French Baroque Opera: A Reader

Revised Edition

Caroline Wood, Graham Sadler

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2017
• eBook ISBN: 9781317132752
• Topic: Media & Performing Arts
• Subtopic: Music

From the outset, French opera generated an enormous diversity of literature, familiarity with which greatly enhances our understanding of this unique art form. Yet relatively little of that literature is available in English, despite an upsurge of interest in the Lully-Rameau period during the past two decades. This book presents a wide-ranging and informative picture of the organization and evolution of French Baroque opera, its aims and aspirations, its strengths and weaknesses. Drawing on official documents, theoretical writings, letters, diaries, dictionary entries, contemporary reviews and commentaries, it provides an often entertaining insight into Lully's once-proud Royal Academy of Music and the colourful characters who surrounded it. The translated passages are set in context, and readers are directed to further scholarly and critical writings in English.

Readers will find this new, updated edition easier to use with its revised and expanded translations, supplementary explanatory content and new illustrations.

1
The Paris Opéra (1672–1770)

Management and mismanagement

Central to any study of French dramatic music of the period from Lully to Rameau is the history and organization of the Paris Opéra. It was at this extraordinary institution, officially known as the Académie Royale de Musique, that the vast majority of ‘serious’ operas were first performed. Such were the terms of the Opéra’s royal privilege that this theatre had no real rival in France in the kind of repertory it chose to present. Information on the establishment and organization of the Académie may be gleaned from a variety of sources: legal documents and official regulations as well as anecdotal material and private correspondence. Between them, the present excerpts sketch the Opéra’s history and set out the terms of its monopoly and the rules by which it was governed. They include personal views on the problems of running such a vast and ego-ridden establishment, together with snippets of gossip – in themselves of little factual value, but indicative of the vital role the Opéra played in Parisian social and musical life.

1.1 A thumb-nail sketch of the history of the Paris Opéra

The composer and scholar Jean-Benjamin de La Borde (1734–1794) was born into an aristocratic family. He had a chequered career at the French court, and was eventually guillotined during the Revolution. He was a pupil of Jean-Philippe Rameau (1683–1764) and enjoyed some success as a composer of opéras comiques*, but is now best remembered for his writings and especially for the monumental four-volume Essai from which the present extract is taken. La Borde clearly derived his material on the Opéra’s history from official records, and his account, while not accurate in every detail, is generally trustworthy. What might have been a dry recitation of facts and figures is enlivened by touches of human interest, among them hints of financial or even moral scandal. Many of the personalities mentioned here recur frequently in the present volume, notably the composer Jean-Baptiste Lully (1643–1687) and later composer/administrators such as André Cardinal Destouches (1672–1749), François Rebel (1701–1775) and François Francœur (1698–1787).

Source: Jean-Benjamin de La Borde, Essai sur la musique ancienne et moderne, 4 vols (Paris, 1780 /repr. Geneva, 1972), i, pp. 393–401.

In 1644 Cardinal Mazarin arranged for the most famous musicians of the day to be sent from Italy to give a performance of opera, something which had never been seen in France before. This opera was, however, Italian. MM. Perrin and Cambert tried to create a type of spectacle of a similar nature but with French words.¹ In 1659, at M. de la Haye’s residence in Issy, they staged a pastorale* which was a great success,² and this encouraged them to compose the pastorale Pomone and to stage it in public in May 1671.³ It is thus from this period that we can date the establishment of the Opéra.

It was in 1669 that the abbé Perrin obtained letters patent giving him ‘permission to establish in Paris and other cities in the realm Academies of Music for the public performance of operas, as is the practice in Italy, Germany and England, for a period of twelve years … .’ Perrin, unable to afford the upkeep and expense of this establishment singlehanded, joined forces with Cambert for the music, the marquis de Sourdéac for the stage machines, and M. de Champeron for the working capital. As soon as the contract was signed, these men arranged for various singers to be sent from Languedoc, among them Beaumavielle, who had long enjoyed a great reputation. …

The new director rented the Jeu de Paume on the rue Mazarine opposite the rue Guénégaud and had a theatre erected there, and in March 1671 he organized the performance of a new work which he had written with Cambert. This was Saint-Evremond’s judgement of it. ‘In Pomone one watches the stage machinery with surprise and the dances with pleasure, one hears the singing with approval but the words with disgust’.⁴ Still, the work was performed for eight successive months to general approval, and was so well attended that Perrin’s share of the profit was 30,000 livres. But then the marquis de Sourdéac took possession of the theatre to pay for the advances made to Perrin,⁵ and engaged Gilbert, secrétaire des commandements to Queen Christine, to write a libretto [Les Peines et les plaisirs de l’amour], which was set to music by Cam-bert and performed in 1672.

It was then that Lully, exploiting the rift between these associates and the support of Madame de Montespan, got Perrin to surrender his privilege to him in return for a sum of money. Cambert was stung by this preferential treatment given to Lully, and left France for England where, as superintendent of King Charles II’s musical establishment, he died five years later.⁶

Louis XIV granted new letters patent to Lully, giving him permission to run a Royal Academy of Music.⁷ To avoid any dispute with Perrin’s other associates, Lully ordered the construction of a theatre larger than the first one, on the rue de Vaugirard near the Luxembourg Palace, by the king’s stage machiniste* Vigarani, who entered into a ten-year association in return for one-third of the profit.⁸ Lully opened this new theatre in February 1673 with Les Fêtes de l’Amour et de Bacchus, which he had composed to a libretto by Quinault.⁹

When Molière died that year,¹⁰ the king gave Lully the theatre in the Palais Royal; and from July 1673 onwards it was in continuous use for opera until it burned down on 6 April 1763. But then the city authorities had a new theatre built, to magnificent plans by the city architect M. Moreau, and the Opéra, which had used the Théâtre des Tuileries since 24 January 1764, reopened at the Palais Royal on 26 January 1770 with more splendour than ever. …

In 1685 Lully sold to M. Gautier the right to establish an opera house at Marseilles, and on 28 January 1685 Gautier gave the premiere there of his own opera Le Triomphe de la paix, which was extremely successful.¹¹

Lully kept his privilege from 1672 until his death on 22 March 1687. His son-in-law Nicolas de Francine, maître d’hôtel du roi, took over the direction of the Opéra for three years and then obtained a new privilege for ten years, on the following conditions – that he would set up pensions worth 10,000 livres on behalf of Lully’s widow and sons, payable monthly in preference to all other expenses; that he would prepare an inventory of the stage sets, machines, costumes, jewellery and so on, countersigned by the secretary of state M. de Louvois; and that Francine would account for everything on the inventory at the end of a ten-year period or pay the value of it to the Lully family.

In 1698 Francine joined forces with M. Hyacinte Goureault Dumont, squire and commander of the Dauphin’s stables (écurie); and the king granted a new ten-year privilege in favour of this syndicate, to begin on 1 March 1699. In 1704 this privilege was renewed for ten years, and the king approved the transfer made by Francine and Dumont to Pierre Guyenet, payeur des rentes.¹² When Guyenet died on 20 August 1712 and his financial affairs were found to be in disarray, it was revealed that he owed large sums to several of the Opéra’s creditors.¹³ Francine and Dumont resumed their privilege, but yielded the unexpired part of it, together with a 13-year extension (due to expire on the last day of February 1732), to MM. Besnier, a parliamentary lawyer, Chomat, Duchêne, and Laval de Pont, bourgeois de Paris (and one of Guyenet’s creditors), on condition that [Francine and Dumont] received about 30,000 livres worth of pensions as set out in their privilege.¹⁴

It was then [1713] that the composer Destouches was established by letters patent as inspecteur général* of the entire administration of the Académie, with regard both to the internal regulations and to the organization of the spectacle and the income and expenditure, without being answerable to the privilege holders but solely to the minister in charge of the king’s household.¹⁵

In 1714 two inspectors were appointed by a royal decree of 10 December. M. Chomat, one of the receivers of Guyenet’s creditors, was given charge of the stage area and auditorium, while M. Duchêne, another receiver, undertook the management of the Magasin* and the financial affairs.¹⁶ In 1715 Destouches was confirmed as inspecteur général of the Opéra. The duc d’Antin and M. de Landivisiau, maître des requêtes, were appointed to oversee everything concerning the discipline and management of the Opéra, on behalf of the minister of the king’s household.

In 1717 Landivisiau took sole charge of these duties. In 1728 Francine retired from the Opéra with a pension of 18,000 livres. Destouches replaced him, and took over responsibility until 1730, when the king gave the post of inspecteur général of the Opéra to the prince de Carignan.¹⁷ The prince chose M. Gruer as director, on condition that he would pay off 300,000 livres of the Opéra’s debts.

This new director did not enjoy the task for long. He chose as his associates M. Coustard, secrétaire du roi, M. le Boeuf de Valdahon, president of the chambre des comptes at Dole, and M. le Comte, a tax farmer, but soon quarrelled with them, and several months later the association was disbanded. Le Comte, who retained an implacable hatred for Gruer, knew just how to disadvantage him with the king’s minister, and soon managed to antagonize him. A scandalous episode that befell Gruer soon afterwards finally caused his ruin. It was revealed that he had once given a grand dinner in his apartment at the Magasin, and had forced three of the singers – among them Mlle Pelissier – to show the guests what they wanted to see, but which modesty does not permit me to name. The royal privilege was withdrawn from Gruer and given to Le Comte, who joined forces again with M. le Boeuf de Valdahon, but they did not get on well together for long.

On 22 May 1733 the king [Louis XV] revoked the privilege and gave a new one to M. Thuret, a former captain of the Picardy regiment, to run for 29 years with effect from 1 April 1733, with the exclusive right to the printing and engraving of librettos and music of the operas performed during the period of his administration.¹⁸ When M. Thuret retired in 1744, the king granted his privilege to M. Berger, a former receveur-général des finances in the Dauphiné. The year following the celebrations for the Dauphin’s marriage [1745], when the Opéra had been deprived of its best performers, the box-office takings were so poor that Thuret requested and obtained an indemnity of 45,000 livres. It was in that year that the Comédie-Italienne was fined 10,000 livres, payable to the Opéra,¹⁹ for performing a parodie * of [Mouret’s] Les Fêtes de Thalie which had included dances and singing. The following year this same theatre was fined 30,000 livres for including ballets in La Fête interrompue, in Le Nouveau monde and in L’Inconnu).²⁰

Berger had been in charge for only three years when it was noticed that he had increased the Opéra’s debts by 400,000 livres. As soon as the minister of state became aware of this, he expressed his justifiable displeasure, and they say that Berger was so shaken that he developed a wasting disease, which carried him off to the grave on 9 November 1747. He had, nevertheless, obtained from the court an indemnity of 81,000 livres; he had increased revenue from the annual rent of the loges* by 20,000 livres; and he had earned 102,000 livres from the Fair Theatres of Saint-Germain and Saint-Laurent.²¹

Then M. de Tréfontaine, protected by the princesse de Conti, managed to succeed Berger. On 3 May 1748 he formed an alliance with MM. Douet de Saint-Germain, La Feuillade and Bougenier. But this new syndicate enjoyed its privilege for only 16 months; and as it failed to fulfil its obligations, the king decided to make the administration of the city of Paris responsible for the Opéra. The order was drawn up on 26 August 1749, and the city authorities took immediate control. Tréfontaine made a statement of his income and expenditure which showed that, during an administrat...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• List of figures
• Preface to the first edition
• Preface to the revised edition
• List of abbreviations
• Monetary values
• 1 The Paris Opéra (1672–1770): management and mismanagement
• 2 The experience of opera-going
• 3 Dramatic and musical ingredients
• 4 Literary theory and aesthetics
• 5 Critical reaction and debate
• 6 Performances and personalities
• Glossary
• List of sources
• Select bibliography
• Index