.  François Riccoboni, the author of several opera parodies (and the son of Louis Riccoboni), held the genre in contempt.  'Opera is a type of composition that neither withstands nor merits criticism: one is obliged to sacrifice everything to the pleasure of seeing and hearing, [and] one almost never has occasion there to speak to the intellect.'[20]  The intellectual emptiness of opera is a recurring theme in several early opera parodies.  Frequently these operatic borrowings serve as a subterfuge, whereby a musical performance is used to advance a courtship that is obstructed by a parent, guardian, or jealous fiancé.   The on-stage spectators, caught up in the theatricality of the event and the sensuous appeal of the music, fail to notice the meaning of the sung lyrics.  The inherent irrationality of the genre is underscored when one of the performers pretends to be mad—as in Poisson's Le Fou raisonnable (1664), Les Fous divertissants (1680), and Dancourt's Angélique et Médor (1685)—or surrenders to operatic madness, as in Renaud et Armide (1686).

 

            The Insanity of Opera.   Spoken comedies that portray the feigned or real madness of a singing ‘operatic’ character take opera's irrationality to a higher level.  Michel Foucault, who has made a study of madness during the Ancien Régime, identifies four general categories of literary madness as depicted in French drama of this time:  (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.[21]  In light of the plays surveyed here, opera-mania—in which characters have been driven mad by singing, studying, or otherwise obsessing on operatic music, situations, passions, costumes and sets—could also be added to Foucault’s list. 

Musical performance is depicted as a creative outgrowth of madness, particularly when the lunatic fancies himself a mythological singer or an operatic character.  Charles Beys's early comedy, L'Hospital des fous (1636),[22] devotes much space to the entertainments furnished by the lunatics in a madhouse.  The pageant of lunatics includes a philosopher, a lawyer, an astrologer, a soldier, an alchemist, a poet, an actor, and a singer who believes himself to be Orpheus.[23]  The latter enters playing his lute and claiming to make rocks and trees come alive with his divine song (I,3), and then departs to sing his chanson backstage to an imaginary Pluto. 

Crisotine, the heroine of Saint-Evremond's comedy Les Opéra (c. 1676), has ‘lost her mind by reading opera scores’.[24]  She finds a kindred spirit in Tirsolet, a young opera fanatic, with whom she converses in song as the two imagine themselves to be Cadmus and Hermione (from the Quinault/Lully opera).  The physician Guillaut declares that her madness is analogous to the literary delusions of Don Quixote, and suggests that marriage might restore Crisotine to her senses (a theme which recurs in Dancourt’s Angélique et Médor).  And so Crisard offers her to his cousin, the Baron de Pourgeolette—who is advised to communicate with her through song.  He attempts an air from Psyché (‘Aimable Jeunesse’), but when Crisotine immediately formulates a parody on it (‘Honteuse Vieillesse’) the Baron loses his temper and decides to give her up.  Hearing Crisotine singing with Tirsolet (again in the character of Cadmus and Hermione), the physician proposes that the young lovers go join the Opéra in Paris—for, after six months of rehearsals, continual singing, putting on and taking off costumes, and discovering that the machines are but painted backdrops, the gods and goddesses are but singers, and that the miraculous flights are effected by means of ropes, he predicts that they will rid themselves of their operatic delusions and return home saner and wiser. 

 

            Angélique et Médor and Opera Satire.   Dancourt's opera parodies began appearing shortly after the Comédie-Française abandoned the revivals of its older repertory of musical machine-plays.  By the mid-1680s, the Comédiens du Roy and Lully were still at odds—and one cannot help but speculate that Dancourt's opera parodies were designed in some measure to pique the draconian director of the Opéra.  The plot of Angélique et Médor revolves around a performance that Monsieur Guillemin is preparing to give in his home, and the play's dialogue provides tantalizing details that seem to pertain to the current state of affairs in opera.  Merlin, a valet posing as an opera authority, mentions that they no longer snuff the candles at the Opéra,[25] and that the costly machines are no longer in fashion.[26]  Dancers are another expensive luxury that Guillemin would readily omit, as they appear to him ‘too puppet-like’ (‘trop marionette’) on-stage.  However, Merlin cannot conceive of opera without dancers, and contends that they constitute ‘le saupiquet [spicy sauce] d’un opera’.[27]

Opera singers also become the butt of laughter, and many of the ironic asides look forward to Marcello's famous satire, Il teatro alla moda (1720).  We learn in sc. 1 that good singers are hard to find—although mediocre ones will suffice for this private performance, as Guillemin is ignorant about musical matters.[28]  As proof of this, the young lover Eraste arrives posing as an opera singer in sc. 8—which prompts Guillemin to observe that ‘he has a very good manner, and one sees very few singers who look so well’.[29]  Later, Dorise, a 15-year-old singer, shows up to audition for the opera.  Despite the fact that she cannot read music, she knows nearly all of the airs from Roland.  Clearly, opera was viewed as an easy road to success—for the young singer ingenuously remarks to Guillemin: ‘Excuse me, sir, but I have been told that I had only to sing in an opera to make myself known and have some reputation’.[30]

Later on we are introduced to Cléante, a conceited opera singer who has become discontent at the Paris Opéra.  He arrives in sc. 13 singing an ‘entrance aria’:

 

Je quitte l’Opéra,

Y chante qui voudra,

Puisqu’on y veut retrancher nos gage,

Je n’y veux plus chanter davantage’

 

[‘I am leaving the Opéra, let whoever wishes sing there;

since they insist on cutting our wages I will sing there no longer’]

 

Cléante then proclaims that the present opera will be worth nothing unless he sings in it—which the singer will not agree to unless Guillemin entreats him and agrees to pay him handsomely.  When Guillemin refuses, Cléante has an immediate change of heart and agrees to sing in Guillemin's opera after all.  Of course, he will not deign to perform anything but ‘les grands Roles’. 

            Dancourt devotes scene 11 of Angélique et Médor to broad satire aimed directly at Lully and Quinault.  Monsieur Guillemin, with an eye to curbing the mounting production costs, decides that it would be too expensive to commission an original work.  ‘You are right’, agrees Merlin, ‘and you would have to deal with some miserable poet who would sell you shoddy merchandise at great cost, and who would just enrage you.’[31]  Furthermore, Merlin adds that ‘there is nothing that makes a musician curse more than a poet, and Music and Poetry never go well together when they work out of self-interest’.[32]  Guillemin thereupon decides that it would be cheaper and less trouble to choose a ready-made opera, and he considers several by Quinault and Lully—but rejects them for various reasons:  Cadmus et Hermione requires gunpowder to make the flaming dragon's breath in the Prologue, which might frighten people; Atys sets a bad example by portraying an old woman who wishes to corrupt a young priest; and Alceste contains a tombeau scene that might be ‘trop triste & ennuyeux’.  While Guillemin admits that there is an attractive scene in Amadis featuring ‘infantry soldiers armed with swords who tilt at the ring’, he finally settles on Roland, Quinault and Lully's latest opera—despite the fact that ‘at first they said that it was not worth anything, and no one went to see it’.[33]  Merlin assures him that Roland is ‘the most beautiful of all the operas’.  Moreover, it calls for a large cast of colorful and exotic characters:  islanders, Indians, cupids, mermaids, river-gods, enchanted lovers, and the ghosts of heroes.

Dancourt also satirizes contemporary opera performance in general.  In the satiric vein of Marcello's Il teatro alla moda, Merlin proclaims that ‘however wretched an opera might be, it will not fail however to attract a crowd’.[34]  Furthermore, he points out that not everyone pays attention to the on-stage spectacle, for ‘there is a certain amount of dealing and connection between those in the upper balconies and those in the pit that attracts many people’.[35]  The subject matter of opera comes under fire in sc. 5, when the valet Merlin claims to have had experience in composing operas:

 

MERLIN

   Je fis l’année passée un Opera Turc qui est la plus belle chose du monde.

GUILLEMIN

   Un Opera Turc.

MERLIN

   Oui vraiment un Opera Turc.  Celà vous étonne!  Oh je fais de Opera de toutes façons moi, & tenez j’en ai fait un où il y a toutes sortes d’airs & toutes sortes de langues, & celà est si beau, celà passé si fort l’imagination, que les plus habiles gens n’y comprennent rien.

 

[MERLIN:  I composed last year a Turkish opera that is the most beautiful thing in the world.  GUILLEMIN:  A Turkish opera?  MERLIN:  Yes, truly, a Turkish opera.  That surprises you?  Oh, I compose all kinds of operas, you see, and I composed one in which there are all kinds of airs and languages, and that is so fine and so exceeds the imagination that the most knowledgeable people understand nothing in it.][36]

Dancourt's satire broadens into farce when Merlin recalls having sung in a production of Hercule mourant at Brussels, wherein he delighted the audience by seizing a man by his feet and breaking his head against the wall:  ‘Everyone was enchanted with that’, he tells us.[37]

            The first musical quotation in Angélique et Médor, however, is not from Roland but rather from Les Amours de Diane et d'Endimion—Gilbert's 1657 machine play, which recently had been revived at the Comédie-Française with new music by Charpentier.  In Dancourt's parody, Mme Bélise arrives in sc. 6 looking for her daughter Isabelle, who is upstairs en tête à tête with her lover Eraste.  Thinking fast, Merlin warns the lovers by singing the line ‘Séparez-vous, séparez-vous heureux amans’ (see Ex. 1).  To distract Guillemin and Bélise further, Merlin praises the beauty of this air and then proceeds to give them a detailed (and unwanted) explanation of Gilbert's plot.  The quotation of Charpentier’s music at this point in the play prepared for the later introduction of musical quotations from Roland.  Moreover, the juxtaposition of musical excerpts by Charpentier and Lully invited a comparison that would gain resonance in the central musical episode, which featured ‘improvements’ upon the Quinault/Lully tragédie-lyrique (Ex. 2a).

 

Example 1 (Dancourt's Angélique et Médor, 1685; Scène 6)

 

 

SCÈNE VI

Mad. BELISE, Mr. GUILLEMIN, MERLIN.

SCÈNE 6

Mad. BELISE, Mr. GUILLEMIN, MERLIN.

 

BELISE

Ah, ah, bon jour, Monsieur, où est donc ma fille?

GUILLEMIN

Est-ce qu’elle n’étoit pas là haut avec vous?

MERLIN[38]

Gare la musique.

BELISE

Lisette m’avoit dit que vous étiez ici bas ensemble.

GUILLEMIN

Est la même Lisette vient de me dire qu’elle étoit dans vôtre chambre avec vous.

 

MERLIN à la porte de la Salle

 

                      Air d’Endimion

 

BELISE

Ha, ha, good day, Sir, where then is my daughter?

GUILLEMIN

Is she not upstairs with you?

MERLIN

Watch out!  Music!

BELISE

Lisette told me that you were down here together.

GUILLEMIN

And the very same Lisette just told me that she was with you in your chamber.

 

MERLIN at the door of the hall

Separate, young lovers, separate!

 

BELISE

Qu’est-ce à dire celà, Lisette…

MERLIN à Guillemin

Voilà un des plus beaux airs qu’on ait jamais fait; Monsieur.

GUILLEMIN

Il n’est pas maintenant question de la beauté d’un air, Lisette.

MERLIN à Belise

C’est Diane & Endimion qui sont ensemble.

BELISE

Je n’ai que faire de Diane ni d’Endimion, Lisette.

 

MERLIN à Mr. Guillemin.

Le Soleil cherche à les surprendre.

GUILLEMIN

Hola, Lisette.

MERLIN

Mais l’Aurore qui est une fort bonne personne vient toute effrayée qui leur chante.  Separez-vous heureux Amans.

GUILLEMIN

Hé, de grace, Monsieur, laissez-là le Soleil & l’Aurore en repos.

GUILLEMIN & BELISE

Lisette.

BELISE

What does that mean, Lisette…

MERLIN to Guillemin

That is one of the finest airs that has ever been written, Sir.

GUILLEMIN

It is not here a question of the beauty of the air, Lisette.

MERLIN to Belise

It is Diana and Endymion who are together.

BELISE

I have nothing to do with Diana nor Endymion, Lisette.

MERLIN to Mr. Guillemin.

The Sun is looking to surprise them.

GUILLEMIN

Hallo, Lisette.

MERLIN

But the Dawn, who is a fine individual, comes in a panic and sings to them:  ‘Separate yourselves, happy lovers’.

GUILLEMIN

Hey, for pity’s sake, Sir, leave the Sun and the Dawn be.

GUILLEMIN & BELISE

Lisette.

 

 

Example 2a (Dancourt's Angélique et Médor, 1685; Scène 18)

 

 

SCENE XVIII

Mr GUILLEMIN, ISABELLE, ERASTE, LISETTE, MERLIN, CLEANTE, DORISE, Mr. NICOLAS, Violons

 

SCENE XVIII

Mr GUILLEMIN, ISABELLE, ERASTE, LISETTE, MERLIN, CLEANTE, DORISE, Mr. NICOLAS, String Players

MERLIN

Personne n'entrera sans mon congé, & n'en sortira point que je ne le mette dehors.

MERLIN

No one will enter without my leave, nor will leave except by my letting them out.

GUILLEMIN

Fort bien, qu'allez-vous chanter.

GUILLEMIN

Very good.  What are you going to sing.

ERASTE

Une Scene de Roland, Monsieur, comme vous l'avez dit.

ERASTE

A scene from Roland, Monsieur, as you have said.

GUILLEMIN

Et quel Scene encore?

GUILLEMIN

And which scene precisely?

ERASTE

C'est une Scene qui vous paroitra toute nouvelle, & qu'il vous plait, au commencement du quatrieme Acte lors qu'Angelique & Medor sont tous prets à partir.

ERASTE

It is a scene that will seem entirely new to you, and will please you, at the beginning of the fourth act when Angelique and Medor are ready to depart.

GUILLEMIN

Mais nous n'avons que faire de cette Scene-là nous.

GUILLEMIN

But we have no need for that scene.

MERLIN

Pardonnez-moi vraiment, & ce sera le beau d'encherir sur l'autre Opera.

MERLIN

Excuse me truly, and the good thing will be to improve on the other opera

LISETTE

Monsieur a raison.

LISETTE

The gentleman is right.

GUILLEMIN

Mais ces Messieurs n'ont point les parties de cette Scene-là.

GUILLEMIN

But these people don't have the parts for this particular scene.

MERLIN

Oh bien, ils n'ont qu'à jouer à la rencontre.

MERLIN

Oh well, they can just improvise.

GUILLEMIN

Vraiment à la rencontre, cela ne vaudra rien.

GUILLEMIN

Truly, improvise?  That won't be worth much.

ERASTE

Nous n'avons pas besoin d'instrumens pour cette repetition.

ERASTE

We won't need instruments for this rehearsal.

GUILLEMIN

Allons donc.

GUILLEMIN

Let's get on with it.

MERLIN à Eraste

Vôtre Scene est bien concertée.

MERLIN to Eraste

Your scene is well arranged.

ERASTE

Tout va le mieux du monde.  Mais il nous manque encore quelque voix.

ERASTE

All goes the best in the world.  But we still lack several singers.

MERLIN

Je vous seconderai comme il faut.

MERLIN

I will help you as needed.

LISETTE

Et moi je vais vous donner vôtre ton.

LISETTE

And I will give you your pitch.

 

 

How happy Medor is,

Angelique has fulfilled his wishes.

 

ERASTE chante

Pour jouîr d’un bonheur extreme

Il faut s’eloigner de ces lieux,

Thersandre peut nous être utile.

 

ISABELLE chante

Voudra-t-il servir nôtre Amour,

Et nous conduire au Port par quelque heureux detour.

 

ERASTE sings

To enjoy perfect happiness

We must depart from these shores.

Tersandre can be helpful to us.

 

ISABELLE sings

Would that he will wish to serve our love,

And lead us to the Port by some fortunate detour.

 

MERLIN

Je suis donc Thersandre, moi.

MERLIN

I am thus Tersandre.

GUILLEMIN

Fort bien.

GUILLEMIN

Very well.

MERLIN

Et que faudra t-il que je reponde à tout ce que vous me dites?

MERLIN

And what must I respond to everything that you say to me?

ERASTE

Rien du tout.  Vous nous accorderez ce que nous souhaitons.  Vous passez devant nous pour nous conduire au Port, & nous vous suivons.

ERASTE

Nothing at all. You will grant us what we wish.  You will go ahead of us to lead us to the port, and we will follow you.

LISETTE

Celà ira parfaitement bien comme celà.

LISETTE

That will go perfectly well that way.

MERLIN

Ah j'entens; repetons celà encore une fois, s'il vous plait, comme si nous étions sur le Theatre, & donnons-y bien tout le tems qu'il faut.  Allons, recommencer cette fin.

MERLIN

Ah, I understand; let's rehearse it one more time, if you please, as if we were on-stage, and give all the time that is required.  Let's go, begin again this ending.

 

 

            Dancourt's singing characters also use rationalist prejudice toward opera to their own advantage.[39]  With Guillemin looking on, Eraste (singing the role of Médor) proposes that Angélique (sung by Isabelle) run away with him—and uses double entendres delivered via the medium of improvised song to conceal the meaning of his lyrics.  Only the first couplet (‘How happy Médor is | Angelique has fulfilled his wishes’) is borrowed from Act 4 of Roland.  The remaining lyrics constitute Eraste's addition, which in turn becomes the instrument that facilitates his elopement with Angélique.  After their departure, Merlin is left explaining to the bemused Guillemin ‘that Isabelle and the singer have gone to finish the opera’.  Finally realizing that he has been duped, Guillemin announces that he is quite beside himself and he displays his anger through pantomime and gesture.  Meanwhile, Merlin and the maid Lisette furnish sung commentary borrowed from Act 4 of the opera, where it described the outward manifestations of Roland's madness (Ex. 3).  Here, the importation of Quinault's lyrics and Lully's music into a burlesque context results in the comic transformation (described by Louis Riccoboni as 'tourner en ridicule') that lies at the heart of parody.[40] 

 

Example 3 (Dancourt's Angélique et Médor, 1685; Scène 20)

 

 

SCÈNE XX

Mr. GUILLEMIN, MERLIN, LISETTE, CLEANTE, DORISE, Mr. NICOLAS. Violons

SCÈNE 20

Mr. GUILLEMIN, MERLIN, LISETTE, CLEANTE, DORISE, Mr. NICOLAS. Violons

 

GUILLEMIN

Ah, ah, où sont-il donc allez?

 

 

GUILLEMIN

Ah, ah, where have they gone?

MERLIN chante

 

I saw this Queen so lovely leaving from the Port.

 

LISETTE

Angélique est partie?

LISETTE

Angelique has left?

 

 

                     MERLIN chante

And Medor with her;

I have just opened the door for them, fortunately I had the key to it.

 

GUILLEMIN

Qu'est-ce que celà veut dire?

GUILLEMIN

What does that mean?

MERLIN

Celà veut dire qu'Isabelle & le Musicien sont allez achever l'Opera.

MERLIN

That means that Isabelle and the singer have gone to finish the opera.

GUILLEMIN

Isabelle & le Musicien?

GUILLEMIN

Isabelle and the singer?

MERLIN

Ils vont se marier; c'est leur unique soin.

MERLIN

They go to marry; it is their only concern.

GUILLEMIN

Ils vont se marier?

GUILLEMIN

They are going to marry?

MERLIN

Oui, Monsieur.

MERLIN

Yes, sir.

GUILLEMIN

Ah! me voilà tout hors de moi-même.

GUILLEMIN

Ah! behold I am quite beside myself.

 

 

CLEANTE

Morbleu cet Opera me fait crever de rire.

CLEANTE

Egad, this opera makes me burst with laughter.

MERLIN

Monsieur ne joüe pourtant pas mal Roland.

MERLIN

The gentleman however doesn't do a bad job playing Roland.

 

At some point Charpentier composed a more extensive, 'operatic' love-scene for Isabelle and Eraste, for his autograph manuscripts contain a ‘Dialogue d'Angélique et de Médor’.  This setting incorporated the sung lyrics found in the Flemish editions of the play (with slight modification), together with additional lyrics—all set to continuous music (Ex. 2b).[41]  Given the amount of dialogue in his play devoted to discussing opera preparations, Dancourt may well have decided that this central musical episode required further amplification—and so he turned to Charpentier to provide Eraste's ‘improvements’ upon the scene from Roland.

 

 

            Dancourt might well have expected some kind of response from Lully and Quinault.  Not only had his play made a travesty of their latest tragédie-lyrique, but it showcased music by a rival composer while it exceeded the limitations placed on theater music.[42]  As we have seen, the previous success of the machine plays at the Comédie-Française (also with music by Charpentier) had brought on new wave of restrictions curtailing the company's illegal musical practices.  But whereas these machine spectacles had aimed to rival the Quinault/Lully operas, Dancourt's parody posed no such threat.  Indeed, Angélique et Médor might well have been regarded as a kind of ongoing advertisement for Roland.[43]  That the Comédie-Française performed Dancourt's parody 29 times during 1685-90 suggests that it enjoyed continued and unfettered success. 

 

            Opera and Madness in Renaud et Armide.    Renaud et Armide (1686) marked a significant advance over Dancourt's earlier opera parody.  Whereas Angélique et Médor devoted much space to satire of contemporary opera, with barbs aimed at Lully, Quinault, and the Paris Opéra, in Renaud et Armide the operatic quotations are more extensive, and the comic refunctioning is more subtle and masterful.[44]  This parody was clearly calculated to ride upon the wave of popularity enjoyed by the latest Quinault/Lully opera, Armide.  From the beginning, the public's enthusiasm for this new and fashionable entertainment of opera surpassed anything ever before known in Paris.  As observed by one of the characters in Hauteroche's Crispin musicien:  'since the arrival of the Opéra the rage for music has come over Paris, and everyone has been bitten by the bug'.[45]  By the time Renaud et Armide premièred at the Comédie-Française in July of 1686 Armide had been playing at the Opéra for 5½ months, and undoubtedly many spectators had seen the tragédie-lyrique many times.  Dancourt therefore could be reasonably assured that the public would recognize the operatic passages quoted in his parody; moreover, that these borrowed excerpts were published along with Lully's vocal music made for easy comparison.[46]   

            Dancourt's plot is conventional for the most part.  A widower, Monsieur Grognac, has a widowed sister, Mme Jaquinet, and two daughters, Angélique and Mimi.  Although engaged to the elder Monsieur Filassier, Angélique loves M. Filassier's son Clitandre, whom she has not seen for three months.  During this time Mme Jaquinet, her aunt, has become infatuated with a young man who needs her money to purchase a commission in the dragoons.  When the young man comes calling on Mme Jaquinet, he proves to be none other than Clitandre—and is surprised to learn that Angélique is engaged to wed his father.  The valet Lolive and the maidservant Lisette come to the rescue, and devise a ruse to bring the young lovers back together.

            Overlaying this plot is a broad satire of Quinault and Lully’s latest tragédie-lyrique, Armide.  Mme Jaquinet, an opera fanatic, met Clitandre at the Opéra, and the two have developed their courtship under the operatic personas of Armide and Renaud.  Dancourt introduces these quotations from Armide early on, and as his plot unfolds the borrowings increase in both length and frequency while they become progressively intertwined with the dramatic action.  Collectively, they form a dramatic arc parallel to the plot-progression of the opera, so that at the end Mme Jaquinet’s opera fantasies completely take over.  At first, Mme Jaquinet quotes from the opera to express her infatuation with her 'petit Renaud'.  Later on, the valet Lolive contributes to the fantasy by pretending to be crazy, and then by re-enacting a scene from the opera (in which he engages Filassier and Grognac in the performance by having them dance).  The central operatic performance by the young lovers leads to the dénouement and the‘mad scene’ of Mme Jaquinet—who by this time has fully adopted the persona of the forsaken Armide, complete with her music. 

            Procedures of Parody and Comic Meaning.  Dancourt's Renaud et Armide surpassed the satire and quotation of Angélique et Médor in its integration and comic refunctioning of the borrowed material.  Early references to actual performances of Armide (then playing concurrently at the Paris Opéra) reach beyond the play’s fictional frame, and establish a network of associations between the parody and its target opera.  For example, the servants have seen Armide, and are more familiar with it than are their masters (except for Mme Jaquinet).  The maid Lisette provides the following critical comment: ‘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’.[47]  Moreover, Dancourt’s audience undoubtedly enjoyed his portrayal of Mme Jaquinet—whose opera obsession may well have been modeled after that of contemporaneous, real-life fanatics.[48] 

            The degree of comic refunctioning in Renaud et Armide depends upon (1) the extent to which the quotation is refashioned, and (2) the dramatic context in which it appears.  A simple quotation from the opera might be placed unchanged in a neutral context, or one comparable to that from which the quotation was taken.  For example, at the play's conclusion the valet Lolive proposes marriage to the maid Lisette.  Lisette coyly expresses her nuptial misgivings in a quotation ('La chaîne de l'Hymen m'étonne') borrowed from Act 1, sc. 2 of the tragédie-lyrique—where Armide's uncle presses her to choose a husband.  Even though in the parody the characters are ordinary rather than héroïque and the tone is lighthearted rather than serious, the quotation largely retains its original meaning and effect (Ex. 4).[49]

 

Example 4 (Dancourt's Renaud et Armide, 1686; Dernière Scène)

 

LOLIVE

LOLIVE

La folie de mon maître étoit plus facile à guérir que celle de Madame Jaquinet.  Si tu voulois m’épouser aussi, toi, pour me guérir la mienne?  Qu’en dis-tu?

The madness of my master was easier to cure than that of Madame Jaquinet.  Would you like to marry me too, to cure me of mine?  What do you say?

LISETTE

LISETTE

Moi, je dis que

Me, I say that

 

 

The  bonds of Hymen give me pause.

 

LOLIVE

LOLIVE

Et va, va, mon enfant, tu n’en mourras pas non plus qu’une autre.

Eh, go on, my sweet, you will not die of it any more than another.

LISETTE

LISETTE

M’en responds-tu?

And what do you say to me?

LOLIVE

LOLIVE

Oui vraiment.

Yes, truly.

LISETTE

LISETTE

Allons donc; & si nos maîtres sont d’accord, nous n’aurons pas de peine à nous accorder.

Well enough, then; and if our masters agree to it, we will not have any trouble reaching an agreement ourselves.

 

            Comic refunctioning takes place on a higher level when the quotation is placed in a burlesque context, thereby completely altering its original effect.  For example, the last scene of Dancourt's parody parallels the action of Act 5, sc. 4-5 of the opera, where Armide returns to find Renaud departing with his knights to pursue ‘la Gloire’.  Renaud consoles her with the line, ‘you will be, after Glory, the one I will love the best’.[50]  The conflict between l’amour and la gloire is central in most of the later Quinault/Lully operas, and Dancourt gives it comic spin when Mme Jaquinet is informed that her ‘Renaud’ has packed off with ‘La Gloire’—’La Gloire’ being the pet name that Clitandre had given to his beloved Angélique (Ex. 5). 

 

Example 5 (Dancourt's Renaud et Armide, 1686; Dernière Scène)

 

 

Me. JAQUINET

MADAME JAQUINET

   Hé bien, ma chere Lisette, ce pauvre Renaud ne s'est-il point bien ennuyé pendant mon absence?

  Well, my dear Lisette, was my poor little Renaud at all bored during my absence?

LISETTE

LISETTE

   Lui, Madame, ennuyé?  il est gai comme un Pinçon, le voilà qui décampe avec la Gloire.

   Him, bored, Madam?  He is gay as a lark; he has packed off with La Gloire.

Me. JAQUINET

MADAME JAQUINET

   Avec la Gloire?  c'est ma niéce.

With La Gloire?  That's my niece.

 

You are leaving, Renaud, you are leaving,

      Follow him, demons, demons...

 

Ah! je suis au désespoir.

     Ah!  I am in despair.

 

LOLIVE

LOLIVE

   Ne vous désespérez point, Madame.

 

Do not despair, Madame.

You will be, after Glory,

     The one he will love best.

 

 

 

Mme Jaquinet's entreaties, reproaches, and animosity mimic the emotions expressed by the abandoned Armide in V,5 of the tragédie-lyrique; but Mme Jaquinet (having been jilted by her 'petit Renaud') becomes a ridiculous figure, and her trite situation is set in comic relief (Ex. 6).[51]

 

Example 6  (Dancourt's Renaud et Armide, 1686; Dernière Scène)

 

 

Me JAQUINET

Ah, je n'en puis plus, je me meurs; perfide, barbare!

.

MADAME JAQUINET

Ah, I cannot take any more, I am dying; traitor, barbarian!

You enjoy, while leaving,

The pleasure of causing my death.

 

LISETTE

Hé, allons, Madame, contre fortune bon cœur.

LISETTE

Come, come, Madame, keep a stiff upper lip.

Me JAQUINET

Traitre, attends, je le tiens, je le tiens, son cœur perfide.  Ah! je ne tiens rien, je suis trahie, je suis outrée; mais je me vengerai, je me vengerai.

 

MADAME JAQUINET

Traitor, just wait, I am holding it, I am holding his faithless heart!  Ah!  I am holding nothing, I am betrayed, I am humiliated; but I will be avenged, I will be avenged.

 

The hope of vengeance is all that remains for me,

Demons, demons, destroy this Palace,
Destroy this Palace.
(she exits)

 

 

 

            Parody frequently involves travesty of the original lyrics of the target. [52]  For example, in sc. 20 Mme Jaquinet takes her leave of Clitandre—just as Armide does of Renaud in V,1.  But whereas Armide departs to confer with ‘the infernal powers’, Mme Jaquinet goes off with purse in hand to appear at her ongoing court case—in which she plans to prevail by offering the judge a bribe.  In the tragédie-lyrique, Armide entrusts her beloved Renaud to the care of Pleasures and to Fortunate Lovers while she is away; in the play, Mme Jaquinet leaves Clitandre in the care of her niece—and cautions him not to flirt with her any more while she is away.  Clitandre's lyrics nearly match Renaud’s word for word, whereas Mme Jaquinet's pedestrian lines contrast sharply with Armide's 'heroic' lyrics.  The end result is a farcical transformation of one of the most poignant scenes in Armide (Ex. 7). 

 

Example 7 (Dancourt’s Renaud et Armide, 1686; Sc. 20)

 

SCENE XX

M. GROGNAC, M. FILASSIER,

Me. JAQUINET, CLITANDRE,

LISETTE, LOLIVE

SCENE 20

M. GROGNAC, M. FILASSIER,

Me. JAQUINET, CLITANDRE,

LISETTE, LOLIVE

 

 

M. GROGNAC

Allez, ma soeur, vous êtes une vielle folle, avec vos delusions.

M. GROGNAC

Go on, my sister, you are an old fool, with your visions.

Me. JAQUINET

Taisez-vous, mon frere, vous ne savez ce que vous dites.

Me. JAQUINET

Be quiet, my brother, you don't know what you are saying.

M. GROGNAC

Et vous, Monsieur, qui vous mettez dans la cervelle.

M. GROGNAC

And you, sir, who have got something on the brain.

LOLIVE

Comme il se tourmente, voyez-vous?

LOLIVE

How troubled he is, do you see?

 

 

 

Translation of Quinault's original lyrics

 

Translation of Dancourt's parody

RENAUD

Armide, you will leave me?

CLITANDRE

Armide, you will leave me?

ARMIDE

I have need of hell's counsel,

I go to consult it.

My art requires solitude.

The love I feel for you causes the distress

That agitates my heart.

Me JAQUINET, a purse in hand

My case is being decided,

I am going to meet with the judge.

The side that's in the right always has need of help;

my judge is an old fool whom my opponent pesters,

And only money can tempt him.

RENAUD

Armide, you will leave me?

CLITANDRE

Armide, you will  leave me?

ARMIDE

But look where I leave you.

Me JAQUINET

But look with whom I leave you.

RENAUD

Can I see anything but your charms?

CLITANDRE

Can I see anything but your charms?

ARMIDE

Pleasures follow you incessantly.

Me JAQUINET

Then you won't flirt any more with my niece?

RENAUD

Are there any where you are not?

CLITANDRE

Gladly, but do not dally.

 

            A more complete comic metamorphosis takes place when new lyrics are given to some memorable music from the opera—a practice akin to the vaudevilles sung in popular 'fair theaters' (théâtres de la foire) at the end of the century.  Dancourt reserves this contrafactum procedure for a musical performance given in sc. 21, where the two servants predict the play's happy dénouement to the music of the famous passecaille from Act 5 of Armide (Ex. 8).[53]   Love is indeed the best treatment for Clitandre’s madness, and this cure takes place in the next scene, a parody of Act 5, sc. 3 of the opera.  In the latter, the knight Ubaldo brings Renaud back to his senses by holding the shield of diamonds before his eyes; in Dancourt's parody, the valet Lolive shows Angélique to Clitandre—which immediately cures him of his madness. 

 

Example 8 (Dancourt's Renaud et Armide, 1686; Sc. 21)

 

 

M. FILASSIER

Mais c'est entretenir son extravagance, au lieu de songer à le guérir.

M. FILASIER

But it would mean keeping up his lunacy, instead of looking to heal him.

LOLIVE

Point du tout, au contraire, Monsieur, donnez-vous patience.  Lisette & moi nous le divertirons bien tous seuls.  Allons, ma Reine, la passacaille d'Armide; chorus, vous autres.

LOLIVE

Not at all, on the contrary, Monsieur, have some patience.  Lisette and I will entertain him well by ourselves.  Come, my queen, the passacaglia from Armide; you others, sing the chorus.

 

LISETTE AND LOLIVE singing

 

If my master has been struck mad,

It is love that masks his mania;

How many lovers that I see,

Are a thousand times crazier.

                                                                               (Lolive dances)

 

LOLIVE sings while motioning to Clitandre

 

'Tis love that holds him in its chains,

'Tis I alone who strives to make him content.

Without hope of seeing my pains rewarded

By the death of a devil, one would not take much.

                                                                                                     (Lolive dances)

 

M. FILASSIER

Oh! si tu les tire de-là, je te paierai bien, je t'en réponds.

M. FILASSIER

Oh, if you can bring them out of it, I will pay you well, I assure you.

 

           

            Opera Parody and Character Portrayal.  Dancourt uses borrowed excerpts from his target both to inform his plot and shape his character portrayals.  That the two servants are generally more clever and capable than their masters (as servants always are) is reflected in their musical skill and operatic knowledge.  This comic discrepancy between the behavior of masters and that of their servants is pointed up in sc. 12, when Clitandre unexpectedly meets Angélique at the home of her aunt.  The lovers immediately swoon upon seeing each other and must be supported by their servants, who take this unexpected opportunity to further their own courtship:

ANGÉLIQUE

   Ah, Heavens!  What a pleasant surprise, my mind reels, my strength is failing; support me, Lisette.

LISETTE

   Eh, what are you doing, Madame?  You can’t be serious!

LOLIVE

   The time is ripe, take her in your arms, Sir.

CLITANDRE

   What strange turn of events!  I can’t go on any more; I die, Lolive.

LOLIVE

   Sir, hey, Sir?  Can you hear me?  This is a fine contretemps of mutual feeling!  S’blood, what stupid people.

LISETTE

   I cannot support you any more, I must warn you, Madam.

LOLIVE

   He’s as heavy as a devil.  I will let you fall, darn and blast it!

LISETTE

   Let’s see then what we will do about it.

LOLIVE

   I’m dying to embrace you, and to greet you a little closer.

LISETTE

   And I too.

LOLIVE

   This is embarrassing.

LISETTE

   Very well, what is it, Mister Lolive?  You have hardly thought of me since last we saw each other?

LOLIVE

   Oh, yes, my child, sometimes now and then at certain times.

ANGÉLIQUE

   Ah, heavens!

LISETTE

   Hey, come on, confound it, revive; you've picked a really great time to faint.

 

This contrast between héroïque and bas, between the idealized courtship of masters and the down-to-earth wooing of servants, could be viewed as another satire on the opera's preoccupation with l’amour—with echoes of Armide's famous II,5 monologue ('Quel trouble me saisit, qui me fait hésiter?') in the exchanges between Clitandre and Angélique.[54] 

            As always, the servants also show supreme skill in manipulating their masters.  Consequently, they effectively act as stage directors for the central operatic performance.  Lolive, Clitandre's valet and companion, identifies closely with Ubaldo, Renaud's fellow knight, and Lolive explains in sc. 17 that he will play this role in the upcoming performance.  The maid Lisette, having seen Armide 'three or four times' while accompanying Mme Jaquinet to the Opéra, claims to know some of the more memorable passages.  In sc. 16 she sings the Act 4 duet with Lolive (while compelling M. Filassier and M. Grognard to dance a branle), and then goes off to teach the role of Renaud to Clitandre. 

            Dancourt’s subtle use of opera quotation serves to underscore Mme Jaquinet's growing mental imbalance.  Her highly romanticized relationship with Clitandre has been carried on via the personas of Armide and Renaud,[55] and she has gone as far as encouraging Clitandre to become a soldier, like Renaud.  Her first sung excerpt in sc. 6 quotes from a passage in Armide (II,4) assigned to a nymph, who in reality was a demon in disguise.  Later on Mme Jaquinet quotes some lines that were originally sung by Renaud as he fell under Armide's magic spell (V,1).  That both of these musical borrowings from the opera had been associated with scenes of illusion—where things are not what they appear to be—underscores Mme Jaquinet's own self-deception in becoming enamored with an ambitious but penniless young man.  Her folly becomes manifest in sc. 9, when she announces her intention to turn her chambers into ‘un palais enchanté’, and then quotes music originally assigned to demons disguised as ‘bergers et bergères galantes’. 

As the plot unfolds, Mme Jaquinet’s growing identification with Armide and her plight leads to more extensive quotation (and less contrafactum alteration of lyrics).  When she learns that Clitandre has left her, Mme Jaquinet’s sung reaction, juxtaposed with the spoken lines of the other characters, underscores that her opera obsession has driven her to madness—so that by the end of the parody the persona of Armide has completely taken over.  In the final scene of Armide, the sorceress invokes her demons to pursue Renaud as her enchanted palace collapses.  At the end of Dancourt's parody, Mme Jaquinet's entreaties, reproaches, and rancor parallel that of the sorceress (see Ex. 6), prompting Lolive to remark that ‘the madness of my master was easier to cure than that of Madame Jaquinet’ (Ex. 4).

 

Conclusion.   Unlike the opera parodies performed at the Comédie-Italienne in the 1690s, Angélique et Médor and Renaud et Armide were performed during the première runs of their target operas.  Undoubtedly prompted by Lully's opera monopoly and the draconian restrictions on music and dance that affected the musical repertory at the Comédie-Française, Dancourt's parodies take a tongue-in-cheek view of the madness of opera in general, while specifically satirizing the themes, characters, and operatic situations found in Roland and Armide.  Dancourt's two parodies leave us with tantalizing glimpses of the opera scene in Paris during Lully's career, and shed new light on the methods of comic refunctioning that would inform later opera parodies.

 

 

 

A note regarding the Examples:

 

Sources for the musical excerpts in Angélique et Médor are taken from Roland, tragédie mise en musique par Monsieur de Lully (Paris: Christophe Ballard, 1685) and Marc-Antoine Charpentier, Mélanges autographes (Bn-F, Ms. Rés. Vm1 259, Vol. vii, 52v-53v ['Dialogue d'Angélique et de Médor']; Vol. xviii, 36v-45v ['Endimion, tragédie mêlée de musique'], at 41-41v).  Sources for the musical excerpts in Renaud et Armide are taken from Florent Carton Dancourt, Œuvres de Théâtre (Paris, 1760; Genève: Slatkine Reprints, 1968 [vocal parts only, with Dancourt's contrafacta]), and Armide, tragédie mise en musique par Monsieur de Lully, 2nd ed. (Paris: Christophe Ballard, 1713; repr. Société de Musicologie de Languedoc, 1988).

 

 



[1] I would like to thank Professors Buford Norman and Perry Gethner for their careful readings and thoughtful comments on this article.

[2] Donald J. Grout, 'Seventeenth-Century Parodies of French Opera', Musical Quarterly 27 (1941), 211-19 (Part 1), 514-26 (Part 2); see also Grout's ‘The Music of the Italian Theater in Paris, 1682-1697’, Papers of the American Musicological Society (1941), 158-70.

[3] Gherardi, Evaristo, ed., Le Théâtre italien de Gherardi, 6 vols. (Paris: J.-B. Cusson et Pierre Witte, 1700).  This collection consists of 55 comedies performed at the Comédie-Italienne during 1683-1697 under the direction of Evariste Gherardi; the earliest opera parodies written for this theater were Palaprat's Arlequin Phaéton and Dufresny's L'Opéra de campagne , both acted on 4 Feb. 1692.  Boursault's opera parody Phaëton  predates these by only a few weeks—for it received nine performances at the Comédie-Française between 28 Dec. 1691 and 17 Jan. 1692.

[4] Louis Riccoboni, Observations sur la comédie et sur le genie de Molière (Paris: Chez la Veuve Pissot, 1736), 287-88.  His son, François Riccoboni, also discusses opera parody as a sub-genre in his 'Discours sur la Parodie’—published with his parody Le Prince de Suresne (Paris: Delormel, 1746), 45-52.  Other essays of the early 18th-century that discuss parody in general include:  Antoine Houdar de La Motte's ‘Troisième Discours à l'occasion de la tragédie d'Inés’ (1723-24), Abbé Sallier's ‘Discours sur l'origine et sur le caractère de la Parodie’ (1733), Louis Fuzelier's ‘Discours à l'occasion d'un Discours de M.D.L.M. [Monsieur de La Motte] sur les Parodies’ (1738), and Abbé Iraihl's Querelles Littéraires, ou Mémoires pour servir à l'Histoire des Révolutions de la République des lettres (‘Les Parodies’).  These essays are discussed in detail in Susan Harvey, Opera parody in France 1685-1766: Genre and Critical Function, ('Chapter 2: Theories of Dramatic Parody in Eighteenth-Century France’), Ph.D. dissertation, Stanford University, 2001, 1-28.

[5] Lully’s opera privilège, awarded on 23 March 1672, signed by the king on 29 March, and registered by Parlement on 27 June, revoked ‘all permissions and privilèges that we might have previously given and granted, even the one of the aforesaid Perrin, pertaining to the aforesaid musical plays under whatever names, qualities, conditions, and pretexts that they might be’.  See ‘Establissement d'Academie Royale de musique en faveur du Sieur de Lully’, reproduced in Marcelle Benoit, Musiques de cour: Chapelle, Chambre, Écurie (1661-1733) (Paris: Picard, 1971), 37-38. 

[6] In fact, Dufresny's L'Opéra de campagne (1692), in which the parody of Quinault and Lully's Armide is used to bring together the young lovers, owes a debt to both Dancourt's Angélique et Médor and Renaud et Armide.

[7]  Crispin musicien, comedie par le Sieur de Hauteroche, Comedien de la seule Troupe Royale (Paris: Promé, 1674); excerpts are reprinted in Victor Fournel, Les Contemporains de Molière, 2 vols. (Paris: Firmin Didot, 1866), II:133-66.

[8] See Henry Carrington Lancaster, A History of French Dramatic Literature in the Seventeenth Century, 8 vols. (Johns Hopkins Press, 1929-1942), Part IV, i:459.

[9] The restriction signed on 22 April 1673 limited the musical resources of public theaters to two singers and six instrumentalists, and forbade the employment of ‘any external singers, or of a greater number of strings for their entr'actes, or likewise having any dancers or any orchestra pit, upon penalty of disobedience’ (‘Ordonnance portant deffenses aux comediens de se servir dans leurs representations de plus de deux voix et six violons’, reproduced in Benoit, Musiques de cour, 41). 

[10] See Nuitter and Thoinan, Les Origines de l'opéra français, 137.  I have discussed elsewhere parodic features found in Molière's Mélicerte (1666) and the Molière/Lully comédie-ballet Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme (1670) that may allude to Perrin and Cambert's early pastoral opera, la Pastorale d'Issy (1659); see 'Molière, Lully, and the Pastoral Divertissement', in John Hajdu Heyer, ed., Lully Studies (Cambridge University Press, 2000), 169, 187-88.

[11] This play is republished by Fournel in Les Contemporains de Molière, I:519-48. 

[12].  Les Foux divertissans, comedie par R. P. (Paris: Jean Ribou, 1681).  Premiered on 14 November 1680, this was the first new comedy given by the Comédie-Française during its initial season.

[13] 'Mr de la Grange les mit d’accord en parlant des avantages de la Comédie & de la Musique, & conclut, que rien n’estoit plus capable de contenter tous les Spéctateurs, qu’une Piece de Theatre meslée de Musique.'  See the Mercure Galant (Sept. 1681), 369-79; reproduced in facsimile in Albert La France, ed. Paolo Lorenzani: Nicandro e Fileno (Versailles: Editions du Centre de Musique Baroque de Versailles, 1999), lxxi-lxxiii, and (with minor errors) in Claude and François Parfaict, Histoire du Théatre François depuis son origine jusqu'à présent, (Paris, 1745; repr. New York, 1968), 12:273-75.  This ‘little Italian opera’ was undoubtedly Lorenzani’s Nicandro e Fileno.

[14]  The première of Andromède had taken place 32 years earlier (on 26 February 1650), when it featured music by Charles Coypeau (dit Dassoucy).

[15]   Two years later the Comédie-Française would hire a salaried ‘musicienne’, that is, a professional singer (Mlle Fréville), to perform appropriate acting roles and to sing in their productions along with Monsieur Poussin, an actor and haute-contre singer; see the Douzième Registre pour les seuls Comédiens du Roy, fol. 225v (Archives de la Comédie-Française).

[16] ‘Allez, allez, ces Messieurs auront la bonté de vous excuser.  La necessité fait souvent trouver bon ce qui ne seroit que mediocre, on ne regardera point ceci comme une affaire premeditée; & enfin il y a long tems que l’on sçait qu’il nous est deffendu de sçavoir chanter ni danser’ (Prologue, sc. 9).

[17].  The Examen d'Andromède (1661) is reprinted in Pierre Corneille, Théâtre complet, ed. Pierre Lièvre and Roger Caillois, 2 vols. (Paris: Gallimard, 1950), II:240-47 [at 243].

[18] ‘Ah Dieu m’en garde: il me fatigue à mourir; au moins je ne dis cela qu’à vous, car ce feront un crime d’en dire autant dans le monde.  Je sçais qu’il est du bel air de faire l’adorateur de la Musique, & je sçais un de nos bon amis âgé de soixante ans, qui denierement me vînt dire tres-serieusement, que dans peu il esperoit sçavoir soisier.  Pour moi, quoique fort jeune, l’on m’ait bercée de Musique, que l’on me l’ait fait apprendre avec soin, je vous jure que je n’ay pû aux depens du bon sens & de la raison entendre tous ces Heros me parler de leurs malheurs en chantant’ (Le Rendez-vous des Thuilleries, II, 9).

[19] Aujourd'hui, ce qui ne vaut pas la peine d'être dit, on le chante’; Beaumarchais, Le Barbier de Séville, I,2.

[20]  ‘L'Opéra est une sorte de composition qui ne souffre ni ne mérite la critique: l'on est oblige de tout sacrificer au plaisir de la vûe & de l'oüie; on n'a Presque jamais occasion d'y parler à l'esprit.’  (‘Discours sur la Parodie,’ 47).  I would like to thank Susan Harvey for pointing out this passage to me.)

 

[21].  These categories of literary madness are identified in Michel Foucault, Folie et déraison: histoire de la folie à l'âge classique (Paris: Plon, 1961), 44-46.

[22].  L'ospital [sic] des fous, tragi-comédie de Beys (Paris: Quinet, 1636).  According to Lancaster, this play was probably performed at the Hôtel de Bourgogne in the Spring of 1634; see A History of French Dramatic Literature, Part I, ii:551.   It is intriguing to note that Bey's opera lunatic (Orpheus) predates Mazarin's importation of Italian opera to the French court by more than a decade.  Nineteen years later Beys revised his play as Les Illustres Fous (Paris: Olivier de Varennes, 1653); for a modern critical edition of this play and Les Illustres Fous (1653), see ‘Les Illustres Fous of Charles Beys, ed. Merle I. Protzman (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Press, 1942).

[23].  Protzman's edition of the play includes the variant readings found in the four published versions, dated 1636, 1639, 1653 (L'Hospital des Fous) and 1653 (Les Illustres Fous).  In the first three versions, ‘Orpheus’ appears in Act 3, sc. 4 (see pp. 72-74).

[24].  Les Opéra, comédie in Oeuvres meslées de MR de Saint-Evremond, Publiées sur les Manuscrits de l'Auteur (London: Jacob Tonson, 1705), II:37-106; modern ed. by Robert Finch and Eugène Joliat (Genève: Droz, 1979).  Of particular interest are Guillault's discussions of the early operas of Perrin, Gilbert, and Cambert, and of Quinault and Lully's Cadmus, Alceste, Thésée, and Atys; his criticisms of Venetian opera (in II,4); and the quotations from Cadmus, Thésée, and the tragédie-ballet version of Psyché (by Molière, Corneille, Quinault, and Lully).

[25] LISETTE:  Tu moucheras les chandelles.  MERLIN:  L’ignorante, est-ce qu’on mouche les chandelles à l’Opéra?  (LISETTE:  You will snuff the candles.  MERLIN:  The fool!  Does one snuff the candles at the Opéra?)

[26] Lancaster suggests that this is probably an allusion to the fact that fewer machines were employed in Roland than in Quinault and Lully’s earlier operas; see A History of French Dramatic Literature, Part IV, ii:582.

[27] In sc. 5 Guillemin refers to ‘a certain mademoiselle Mandane, who they say dances extremely well’; but Merlin says that she is away in the country for several months.  Might this be an allusion to an actual person known to the audience?

[28] LISETTE:  Il cherche des Musiciens de tous côtez.  MERLIN:  Voilà une marchandise bien rare.  Il n’aura pas de peine à en trouver, toutes les rues en sont pleines; ce n’est pas que les bons se font bien valoir, & l’on n’en trouve pas comme on veut.  LISETTE:  Va, va, les plus mediocres seront excellens ici, nous n’avons pas affaire à un habile homme.  Je lui ai dit que j’en connoissois d’admirables. (sc. 1)

[29]  ‘Il a fort bon air vraiment, & l’on voit peu de Musiciens d’aussi bonne mine’ (sc. 8).  Merlin then praises Eraste's musical skills, telling Guillemin that 'c'est un charme de lui voir chanter de ces grands airs, là, de ces airs qui enlevent'.  The pun on 'enlever' (with its dual meaning of  'transport' and 'abduct') predicts the operatic performance, where such airs will facilitate Eraste's elopement with Guillemin's daughter.

[30]  ‘Pardonnez moi, Monsieur, mais on m’a dit que je n’avois qu’à chanter à un Opéra pour me faire connoître & avoir de la reputation’. (sc. 12)

[31] ‘Vous avez raison, & il faudroit avoir à faire à quelque miserable Poëte qui vous vendroit bien cher de méchante marchandise, & qui vous feroit enrager.’ (sc. 11)

[32] ‘Il n’y a rien qui fasse tant jurer un Musicien qu’un Poëte, & la Musique & la Poësie ne s’accordent jamais bien ensemble, quand elles travaillent par intérêt l’une pour l’autre’ (sc. 11). 

[33]  ‘On dit d’abord qu’il ne valoit rien, & qu’il n’y alloit personne.’ (sc. 11)

[34]  ‘Quelque mechant que soit un Opera, il ne manquera pourtant jamais d’y avoir du monde.’ (sc. 11)

[35]  ‘…& il y a un certain commerce & une certaine liaison des troisiemes loges avec le parterre qui attire bien des gens’ (sc. 11).

[36] This mention of Turkish opera must be an allusion to the ‘Cérémonie Turque’ that concludes the popular Molière/Lully comédie-ballet, Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme (1670), and which featured exotic lyrics in lingua franca.  Whereas Lully had re-used this Turkish divertissement in Le Ballet des Ballets (1671) and in Carnaval Mascarade (1675), the comédie-ballet had been revived at court as recently as 1685.  Given that the next Turkish divertissement to appear in France was in Campra’s opera-ballet L’Europe galante (1697). Dancourt’s reference to Turkish opera most likely was inspired by the recent court performances of Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme.

[37] No such opera was given at Brussels before Dancourt’s comedy was written, but the first opera given in Holland is concerned with the labors of Hercules.  Lancaster speculates that Merlin's remarks may have been suggested by this Dutch production; see A History of French Dramatic Literature, Part IV, ii:583n.

[38] The original reads "MARTON".

[39] For fuller discussion and further examples, see this author's Music and Theatre in France, 1600-1680 (Oxford University Press, 2000), passim.

[40] According to Riccoboni, in opera parody 'the poet holds up to ridicule the most noble action and the most tragic incidents'; see Observations sur la comédie, 287.

[41] For reasons unknown, the parody Angélique et Médor is not included in the French editions of Dancourt's complete works; the versions I consulted are found in the Dutch ed. of  1705 (La Haye: Etienne Foulque) and the Belgian ed. of 1711 (Brussels, Josse de Grieck).

[42] Angélique et Médor featured four singing characters on-stage—twice the number permitted by the 1673 ordinance.  According to the play’s spoken dialogue, Guillemin claimed to have hired 20 string players and as many dancers to appear in his private opera performance (the royal restrictions allowed only 6 string players, and forbade the use of dancers); whether 20 strings actually appeared on-stage in sc. 18, where they are listed simply as ‘violons’, remains unknown. 

[43] Seventy-five years later, the abbé Iraihl recognized that success of a work might be gauged by the appearance of a parody, for 'the more successful a tragedy is, the more one is sure to pay the usual tax to the Italian comedians' ('plus on réusit dans une tragédie, plus on est sûr de payer aux comédiens Italiens le tribut accoutumé).  See Querelles littéraires ou mémoires pour servir à l'histoire des revolutions de la république des letters, depuis Homère jusqu'à nos jours, vol. 2 ('Les Parodies'), 382-94 [at 391-92], discussed in Susan Harvey, Opera parody in France 1685-1766: Genre and Critical Function (ch. 2: ‘Theories of Dramatic Parody in Eighteenth-Century France’), 11-15.

[44] According to Margaret Rose, the 'comic refunctioning' of dramatic and musical elements from a target source is a defining feature of parody which distinguishes it from related forms, such as satire and burlesque; see Parody: Ancient, Modern, and Post-modern (Cambridge University Press, 1993).

[45] Noël le Breton, sieur de Hauteroche, Crispin musicien (Paris: Promé, 1674).

[46] The vocal excerpts (without continuo accompaniment) are reproduced in the reprint ed. of Florent Carton Dancourt, Œuvres de Théâtre 12 vols. in 3 (Paris, 1760; Genève: Slatkine Reprints, 1968).  These excerpts may well have been copied from scores for Roland and Armide that were purchased by the Comédie-Française at the time that Dancourt's parodies premiered (‘Frais extraordinaires, un opera de Rolan…12#10s'; ‘Pr un livre de Musique d’Armide…12#10s’); see the Archives de la Comédie-Française, Tresième [sic] Registre pour les seuls Comédiens du Roy (30 avril 1685-16 avril 1686; entry for 18 July, p. 77) and the Quatorsième Registre pour les Comédiens du Roy (22 avril 1686-17 mars 1687; entry for 31 July, p. 98).

[47] 'Le Prologue m'ennuie, le premier Acte m'assoupit, cet endroit du Sommeil m'endort, et je ne me réveille qu'à ce grand tintamare de la fin' (sc. 15). 

[48] In his Epitre à M. de Nyert, La Fontaine complained in 1677 that ‘Le François, pour lui seul contraignant sa nature, | N'a que pour l'opéra de passion qui dure, | On ne va plus au bal, on ne va plus au Cours: | Hiver, été, printemps, bref, opera toujours; | Et quiconque n'en chante, ou bien plutôt n'en gronde | Quelque récitatif, n'a pas l'air du beau monde. ‘ (The French, for himself alone constraining his nature, has for opera alone an enduring passion.  People no longer go to the ball or the promenade; winter, summer, spring—in short, always opera.  And whosoever does not sing—or rather, growl—some recitative, has not the air of being in good society.)

[49] Louis Riccoboni (Observations sur la comédie, 281) uses the term 'travesty' to describe the parodic procedure in which 'heroic characters and their situations' are replaced by 'ordinary characters and situations that correspond to their ordinariness' (…et je nomme travestir, substituer à des personages héroïques, & à leurs situations des personnages bas, & des situations qui répondent à leur bassesse').

[50] This line is quoted in Fatouville's Banqueroutier (1687) where, in a long, burlesque speech of farewell, Arlequin concludes ‘Adieu, mon cher fils Nicodème, embrassez ma chancelante paternité.  Je vous laisse à regrets dans ces lieux: vous regnerez toujours dans ma mémoire; et vous serez après la gloire ce que j'aimerai le mieux.’  That Fatouville's comedy concludes with a song sung to an air from Roland attests to the influence of Dancourt's parodies on the plays of the Gherardi collection.

[51] The vocal line of Dancourt's contrafactum musical setting is borrowed from the end of Armide's final scene (mm. 36-38 and 40-42, corresponding to Quinault's lyrics:  'L'espoir de la vengeance est le seul qui me reste. . . .attraits, Démons, détruisez ce palais.  Fuyez plaisirs, fuyez…'); the continuo line has been added from these measures.

[52] Louis Riccoboni  describes a type of mythological travesty in which the heroic names of the characters are retained, and burlesque language is substituted for the noble expression of the original; according to the author, this creates 'a contrast that renders the jokes much more piquant' ('un contraste qui rend les plaisanteries bien plus piquantes'; Observations sur la comédie, 281-82).  In this instance, substitution of a different level of language ('bas' for 'héroïque') underscores the comic discrepancy between Mme Jaquinet and Armide.

[53] The vocal bass of the duet derives from the vocal bass of the V,2 chorus, 'Les plaisirs ont choisi pour asyle'; the vocal soprano line has been editorially supplied.  The bass solo that follows derives from the vocal bass of the next choral passage (''C'est l'Amour qui reticent dans ses chaînes').  The continuo line has been added from these passages.

 

[54] According to Louis Riccoboni (Observations sur la comédie, 282), the amorous obsessions of noble characters like Aeneas, Dido, Turnus, and Lavinia make them prime targets for parody, because the principal motive for their actions is the passion of love:  'Pour faire cependant une bonne Parodie, il est si nécessaire que le Poëme en soit susceptible, que Scarron, malgré le talent qu'il avoit pour le genre burlesque, eût été sans doute fort embarrassé à en faire une passable de la Pharsale de Lucain.  Enée, Didon, Turnus, & Lavinie pouvoient aisément être parodies, parce que le principal mobile de leurs actions, est la passion de l'amour; & que d'ailleurs ces mêmes actions peuvent être considerées par des côtés ridicules, & susceptibles de plaisanterie.'

[55] This use of fictional personas to facilitate courtship is reminiscent of the amorous games played earlier in the précieux salons of Mlle de Rambouillet—which were satirized in Molière's witty comedy, Les Précieuses ridicules (1659).