Comédie-ballet is a genre of French drama which mixes a spoken play with interludes containing music and dance.
The first example of the genre is considered to beLes fâcheux, with words byMolière, performed in honour ofLouis XIV atVaux-le-Vicomte, the residence ofNicolas Fouquet, in 1661. The music and choreography were byPierre Beauchamp, butJean-Baptiste Lully later contributed a sung courante for Act I, scene 3. Molière, Lully and Beauchamp collaborated on several more examples ofcomédie-ballet, culminating in the masterpiece of the genre,Le Bourgeois gentilhomme, in 1670, and the scenically spectacularPsyché of January 1671, atragicomédie et ballet which went well beyond the earlier examples of the genre.[1]
After quarrelling with Lully, Molière retained the services of Beauchamp as choreographer. His one-act prose comedyLa Comtesse d'Escarbagnas premiered in December 1671 at theChâteau de Saint-Germain-en-Laye as part of a larger entertainment referred to as the "Ballet des Ballets".[2] The play recycled musical episodes from several of Molière's earliercomédies-ballets, includingLa pastorale comique,George Dandin,Le Bourgeois gentilhomme, andPsyché.[3] It "has sometimes been characterized as little more than a platform for songs and dances."[2]
Molière turned to the composerMarc-Antoine Charpentier for the music forLe Malade imaginaire in 1673. While performing inLe malade, Molière was taken ill on stage and died shortly afterwards.
In the 18th century, thecomédie-ballet became almost completely outmoded but it still exercised a long-lasting influence on the use of music in French theatre. A late example of a genuinecomédie-ballet isLa princesse de Navarre byVoltaire, which was performed atVersailles on 23 February 1745. It consisted of a prologue and three acts, with the addition of an overture and three musical divertissements, one per act, composed byJean-Philippe Rameau. The vocal music is particularly difficult to sing and includes a virtuoso duet forhautes-contre.
Even though scholars tend to limit the use of the termcomédie-ballet to the form described above, in the 18th century some authors also applied it to other kinds of stage work, particularly a type of comic opera, usually in three or four acts, without spoken dialogue. This differed fromopéra-ballet (another genre mixing opera and dance) in that it contained a continuous plot (rather than a different plot for each act) as well as frequently having comic or satirical elements. It was essentially the same as thecomédie lyrique. Examples includeLe carnaval et la folie (1703) byAndré Cardinal Destouches andLa vénitienne (1768) byAntoine Dauvergne, a late reworking of the 1705 ballet of the same name byMichel de la Barre. A completely different use of the termcomédie-lyrique as a sort of modern revival of thecomédie-ballet isLe piège de Méduse (1913) byErik Satie, which is a play in one act with seven short dances originally composed for the piano.
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Portions of this article are a translation of the equivalent page on the Italian Wikipedia
