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TheQuerelle des Bouffons ("Quarrel of the Comic Actors"), also known as theGuerre des Bouffons ("War of the Comic Actors"), was the name given to a battle of musical philosophies that took place in Paris between 1752 and 1754. The controversy concerned the relative merits ofFrench andItalian opera. It was also known as theGuerre des Coins ("War of the Corners"), with those favoring French opera in the King's corner, and those favoring Italian opera in the Queen's corner.
It was sparked by the reaction of literary Paris to a performance ofGiovanni Battista Pergolesi's shortintermezzoLa serva padrona at theAcadémie royale de musique in Paris on 1 August 1752.La serva padrona was performed by an itinerant Italian troupe of comic actors, known asbuffoni (bouffons in French, hence the name of the quarrel). In the controversy that followed, critics such asJean-Jacques Rousseau andFriedrich Melchior Grimm, along with other writers associated with theEncyclopédie, praised Italianopera buffa. They attackedFrench lyric tragedy, a style originated byJean-Baptiste Lully and promoted by such French composers asJean-Philippe Rameau.
In France in the middle of the eighteenth century, the genre of "comic ballet" (such as Rameau'sPlatée) was starting to acquire comic elements, while the genre ofopéra bouffon was starting to produce a type of original comedy that was closer to farce andcommedia dell'arte. Comedy at the Royal Academy of Music (Académie royale de musique, the futureParis Opera) was usually limited totragédie lyrique ortragédie en musique. For something light, audiences went to theComédie-Française, which would alternate tragedies with comedies and the farces ofMolière.
In Italy, this evolution proceeded more rapidly, until opera split into two distinct genres. One of the genres was "serious opera" (opera seria) with serious themes from librettos byApostolo Zeno andMetastasio. The other was comic opera (opera buffa, frombuffo— "to laugh", "grotesque", "farce”) with comic interludes marked with lightness, innocence, simplicity, irrationality, and the triviality of daily life.
It was against this background that the arrival, in 1752, ofLa serva padrona at the Royal Academy of Music triggered a culture war among Parisian intelligentsia.
The quarrel broke out on August 1, 1752, when Eustacchio Bambini's Italian touring company arrived in Paris to give performances of intermezzi and opera buffa. They opened with a performance of Pergolesi'sLa serva padrona (The Servant Turned Mistress). This work had been given in Paris before (in 1746) without attracting any attention. But this time it was performed at the Royal Academy of Music and it created a scandal. People were shocked, and supporters of Frenchtragédie lyrique squared off against supporters of Italianopéra bouffon in a dispute carried out through the medium of pamphlets.
In 1753Jean-Jacques Rousseau published a pamphlet (Letter on French Music), boostingLa serva; and at the end of the year, he published it in an engraved edition to disseminate an uncorrupted text. Both versions would weigh heavily in the reception of the work.
After praising Italian music, he harshly condemned the French.
French mathematicianLouis Bertrand Castel responded this way.
It can be argued[citation needed] that the quarrel represented a defense of French cultural and behavioral norms against an invasion by foreign (Italian) norms. In the approximately forty pamphlets published during the quarrel, one repeatedly finds the Italian taste for passion and emotion being rejected. French cultural preferences disliked comic opera for the laughter that it provoked; laughter that signalled loss of self-control and rationality. Italian operatic language tended to favor music and singing, while the French preference was more for the spoken word.[citation needed]
French public taste gradually became more accepting of Italian comedy, and the controversy burned out after two years.
As early as October 1752 Rousseau presentedLe devin du village (The Village Soothsayer) atFontainebleau, and in 1753 in Paris. It was similar to the light opera being performed by the bouffons, but no one at court was shocked, possibly becauseMadame de Pompadour herself played the role of Colin.
In 1754Jean-Philippe Rameau presented a new version of his operaCastor and Pollux, that was quite successful, with 40 performances in 1754 and 1755. Graham Sadler writes that "It was ...Castor et Pollux that was regarded as Rameau's crowning achievement, at least from the time of its first revival (1754) onwards."[1]
The effect of the quarrel was to open French opera to outside influences that triggered a renewal in the form. In particular, theComédie-Italienne andThéâtre de la foire developed a new type of opera that combined the natural simplicity of the Italian style with the harmonic richness of Frenchtragédie en musique.
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