Cowart 2001 - Carnival in Venice or Protest in Paris

Carnival in Venice or Protest in Paris?
Louis XIV and the Politics of Subversion at the

Paris Opéra
Author(s): Georgia Cowart
Source: Journal of the American Musicological Society , Vol. 54, No. 2 (Summer 2001), pp.
265-302
Published by: University of California Press on behalf of the American Musicological
Society
Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1525/jams.2001.54.2.265
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Carnival in Venice or Protest in Paris?
Louis XIV and the Politics of Subversion
at the Paris Opera
GEORGIA COWART
_B5 y the end of the seventeenthcenturythe absolutistimageconstructed

to glorify Louis XIV was losing its credibility.Since the earlyyears of
his long personal reign (1661-1715), this fictional identity had cast
the king in the roles of gods and heroes, flatteredhim as supreme ruler and
military commander, and celebrated him as the ultimate source of courtly
pleasure. Between 1685 and Louis's death, however, a series of devastating
militarydefeats, an unprecedenteddeficit, cripplingtaxation, and the loss of
over a million inhabitantsto emigration and death by starvationbelied the
claimsof royalpropaganda.Probablybecause of these conditions, along with
his secret marriageto the pious Mme. de Maintenon, Louis spent his old age
in religious devotion and relative seclusion, rarelyattending the balls, mas-
querades, and other divertissementsthat maintainedthe appearanceof royal
patronage.Freed from Louis's watchful eye, many members of the court re-
turned to Paris, where they attended public spectacles rivaling those of
Versailles.Other courtiers,following the king in what became a fashionfor de-
votion, joined with clericsand laywritersto form a parti desdevotsdenouncing
contemporarymoralstandards.
The league of the monarchy and the devout party directly threatened
Parisiantheatricallife, which, becauseof its libertinepromiscuity,in the 1690s
became the focus of a vituperativepamphlet attackknown as the querellesdes
theatres.Despite official threatsand actualpersecution,theaterscontinued to
Research for this article was made possible by grants from the American Council of Learned
Societies and the National Endowment for the Humanities, and by releasetime provided by the
Provost'sOffice at the Universityof South Carolina.I am also gratefulto my anonymous readers
for this Journal, to George J. Buelow, KathleenHansell, Jann Pasler,Buford Norman, Donald J.
Greiner,RebeccaOettinger,and Daniel Beller-McKennafor theircomments in responseto earlier
versions,to Rose Pruiksmafor her responseto questions concerning the balletde cour,to Robert
Holzer for assistancewith Italiantranslations,to John Powell for editing the musical examples,
and to music librariansJenniferOttervik at the Universityof South CarolinaMusic Libraryand
Stephen Toombs at the Case WesternReserve UniversityKulasMusic Library.I would especially
like to thank Mary Davis for commenting on a successionof ideas and revisionsover a period of
years.Unless otherwisenoted, translationsare my own.
[JournaloftheAmericapMusicological
Society 2001, vol. 54, no. 2]
? 2001 by the AmericanMusicologicalSociety.All rightsreserved.0003-0139/01/5402-0002$2.00

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266 Journal of the American Musicological Society
offer fareincreasinglyattuned to the tastesof a developingpublic sphere.Even

the Academie Royale de Musique, formerlyidentifiedwith royal encomium,
began to celebrateinstead the nobility and upper bourgeoisie that populated
its foyers and loges.1 The genre that most clearlyreflected this shift in taste
was the opera-balletof Andre Campra (1660-1744) and the choreographer
Guillaume-LouisPecour, which reconfiguredthe conventions of monarchical
praisein the old balletde courto reflectthe identity of a new social elite. Like
the paintingsof Watteauwith which they have been compared,2Campra'sbal-
lets,3 eschewing the heavy grandeurand magnificenceassociatedwith Louis
XIV, heraldedthe qualitiesof lightheartedness,brilliance,and galanterie that
would characterizethe Regency period (1715-21).
An iconoclastic "modernism"may be clearlyseen in Campra'stwo full-
length balletson the theme of Venetiancarnival,Le Carnaval de Venise(1699,
libretto by Fran$ois Regnard) and Les Fetesvenitiennes (1710, libretto by
Antoine Danchet).4These works, punctuatingthe finalperiod of Louis XIV's
reign, sparklelike brightjewels againstthe lacklusterculturalsetting of his late
years. Like Campra'sother ballets, Le Carnaval de Veniseand LesFetesveni-
tiennesrepresenta sophisticatedblend of elements taken from the ballet de
cour,the tragedieen musique,and the comedie-ballet. Another seldom acknowl-
edged source for Campra's ballets is the Comedie-Italienne, the outlawed
1. On French opera audiences in the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries, see
Ariane Ducrot, "Les Representationsde l'Academiede musique a Parisau temps de Louis XIV
(1671-1715)," Recherchessur la musiquefranfaise classique10 (1970): 19-55; Jerome de la
Gorce, "Opera et son public au temps de Louis XIV," in TheGarland Libraryof the Historyof
WesternMusic, ed. Ellen Rosand (New York: Garland, 1985), 11:27-46; John Lough, Paris
TheatreAudiencesin the Seventeenthand EighteenthCenturies(London: Oxford UniversityPress,
1957); Paul Lacroix,TheEighteenthCentury:Its Institutions,Customs,and Costumes(New York:
Ungar, 1963); Pierre Melese, Le Theadtre et le public a Paris sousLouis XIV, 1659-1715 (Paris,
1934; reprint,Geneva:Slatkine,1976); and (for a slightlylaterperiod) JamesH. Johnson, Listen-
ing in Paris:A Cultural History(Berkeleyand Los Angeles:Universityof CaliforniaPress, 1995).
2. Louis de Cahusacwas the firstto draw this comparison,in La Danse ancienne et moderne
ou Traiti historiquede la danse(The Hague: J. Neaulme, 1754), 2:169-80.
3. In "The FrenchOpera-Balletin the EarlyEighteenth Century:Problemsof Definition and
Classification"(this Journal 18 [1965]: 197-206), JamesAnthony makes a persuasivecase for
defining the opera-balletby its lack of continuous dramaticaction. As he acknowledges,however,
the term was rarelyused in the eighteenth century,when balletwas the standarddesignationfor
operaticworks based on the dance, whether or not their action was continuous. As the works un-
der discussionhere differin their use of continuous action, yet hold importantsimilaritiesin other
ways germane to the investigation,I will follow eighteenth-centurypracticein designatingthem
simply by the term ballet.I will reserve opera-balletto refer generallyto balletsproduced at the
ParisOpera,as opposed to worksproduced at court.
4. The originalscores were published by Ballardin 1699 and 1710 respectively.A facsimile
reprintof Le Carnaval de Venise,edited by JamesAnthony (Stuyvesant,N.Y.: Pendragon Press,
1989), includes a useful introduction and lavishillustrations.Camprahad alreadyintroduced an
Italiansetting in the entry "L'Italie"in his first opera-ballet,L'Europegalante(1697), and would
do so again in "La Serenade venitienne," an original entreeadded to his pastiche entitled Les
Fragments de Lully of 1702. Other related works include Andre-Cardinal Destouches's Le
Carnaval et la Folie(1704) and Michel de La Barre'sLa Vinitienne(1705).

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Louis XIV and Subversionat the Paris Opera 267
Parisiantheaterof the commediadell'arte,5whose influencemay be seen in the

comic plot structures, characters,masks, costumes, and Italianatemusic of
these two works. Though the Italianplayershad enjoyed state support since
their arrivalin Franceat midcentury,in the 1690s they had met with royaldis-
approvalfor their subversivesatireand in 1697 were banishedby order of the
king.6 Their exile, however, only served to intensify the French infatuation
with the commediadell'arte.The charactersand costumes of Arlequin,Scara-
mouche, Polichinelle, Pierrot, Isabelle, Leandre, and Columbine were em-
braced by French players of the thedtre de la foire and by the acrobats,
tightropewalkers,and charlatanswho entertainedpedestrianson the sidewalks
of the Pont Neuf and in other public venues.7They were also appropriatedby
members of an upper-classelite who, seeking to distance themselves from
identificationwith the crown, not only attended these popularperformances
but also staged their own costume ballsand amateurplays d IPitalienne.8With
Campra's Le Carnaval de Venise,produced two yearsafterthe expulsion the
of
Italiancomedians,the commediadell'arteentered the Opera,9bringingwith it
a mode of politicalsatireboth fashionableand dangerous.
5. On the commedia seeAUardyce

dell'arte, Nicoll,TheWorld A CriticalStudy
ofHarlequin:
of the Commediadell'arte (New York:CambridgeUniversityPress, 1963); Roberto Tessari,La
commediadellarte nel seicento(Florence: L. S. Olschki, 1969); and Nino Pirrotta,"Commedia
dell'arteand Opera,"in his Musicand Culturein ItalyfromtheMiddleAgesto theBaroque:
A
Collectionof Essays(Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1984), 343-60. On the Parisian
Comedie-Italienne,see VirginiaScott, The Commediadell'artein Paris, 1644-1697 (Charlottes-
ville: UniversityPress of Virginia, 1990); and GustaveAttinger, L'Eprit de la commediadell'arte
dansle theitrefranfais (Paris:Librairietheatrale,1950).
6. In 1689 an actor from the company had been banishedfor expressinghis disapprovalof
the king's politics.In 1695 a prominent officerof the law was depictedas a common criminal,and
the Italiansreceivedan officialreprimand.The end came afterthe Italians'scurriloustreatmentof
a characterbearinguncomfortablesimilaritiesto the prudishMme. de Maintenon. Shortly there-
after, Louis XIVs lieutenant-generalof police appearedin person at the Comedie-Italienneto
place locks on the doors and to post a lettrede cachetexpellingthe troupe.
7. RobertIsherwood,FarceandFantasy:
PopularEntertainment
in Eighteenth-Century
Paris
(New Yorkand Oxford: Oxford UniversityPress, 1986), 3-21. The theatrede lafoire had begun
as farceinterspersedwith tightrope or acrobaticacts at the fairsof Paris,most notably the Foire
Saint-Laurentand the Foire Saint-Germain.After the expulsion of the Comedie-Italienne in
1697, the Frenchplayersof the thedtrede la foire took over their repertory.The songs and opera
parodies inherited from the Italians' repertory were to become the basis of the later opera-
comique,firstdesignatedas such in 1715. On the music of the thedtrede la foire, see Nicole Wild,
"Aspectsde la musique sous la Regence. Les Foires: Naissance de l'opera-comique,"Recherches
sur la musiquefranfaise classique5 (1965): 129-41; and on the repertory of the Comedie-
Italienne, as it was reestablishedin the Regency period, see Clarence D. Brenner, The Theatre
Italien: Its Repertory,1716-1793 (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press,
1961).
8. On the Comedie-Italienneand culturalpolitics, see Thomas E. Crow, Paintersand Public
Life in Eighteenth-Century Paris (New Haven and London: YaleUniversityPress, 1985), 49-55;
andJulieAnnePlax,WatteauandtheCulturalPoliticsofEighteenth-Century
France(Cambridge:
CambridgeUniversityPress,2000), 40-52.
9. Babet-la-chanteuse(Elisabeth Danneret), the cantarina of the Comedie-Italienne, had
alreadyentered the Operafollowing the banishmentof the troupe.

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This Italianstrainmay be seen as part of a more generalsystemof satiretar-

geting Louis XIV in the late yearsof his reign. Revisionistscholarshipover the
past two decades has called attention to an undergroundpamphletliterature,
characterizedby blatantridiculeand even obscenity,attackingLouis XIV, his
family,and governmentministers.10A second, subtlerform of satire,involving
the manipulationof mythology and allegory for the purpose of inscribingan
undercover,anti-absolutistdiscoursewithin the boundariesof officiallysanc-
tioned genres, has received less scholarlyattention.'1 As I will demonstrate,
this latter type infiltratednot only the Comedie-Italienneand the Comedie-
Franqaise(as well as the more blatant theatrede la foire), but after the death
of Jean-BaptisteLully in 1687, the Academie Royale de Musique (the Paris
Opera) as well. The Opera, known as the templed'amouror the templede la
volupte,had alwaysbeen associatedwith a notoriety somewhat at odds with its
official status. This reputation,which intensifiedafter Lully's death and blos-
somed into outright scandalaroundthe turn of the century,has neverbeen in-
vestigatedin connection with the culturalpolitics of ancien-regimeFrance.As
I will suggest, however, the social libertinismof the Opera may be seen as a
framefor a more seriouspoliticallibertinism,foreshadowingthe free thought
of the Enlightenment, which alreadyat the turn of the eighteenth century
stood in opposition to Louis XtV's absolutistpolitics.12
The genre of the opera-balletitself provided a powerfulvehicle for the un-
derminingof Louis XIV's absolutistimage becauseit could draw on a system
10. Despite stringent governmentalcensorship, this literatureflowed into France from the
free pressesof England, Holland, and Germany,or circulatedin manuscriptwithin Franceitself.
See Peter Burke, TheFabricationof LouisXIV (New Haven and London: Yale UniversityPress,
1992), 135-50; and Nicole Ferrier-Caveriviere, L'ImagedeLouisXIV dans la littiraturefranfaise
de 1660 a 1715 (Paris:PressesUniversitairesde France, 1981), 306-50. A thrivingunderground
music cultureproduced satiresof Louis XIV and his family,ministers,and court, primarilyin the
form of subversivechansons, but also through erotic parodiesof Lully's tragedieen musique;for
the latter,see CatherineGordon-Seifert,"Heroism Undone in the Erotic Ms. Parodiesof Jean-
Baptiste Lully's Tragediesen Musique,"in Music, Sensation,and Sensuality,ed. Linda Austern
(New York:Garland,forthcoming).
11. It is brieflytreated in Jean-PierreNeraudau, L'Olympedu Roi-Soleil:Mythologieet idiolo-
gie royaleau Grand Siecle(Paris:Societe d'Edition "Les Belles Lettres," 1986); Marc Fumaroli,
Le Poeteet le roi:Jean de La Fontaine en son siecle(Paris:Editions de Fallois, 1997); and Anne L.
Birberick,Reading Undercover:Audienceand Authorityin Jean de La Fontaine(Lewisburg,Pa.:
BucknellUniversityPress;London: AssociatedUniversityPresses,1998).
12. In general,the term libertinagerefersto a rebellionagainstsocietalnorms either through
personalmannersor through philosophicaland politicalfree thought. Though by no means all
libertinsde moeurs(libertinesin the sense used today) were also libertinsd'esprits(freethinkers),
the idealsof personaland politicalfreedom often went hand in hand. On variousaspectsof liber-
tinism in the seventeenthand eighteenth centuries,see Joan Dejean, LibertineStrategies:Freedom
and the Novel in Seventeenth-Century France (Columbus: Ohio State University Press, 1981);
Fran9oisMoureau and Alain-MarcRieu, eds., trosphilosophe: Discourslibertinsdeslumieres(Paris:
Honore Champion, 1984); Rene Pintard,LeLibertinageirudit dans la premieremoitii du XVIIe
siecle(Geneva: Slatkine, 1983); Antoine Adam, Les Libertinesau XVIIe siecle (Paris:Buchet/
Chastel, 1964); and F. T. Perrens, LesLibertinsen Franceau XVIIe siicle (Paris:Leon Chailley,
1896; reprint,New York:Burt Franklin,1973).

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of representationthat had traditionallylinked Louis XIV and members of the

court to their dancing roles in the balletde cour.Guided by the versde person-
nage, lines of poetry connecting the stage personae of these noble dancers
to the actual roles they played in court life, Campraand his librettistscould
reverseor otherwise undermine the associationof Louis XIV with the deities
and heroes of royal propaganda,many of whom had first been developed in
the balletde cour.The exoticismthat had alwayscharacterizedthe balletcould
also be turned to politicaluse. In fact, the practiceof setting incendiarypoli-
tical critiques in seemingly innocent, exotic climes had become a common
literaryploy by the late 1600s. Campra'sLe Carnaval de Veniseand LesFetes
venitiennesfollow in the wake of a series of utopian novels that use fictional,
exotic settings to set out idealized political scenarioscontaining implicit cri-
tiques of Louis XIV's France.13As a corollaryto the italianismeof their plots,
Campra'smusical deployment of a florid, Italianatediscourse of subversion
may also be seen as a direct challenge to the vaunted simplicityand purity of
a French discourse of absolutism.This essay will examine the ways in which
Campra uses the musical styles, comic plots, and satiricalstrategies of the
Comedie-Italienneas a mask for the entertainmentsof a subversiveParisian
public sphere.Further,it will explore the ways in which his balletsdeconstruct
Louis XIV's officialimage through a literaryweb of allusion, satire,and par-
ody; through a musicalitalianismeunderminingthe Frenchlanguageof abso-
lutism;and through the thematic celebrationof a new public audience as the
subversiveheir to the royalprerogativeof pleasure.
Campra, Commediadell'arte,and the Opera-Ballet
The absorption of the characters,conventions, and music of the Comedie-

Italienne into the opera-balletundoubtedly originatedin Campra'schoice of
that theater'smost famous playwright,Jean-FrancoisRegnard,as librettistfor
Le Carnaval de Venisein 1699. At the hands of Regnard and his colleagues,
the Comedie-Italiennehad by the 1690s become an even more stylized and
verballyelite entertainmentthan its Italian counterpart,while retaining the
charactertypes, pranks,machines,and costumes for which it had alwaysbeen
famous.Writtenmostly in French, the late playsof the Italiantroupe retained
the Italianlanguage mainlyfor improvisedscenes based on physicalstunts, for
the flowery Petrarchanlanguage of the lovers, and for the singing scenes of
the divertissements.These divertissements,
usuallyat the ends of acts, include
13. During the reign of Louis XIV an unprecedentednumber of utopian novels were pro-
duced, most of them as a form of encoded politicalprotest. Beginningwith the works of the liber-
tine writer Cyrano de Bergerac, their portraits of ideal societies, like that of Thomas More's
original Utopia,often veiled satiricalsocial critiques.See Dejean, LibertineStrategies;Robert C.
Elliott, The Shapeof Utopia: Studiesin a Literary Genre (Chicago and London: University of
Chicago Press, 1970); Lise Leibacher-Ouvrard,Libertinageet utopiessousle regnede LouisXIV
(Geneva:Droz, 1989); and MyriamYardeni, Utopieet revoltesousLouisXIV(Paris: A.-G. Nizet,
1980).

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situationsindirectlyrelatedto the action, such as serenades,balls,or even plays

(and occasionallyoperas) within plays. Regnard, a musicianas well as a play-
wright, createda model emphasizingthese divertissements and foreshadowing
the opera-comique. In his laterworks for the Comedie-Italienne,a slenderplot
supports spectacularsongs, dances, choruses, rope dances, gymnastic tricks,
and machine effects. The music for these productions consisted of French
popularsongs and Italianda capo arias.The arias,among the earliestknown
examples of the genre in France, exhibit the high quality of contemporary
Italianoperasor cantatas,from which they may have been directlytaken.14
The thematic use of carnivalin Campra'sballetsallows a concentrationof
Italian conventions never before seen on the French operatic stage. Isabelle
and Leandre,the well-known lovers (innamorati, or in French, amoureux)of
the Comedie-Italienne, serve as protagonists in both works, while the bur-
lesque charactersArlequin, Pantalon, le docteur, Scaramouche,Polichinelle,
and Pierrotappear,mostly in dancing roles, in severalentreesof LesFetesveni-
tiennes.15 (A dancerof the Opera, costumed as Scaramouche,may be seen in
Fig. 1.) Without exception, the plots, like those of the Italians,revolvearound
pairs of sighing lovers, love triangles, masks, disguises, clever escapes from
aged guardiansand tutors, and divertissementsa l'italienne. In addition, the
music of Campra'sballets,clearlyalludingto the italianismeof the Comedie-
Italienne,may be seen as the primaryentry point of the da capo ariaand can-
tatainto Frenchopera.16
Although the musical influence of the Comedie-Italienne awaits further
study, a preliminarysurvey of the musical appendicesto the Gherardicollec-
tion suggests that the blossoming of a spectacularitalianisme in Campra's
works owes much to the Italian players and their music.17Two important
14. The primarysource for the musicalrepertoryof the Comedie-Italiennewas a collection

of pieces assembledby EvaristoGherardi,a member of the troupe, in the late yearsof the seven-
teenth century. Consisting of fifty-fiveplays with musical supplementscontaining French songs
and Italianarias,it was first published in Parisin 1694, before the influx of Italiancantatasand
sonatas, and undoubtedly served, along with the stage performancesof the troupe, to introduce
the new Italianstyleto France.
15. They also appear,as statues,in the prologue of La Barre'sLa Venitienneof 1705, where
in a symbolicgesture they are brought to life by Momus, the god of satire.
16. Campraconsistentlyfollows the plays of the Comedie-Italienne,as well as the musical
style of its da capo arias,in reverting to italianisme for lovers' declarationsand serenades.The
Italian style is also associated with exoticism, especiallyin those female roles, such as a gypsy
woman, derived from the cantarina of the Comedie-Italienne.The complexityof the Italianate
divertissements in LesFites venitiennesof 1710 reflectsthe results of the flowering of the Italian
style through the first decade of the century in France, when Italian sonatas and cantatashad
become the rage. In fact, the male lover Leandre,the gypsy,and l'Amour (Cupid) sing not only
Italianateariasbut fully developed cantatas,complete with recitatives,ariettes,and interpolated
dances.
17. The only scholarlytreatments directed specificallytoward the music of the Comedie-
Italiennein Parisremainthose of Donald J. Grout in his 1939 Harvarddissertation,"The Origins
of the Comic Opera,"and in his "Music of the ItalianTheatre at Paris, 1682-97," Papersof the
AMS (1941): 158-70.

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Louis XIV and Subversion at the Paris Opera 271
Figure 1 A dancer of the Paris Opera costumed as Scaramouche.Aix-en-Provence,Biblio-

theque Mejanes.
aspects of that theater's musical legacy were a bilingual stylistic idiom and
an emphasison the songs and dancesof the divertissement. Both Le Carnaval
de Veniseand Les Fetes venitiennes follow the bilingual structure of the
Comedie-Italienne,providingits musicalequivalentin a markedseparationof
a French musicalidiom, most often used for the action, and an Italianone
(sometimes set to Italiantexts, sometimes to French) used almost exclusively
for the ubiquitous divertissements.As in the playsof Regnard,these divertisse-
ments spill over their boundaries to form the very structure of the ballet.
Againsta backgroundof French recits,binaryairs,and maxims,the Italianate

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272 Journalof the AmericanMusicologicalSociety
arias(usuallymarkedair italien or ariette,sometimes simply vivementor gai)

stand in vivid contrastby virtue of their da capo form, bolder harmonicpro-
gressions, accented meters, florid melodic lines, and motto openings in the
style of AlessandroScarlattior Giovanni Bononcini; other arias,more eco-
nomicalin nature,employ the triadicmelodies,simpleharmonies,and repeated
notes of the nascent opera buffa. "Orfeo nell'inferi,"a miniatureItalianopera
representingone of the carnivalfestivitiesof Le Carnaval de Venise,containsa
seriesof Italianrecitativesand ariasof both types, and the insertedcantatasof
LesFetes venitiennes,while set to French texts, are very much along the lines
of these Italianmodels. Likethe Italianatevocal music, the instrumentalmusic
is characterizedby gaiety,verve, and extroversion.The 6/4 meter and lively
rhythmsof the Venetianforlana,the gondoliers' dance traditionallyaccompa-
nied by tambourines,permeatesthe two ballets.18Besides the strictlymusical
aspects, other features shared by Campra's ballets and the plays of the
Comedie-Italienne include a deliberate affront to the classical aesthetic
through a sustainedtheatricalityand self-referentiality; a relatedgeneric desta-
bilization, connected to and symbolized by the use of masks;the juxtaposition
of autonomous comic fragmentsunified only by a consistentrapidpacing;the
practiceof "augmentation,"which allowed new entriesto be added with new
productions;and an amalgamof comedy, realism,and occasionalmelodrama
in the depictionof a poetic and festiveuniverse.
The most importantlegacy of the Comedie-Italienne,however,was its use
of all these elements in the serviceof a subversivesatiredirectlytargetingLouis
XIV through the absolutistgenres and roles associatedwith royalpropaganda.
In its opera parodies, the Comedie-Italienne had ridiculed figures such as
Jupiter,Apollo, Pluto, Hercules, and Renaud,who had stood as standardsur-
rogates for Louis XIV in the pantheon of royal propaganda.Indeed, it had
bested these gods and heroes through the triumphof its loversand lower-class
servantcharacterssuch asArlequin,Scaramouche,and Pierrot.Since its begin-
nings, moreover, the commediadell'artehad held a strong associationwith
carnival,whose spiritof irrationalityand satiricreversal,elevatingthe low and
reducing the high, had provided a mask for political subversion and even
revolt a number of times over the course of the sixteenth and seventeenth
centuries.19The Comedie-Italiennewas not the only theater to incorporate
18. On the forlana,see Paul Netd, "Notes sur la forlane,"La Revue musicale14, no. 139
(1933): 191-95; and James Anthony, "Some Uses of the Dance in the French Opera-Ballet,"
Recherchessur la musiquefranfaise classique9 (1969): 75-90. In 1683, in a special report on
Venice, the Mercuregalantehad calledthe forlanathe "prettiest"of the Venetiandances;in other
sourcesit is associatedwith exoticism,paganism,and orgy.
19. The connections among carnival license, insurgence, and rebellion in early modern
Franceare discussedin Natalie Zemon Davis, Societyand Culture in EarlyModernFrance:Eight
Essays(Stanford,Calif.:StanfordUniversityPress, 1965); Emmanuel Le Roy Ladurie, Carnival
in Romans,trans.MaryFeeney (New York:G. Braziller,1979); Daniel Fabre, Carnaval ou lafite
d l'envers(Paris:Gallimard,1992); and Yves-MarieBerce, Feteet revolte:Des mentalitis
populaires
du XVIe au XVIIIe siicle(Paris:Hachette, 1976).

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this spiritof satiricreversal,but the consistencywith which it did so and the

success of its productions, earning at once the adoration of the public and
the wrath of the king, had a profound influence on French culturallife both
before and afterthe troupe was banished.20
A subversive,carnivalesquespirit,directlyrelated to that of the Comedie-
Italienne,informsthe overallstructureas well as specificdetailsof Le Carna-
val de Veniseand Les Fetesvenitiennes.Like the plots of the Italiansand the
later thedtrede lafoire, those of Campra'sballetsare based on a sophisticated
blend of satire,allusion,and parody.Whereasthe Comedie-Italiennehad most
often targeted the contemporary operas of Jean-Baptiste Lully and the
tragedies of Racine and Corneille, the ballets of Campra return to images
more concretelyassociatedwith Louis XIV from the beginning of his reign-
especiallythose connected to roles he had danced in the early balletde cour.
By parodying or reversing these roles, and through them royal images of
power, Campra'sballetsstrikeat the core of officialpropaganda.
Campraknew the musicalscores to the balletsde cour,arranginga number
of them for his 1702 pastiche LesFragmentsde Lully.Though public audi-
ences would not have had access to stage performancesof the balletsde cour,
there is evidence that their livretsbecame collector's items and circulatedin
manuscript throughout the late seventeenth century.21The publication
in 1698 of Isaacde Benserade'stexts for the balletsde cour,along with a revival
of interest in dancing perhapsconnected with the vogue of the public mas-
querade, contributed to a marked revival of interest in the ballet de cour
around the turn of the century. Even if Campra'saudiences did not know
these livrets,however,the roles that Louis had danced in the balletde courhad
passed, through constant repetition in paintings,engravings,statuary,monu-
ments, and literarypanegyricsof all sorts, into a common vocabularywell
known by the French people. Since the connection had to do more with
image than with plot, the satirecould be universallyappreciated,especiallyin
the frameof lavishspectaclebearingnaturalassociationswith court festivities.
20. Although the history of the commediadell'arteis well documented, the Italians'use of
satirehas receivedlittle scholarlyattention. It is difficultto document becauseit occurredprimar-
ily in improvised divertissementsrather than in the texted script, but the reversalsof character
types, picked up by other forms of theater, may be considered clear evidence. The subject is
treatedin relationto the painterAntoine Watteauin Crow, Paintersand PublicLife,48-57; and
Plax, Watteau,40-52. Evidencepoints to a definitesubversiveintent in Watteau'sportrayalof the
commediadell'arte.
21. Frequentallusionsto the livretsof the balletsde courin the correspondenceof Madamede
Sevigne, for example, attest to a general familiaritywith the genre among an educated class.The
livretsof the balletsde courwere kept as souvenirs;these became especiallyprized by collectorsin
the 1680s and 1690s. This process continued into the eighteenth century, when a number of
balletsde courwere bound as collector'sitems. On the collections of curieuxand the transmission
of the balletsde cour,see PatriciaRanum, "'Mr de Lully en trio': Etienne Loulie, the Foucaults,
and the Transcriptionof the Worksof Jean-BaptisteLully (1673-1702)," in Jean-BaptisteLully:
Actesdu colloque,ed. Jerome de La Gorce and Herbert Schneider(Laaber:LaaberVerlag,1990),
312-15.

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At the same time, more specificreferencesto the balletsde courcould be en-

joyed by a smallergroup of artists,writers,and connoisseurswho formed an
inner circleprivyto all the nuancesof a complex politicaljoke.
The Sons of Jean-BaptisteLully and Their Tragediesen

musique
A subversivepoliticallibertinismat the Opera may be tracedto two tragedies

en musique composed, ironically, by two of Lully's sons: Zephire et Flore
(1688), by Louis and Jean-LouisLully, and Orphee(1690), by Louis Lully.
Their librettist,Michel du Boulay,a musicianand poet, frequentedthe liber-
tine community known as the Temple,22whose habitues also included Jean
de La Fontaine as well as the libertinepoets GuillaumeAmfrye Chaulieuand
Charles Auguste, marquis de La Fare, and the librettist-composer Abbe
Fran;ois-SeraphinRegnier-Desmarais.The Lully sons had strong connections
at the Temple. They were also commissioned by the libertine duc de
Vendome, in 1687 and againin 1691, to compose elaboratedivertissements at
his privatehome in Anet in honor of Louis XIVs son Louis, the dauphin of
France,at a time when a covert politicalfactionwas forming around this heir
to the throne.23
Both operas begin with prologues that would have surprisedan audience
accustomed to the tragedieen musiqueof Lullypere. In Z6phireet Flore,two
shepherdsrefuse to praisethe king, one claimingthat "to praisehim in a dig-
nified manneris not within my power,"24the other vaguelyalludingto a secret
he harbors.In Louis Lully's Orphee,an audience expecting to be entertained
finds only an empty theater, through whose back portico may be seen the
bleak signs of winter.Venus, coming to the aid of the disappointedaudience,
inveighsagainst"uselesspomp" and the horrorsof war,thus callinginto ques-
tion not only the pompous style and glorious heroism of standardoperatic
praise,but also Louis XtV's militaryprogram.
Zephireet Floreembodies the negative aspectsof absolutistaggressionand
tyrannyin the characterof Boreas. Cruel god of the north wind, he violently
abductsFlora, goddess of spring and traditionalsymbol of abundance,to the
accompanimentof a furious"storm"symphony.Holding her in captivity,and
along with her the symbolic qualitiesof beauty,abundance,and joy, he tor-
22. Roger Picard,LesSalonslitteraireset la societefranfaise, 1610-1789 (Parisand New York:
Brentano's,1943), 125.
23. Jules Ecorcheville,"Lullygentilhomme et sa descendance:Les Fils de Lully,"Bulletin de
la Societeinternationalede musique7 (1911): 1-27. Neither of Lully'ssons' operas found favor
with Louis XIV,who receivedthem coldly.On the factionsurroundingthe dauphin,see Fumaroli,
Le Poite et le roi, 484; and Emmanuel Le Roy Ladurie,Saint-Simonand the Court of LouisXIV,
trans.ArthurGoldhammer(Chicago and London: Universityof Chicago Press,2001), 121-59.
24. Recueilgeneraldesoperasrepresentispar l'Acadimie Royalede Musiquedepuisson etablisse-
ment (Paris,1703-46; reprint,Geneva:Slatkine,1971), 1:324: "Le louierdignement, n'est pas en
ma puissance."

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tures her by forcing her "to flatter."One may read this opera as an elaborate
reversalof the mystique of the Sun King, transformingand revealingthe true
characterof Louis XIV as the winterwind, cause of deprivation,hardship,and
woe. Although the Sun makesbriefappearancesas a deusex machina,the plot
of Zephireet Florehighlightsinsteadthe violence and loathsomenessof Boreas
as absolutistvillain.25
The opera may be interpretedas a reversalnot only of the absolutistimage
of the Sun, but also perhapsof the content of the Balletde Flore(1669), which
almost two decades earlierhad exploited that image. The last ballet de cour
danced by the king and the last of a seriesof balletsrepresentinga climax of
royalpropagandain the late 1660s, the Ballet de Florealso representeda point
of culminationin the collaborationof Jean-BaptisteLully,Isaacde Benserade,
and the choreographer Pierre Beauchamps. In the spirit of image-making
brought to an apogee by these artists,the work had cast the king in the com-
plementaryroles of the Sun and Spring, the benevolent source and season of
fruitionand abundance.26The argumentof the work proclaimsthis absolutist
programfrom the outset: "This ballet taken in its allegoricalsense marksthe
peace that the king has recently given to Europe, the abundanceand happi-
ness with which he crowns his subjects,and the respectthat all peoples of the
earth have for His Majesty."27Subjects from all walks of life, from peasants
enjoying a village wedding to inebriatednobles attended by slaves, demon-
strate the pleasuresenjoyed under Louis XIV's beneficent reign. The ballet
ends with magnificent choruses and dances representinghomage to Louis
from all cornersof the earth.
The Lully sons' Zephireet Florerepresentsan exact reversalof this royal
propaganda,with its main absolutistprotagonistno longer identifiedwith the
life-giving sun but with the cold, villainousnorth wind. It is perhapssignifi-
cant that, at a time when political discontents were grouping around the
Grand Dauphin, the eponymous protagonists of the opera had associations
with this prince and his wife, who had danced the roles of Zephirusand Flora
in a balletde courcelebratingtheirmarriagein 1681.28 The dauphin,a lover of
25. There is no precedent in Greek or Roman mythology for the abduction of Flora by
Boreas. Instead, the Lullys' librettisthas conflated the myth of Boreas's rude abduction of the
nymph Orithyiawith the myth of Flora and Zephyrus,a happy story of gentle (and free) love,
evoked by the mild breath of the roving west wind. The conflation of the two myths brings
together the libertines'belief in freedom of both a personaland a politicalnature.
26. Louis XIVs firstappearanceas the Sun, in the Balletde la Nuitof 1653, had alreadybeen
given distinct political significancein the verswritten for Louis XIV by Benserade,which con-
nected the night with the forcesof civilunrest,and Louis XIV's role as the Sun with the dawn of a
new politicalera.
27. Isaacde Benserade,Balletspour LouisXIV, ed. Marie-ClaudeCanova-Green(Toulouse:
Societe de litteraturesclassiques,1997), 2:829: "Ce Balletpris en son sens allegoriquemarquela
Paix que le Roy vient de donner a l'Europe, l'abondance& le bonheur dont il comble ses sujets,
& le respectqu'ont pour sa Majestetous les Peuplesde la Terre."
28. It is possible that the dauphinhimselffostered the association.His bedroom at Versailles
was dominated by a painting by Poussin entitled Le Triomphede Flore;it is reproducedin Nancy
Mitford, TheSun King (London: Penguin Books, 1966), 108-9.

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the arts, was admired by artists, and particularlythose of the Paris Opera.
Until his death in 1711, in fact, he served as monarch of a veritablecounter-
court that gathered there. The dauphine, official patronessof the Comedie-
Italienne, shared her husband's love of the theater. Together this couple
representedthe possibilityof a future politicaland culturalera associatedwith
the artsand theaterof a free public sphere.29
If the Lullysons' two works are consideredas a pairof sorts, then it follows
that the barren landscape, deprived audience, and "odious presence" of
Winter in the prologue to Louis Lully's Orphee,like the north wind Boreasin
Zephireet Flore,may signifythe bleaknessof a Franceplagued by tyranny,war,
and famine in the late 1680s. In both instances,one may also read the plight
of the theatersof Parisand their audiencesas victims of the devout party and
the king. The alignmentof Venus and her son l'Amour (Cupid) with the pub-
lic theater,moreover,revealsa telling change in the landscapeof mythological
representationin the late years of the seventeenth century. In Louis XIV's
earlycourt, the god and goddess of love had occupied a prominent place in
the propagandaof a young king whose virilitywas needed to produce an heir.
With the consolidationof Louis's absolutismin the 1670s and the devotisme
of the 1680s, however, the traditionsof amorous play and charming hedo-
nism passed to a noble elite. These qualities found particularexpression at
the ParisOpera, where around the turn of the century even the tragedieen
musiquewas dominated by themes of love at the expense of heroism and
absolutistglory.30 Further,there is evidence to suggest that, during the same
period, an infatuationwith love came to reflect not only the idle games of a
privilegedclass,but also-encoded within them-the subversiveattributesof
a libertinepacifism,directlychallengingLouis's militarism.31 Moreover,in the
literatureand art of Louis'slate reign, the pastoralmode that had enjoyeduni-
versalpopularityin an earlierperiod began to take on a more specificmeaning
as a sign of political protest.32In Orphee,the intervention of the god and
goddess of love may be interpretedin this light, and their amorous minuets,
29. The dauphin'sfrequent attendanceat the Opera is documented in the memoirs of the
marquisde Dangeau, excerptsedited by ChantalMasson in "Le Journaldu Marquisde Dangeau,
1684-1720: Extraitsconcernant la vie musicale a la cour," Recherches sur la musiquefranfaise
classique2 (1962): 193-223. The dauphine'swell-documented struggleswith the austereMme.
de Maintenon are hinted at in the opera in the relationshipbetween Flore and the villainous
Cletie.
30. The tragediegalanteis discussedin Robert Fajon, L'Operaa Paris du Roi Soleila Louisle
Bien-Aime(Genevaand Paris:Slatkine,1984), 132-37.
31. Venus, for example,was often pitted symbolicallyagainsther warlikenemesis, the goddess
Discord, and her sacredislandof Cytheracame to signifya pacifistcounterutopiato Louis XIV's
court. See Fumaroli,LePoeteetle roi,210; and GeorgiaCowart, "Watteau'sPigqrimageto Cythera
and the SubversiveUtopia of the Opera-Ballet,"TheArt Bulletin83 (2001): 461-78.
32. On this subversivepastoralstyle, see FrancoisMoureau, "Watteaulibertin?"in Antoine
Watteau(1684-1721): ThePainter,His Age and His Legend,ed. Fran9oisMoureau and Margaret
Morgan Grasselli (Paris: Champion; Geneva: Slatkine, 1987), 21. Moreau quotes the Abbe

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sensualsarabandes,and ruralfetes champetresmay be seen as a musicalcoun-

terdiscourseweavingthrough both Zephireet Floreand Orphee.
The plot of Orpheeis even more pointedly subversivethan that of Zephire
et Flore.In this work, Pluto is cast as a militaristictyrantdirectlypitted against
the musician-heroOrpheus.Frequentallusionsto music and freedom support
the underlyingtheme of the cruel despot defied by the pacifistartist.Orpheus,
taking refuge in the countryside of Thrace, voices his dislike of the "odious
fetes" in which he is forced to participate,then-realizing his words have
placed him in dangerof treason-swears himselfto silence. Pluto's dwelling is
a royalpalacesurroundedby exquisitegardens(perhapsthe Trianon,in whose
gardens the prologue of Zephireet Flore is set), with the flames of Hades
flickeringin the distance.There are a number of referencesto the violence of
Pluto's "cruelministers,"the torturersof Euridice,while Orpheus, "the liber-
ator,"bringshope and freedom through his life-givingmusic. The contrastis
expressedby opposing musicalcharacterizationsof Pluto and Orpheus.With
bellicose fanfares,Pluto calls the spirits of the underworld to arms against
Orpheus (Ex. 1). Orpheus's song, in contrast, draws on the sweet sound of
harmoniousstrings.
Like that of Zephireet Flore,the libretto of Orpheewould seem to alludeto
an earlierballetde cour,in this instancethe Balletde Psycheof 1656, containing
one of the earliestportrayalsof Louis XIV as Pluto.33Benserade'sversdeper-
sonnagerepresentLouis-qua-Plutodrawing on the darkside of his power to
reign over the viperous demons of the rebelliouscourt nobility,still fractious
after the civil wars of the Fronde at midcentury. Unprecedented in their
directness, they take the form of a political monologue, in which the king
fulminatesagainst his courtiersand the difficultiesof ruling over the traitors
among them. The music of Lullypere,no longer extant, included an infernal
concertitalien for four solo voices and chorus, representingthe qualitiesof
Fear, Suspicion, Despair, and Jealousyfound in Hades, and by implication,
among Louis XIVs courtiers.
Furtherevidence for an associationof Louis XIV with Pluto may be found
in a play by Jean-FrancoisRegnard, Campra'slater librettistfor Le Carnaval
de Venise,at the Comedie-Italiennein 1688. Entitled La Descentede Mezzetin
en enfers,34it treatsthe Orpheus myth in a burlesqueItalianstyle. In a central
Genest, who in 1707 suggested that "manytruths could be disguisedunder the guise of the pas-
toralveil, like parables"("on peut insinuerbeaucoup de verit6sd6guiseessous ce voile pastoral,et
qui sont comme autantde paraboles").
33. Benserade,Balletspour LouisXIV 1:321-25. Louis XIV also danced the role of Pluto in
an intermedefor Cavalli'sErcoleamante, performed at the Tuileriesin 1662. The role of Pluto
was not an unusualone for a king whose image-makersmined mythology to revealthe many faces
of absolutism.As Neraudau points out (L'Olympedu Roi-Soleil,65), the role of Pluto revealed
Louis XIV as "masterof the darkforcesof the world" ("maitredes forcesobscuresdu monde").
34. In Le Theitreitalien de Gherardi(Paris:Briasson,1751), 1:333-72.

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Example 1 Louis Lully,Orphe (Paris,1690), act 2, sc. 2, pp. 124-25
Pluton
Re-pous- sons, Re-pous-sons cet ou - tra - ge, Ar- mons -
9:$ r I : r- i |Lr t
r~
:##r' O
f I~'.I I
-nous, Ar - mons - nous
eh_=r II
infernalscene, Orpheus, praised as an "Italian"musician, performs a diver-

tissementbefore Pluto and Persephone on their thrones. This scene allows
Regnard to criticizeLouis XIV as a tyrant/buffoon. For example, he alludes
to Louis XIV's cripplingtaxationby having Pluto scheme to raisethe taxes on
the fuel needed to build the firesof hell. In anotherscene, Pluto sends a group
of physiciansback to earth (where they will further his cause better than in
Hades) but retainsthe apothecariesto satisfyhis need for laxatives.
Le Carnaval de Venise (1699)
Jean-LouisLullydied at the young age of twenty-one, a yearafterthe produc-

tion of Zephireet Flore.Louis Lully,who lived until 1734, may have known
Andre Campra,who, like the Lully brothers, also composed for the duc de
Vend6me. Among Campra'sother patronswere the duc de Chartres(the fu-
ture regent, also in disfavor), the libertine duc de Sully, who had commis-
sioned L'Europegalantein 1697, and the GrandDauphin.35Fearfulof losing
the securityof his position as maitrede musiqueat Notre Dame, Camprapub-
35. Campra,who never found favorwith Louis XIV, was a protege of the dauphin. In 1698
he had composed a divertissement,entitled Vinus,festegalante, to be performedfor the dauphin
and his cousin the princesse de Conti at the home of the duchesse de la Ferte. See Maurice
Barthelemy,Andri Campra:Sa vie etson oeuvre(1660-1744) (Paris:Picard,1957), 44-46.

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lished L'Europegalante anonymously and Le Carnaval de Veniseunder the

name of his brotherJoseph, a performerin the orchestraof the ParisOpera.36
Regnard, the librettistfor Le Carnaval de Venise,had associationsnot only
with the banned Comedie-Italienne,but also with the libertinenobility in the
late yearsof Louis XIV's reign.37
The prototype for Le Carnaval de Venisewas undoubtedly an eponymous
play for the Comedie-Francaiseby Florent Carton Dancourt, produced in
1690. No longer extant,the playis known to have had its divertissementswith-
drawnbecauseof censorship.38Regnard'slibrettofor Le Carnaval de Veniseof
1699, probablylinked to these divertissements, depicts a pair of lovers over-
coming a series of obstacles presented by jealous suitors. Besides its connec-
tions with Dancourt's play, Le Carnaval de Venisealso contains allusionsto
Regnard's own Descentede Mezzetin en enfersand Louis Lully's Orphee.In
addition, it may be seen both as a satireof Louis XIV by way of his roles in
an early balletde cour,entitled Le Carnaval (1668),39 and as a reversalof the
meaning and uses of carnivalin that work. The prologue to Le Carnavalis in-
troduced by the obsequious figure of le Carnaval,who offers his games and
diversions"to distractthe greatestmonarchfrom his gloriouswork" and dedi-
cates his festivitiesto "the greatest king in the world."40Louis XIVs role as
a plaisir in the following entreesubtly connects the pleasuresof carnival-
including gambling, feasting, dancing, and singing-with the patronage of
the king. Benserade'sversde personnage,however, paint a portrait of Louis
more fierce than beneficent,a "terriblepleasure"41who has shown Spain and
his other enemies how greatlyhe is to be feared.In the same vein, the masque
serieuxhe wearsin the finalentry is saidto hide the even more frighteningvis-
age of the fearsome warriorunderneath. The propagandaof this work, like
that of most balletsde cour,walksa tightrope between pleasureand militarism,
seeking to balanceimages of peacetime diversionswith those of warlikehero-
ism. Despite the lightheartednessof its series of celebrations,however, the
impressionleft by the versde personnageis one of a carnivalderacinatedfrom
its popularoriginsand transplantedto the hothouse of courtlyflattery.
36. Anthony, introduction to Le Carnaval de Venise,viii. Neither of these ruses seems to

have fooled anyone. A contemporary chanson, punning on the composer's name, quipped,
"Quand notre Archevesquescaura/ L'Auteurde nouvel opera, / De sa CathedraleCampra/
Decampera"("When our Archbishopknows the author of this new opera, Camprawill decamp
from his cathedral").
37. Gifford P. Orwen, Jean-FranfoisRegnard (Boston: Twayne Publishers,1982), 15-28.
See also AlexandreCalame, Regnard, sa vie et son oeuvre(Paris:PressesUniversitairesde France,
1960).
38. Melese, Le Theadtre et lepublic,77.
39. Libretto in Benserade,Balletspour LouisXIV 2:807-23. Though considered one of the
balletsde cour,the work is designatedmore specificallyas a masqueraderoyale.
40. Ibid., 2:810-11: "a delasserle plus Granddes Monarquesde ses glorieuxTrauuaux";"le
plus grandROY du monde."
41. Ibid., 2:820: "un terriblePLAISIR"

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Le Carnaval de Veniserepresentsa reappropriationof carnivalby an urban

audience. Set in the free Republicof Venice, it suggests a utopia with distinct
politicalovertones.42Its subversivenature is revealedin a number of reversals
and politicalreferences;for instance,the gamblersof this opera-balletcelebrate
the vicissitudesof the allegoricalheroine Fortune, who is able to destroy "the
most glorious of thrones." The most extended allusion in Le Carnaval de
Venise,however, is a satiricalreferenceto Louis XIV as Pluto in the internal
"Venetian"opera "Orfeo nell'inferi,"which is set into the largerfinale of the
work. The only complete scene of the work cast entirelyin Italian,this inter-
polated divertissementis modeled on the confrontation between Pluto and
Orpheus in Louis Lully's Orpheeand may indirectly refer to the infernal
scenes, both in Italian,from the Ballet de Psychiand Regnard'sown Mezzetin
en enfers.Like Louis Lully's Orphee,the scene in Le Carnaval de Veniseposi-
tions Orpheus'sbucolic lyricismagainstthe militarismof Pluto's call to arms
in an allegoricaltreatmentof the plight of the artistvis-a-visthe king. In both
works, Pluto, sitting on a throne surrounded by his ministers,43greets the
strains of Orpheus's lyre with outraged chagrin. Regnard's Italian text is
closelyrelatedto the equivalentFrenchpassagein Orphee:
LouisLully,Orphee Campra,LeCarnavalde Venise
IIest doncvrayque
Qu'entends-je? Un Mortalinsolent,
jusques
Dansceslieux Al dispettodellasorte,
Un mortelinsolents'avance?
... Passavivonel regnodellamorte
Armons-nous, armons-nous All'armi,all'armi...
Mais, quels sons eloignez surprennent Ma qual nuova Armonia?
mes oreilles? Qual soave Zinfonia?
Qu'ilssontnouveaux!qu'ilsont de D'alcordi Plutone,
quoytoucher!44 L'iradepone.45
42. Recent scholarshiphas identified a "myth of Venice," a carefullyorchestratedcampaign

through which the Venetiansthemselvesconsciouslypresentedtheir republicas a haven of justice
and the center of ongoing celebrationsof freedom, both political and artistic.Venetiancarnival,
famous throughout Europe, served the political means of drawing travelerson a secular pil-
grimage to the city of Venus, the goddess of love and pleasure. See Ellen Rosand, Opera in
Seventeenth-CenturyVenice:The Creation of a Genre (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of
CaliforniaPress, 1991), 44-45 and 113-19; Ellen Rosand, "Music in the Myth of Venice,"
RenaissanceQuarterly30 (1977): 511-37; and David Rosand, Mythsof Venice:TheFigurationof
a State (Chapel Hill: Universityof North CarolinaPress,2001). In the second half of the seven-
teenth century, the "myth of Venice" was kept alive in France by travelers'reports and journal
articles.
43. A reproductionof Jean Berain'sstage design is included in Anthony's introductionto Le
Carnaval de Venise,xxv. It bears a strikingresemblanceto contemporarydrawingsof the stage
and loges of the ParisOpera.
44. Recueilgeneraldesoperas1:359.
45. Ibid., 1:683. Note the word Zinfonia,indicatingan amusingVenetiandialect.

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[What do I hear?So it is true that even [An insolent mortal

In this place In defianceof destiny
An insolent mortal advances? Passeswhile still living into the realmof
death?
To arms!To arms! To arms!To arms!
But, what far-offsounds surprise But, what new harmony?
my ears? What sweet symphony?
How new they are!How they have the From the heart of Pluto,
power to move!] Fury departs.]
Though Campraclothes Pluto's call to arms (Ex. 1) in an Italianstyle (Ex. 2),

both passagessatirizeLouis XIV's militarismthrough an inordinatenumber of
repetitionsof the words "to arms!"(in Orphee,eight repetitionsin the spaceof
sixteen measures,and in "Orfeo," nineteen repetitions in the space of forty
measures).Similarly,the militaristic,trumpetlikequalityof Pluto's airin Jean-
Louis Lully'sopera is exaggeratedin an Italianariain Le Carnaval de Venise;
in both versions,the music of Orpheus,set to stringsin Orpheeand flutes and
harp in "Orfeo nell'inferi,"provides a strikingcontrast. Only the ending of
"Orfeo nell'inferi,"filled with allusions to the victory of the artist over the
tyrant, departsfrom its model. Here, instead of the tragic conclusion of the
opera, Regnard gives Orpheus a jubilant victory aria in heroic Italian style,
celebratingthe triumphof laughterand song (Ex. 3). Regnardalso transforms
Pluto, as he had done in La Descentede Mezzetinen enfers,into a ridiculous
buffoon through the art of carnivalesquereversal.Drawingon a carnivaltradi-
tion of royal mockery,Regnard sets Pluto's final air in the burlesquestyle of
the Comedie-Italienne,and Camprafollows suit with a jovial 3/4 bass aria,
outlining triadicharmoniesin a style anticipatingPergolesi(Ex. 4).46
At the beginning of "Orfeo nell'inferi,"a stage-within-a-stagedescends,
complete with loges on eitherside, filledwith stage spectatorsviewing the per-
formance in its entirety.Like a deus ex machina, the performanceof this in-
serted "opera," along with its audience and the confusion surrounding its
production, providesa means of escapefor Isabelleand Leandre,the protago-
nists of the largerplay.Of even greatersymbolicvalue is the spotlight that this
scene placeson Louis Lully's Orpheeand its audience,and on the Operaitself.
By ending the work with a triumphantescapeprovided by the insertedopera,
along with its stage audience composed of satisfiedspectators,Regnardeffec-
tively reverses the motif of the deprived audience and deserted theater in
the prologue to Orphee.The theme of theatricalrenewal,moreover,is set up
alreadyin the prologue to Le Carnaval de Venise,in which a new theateris be-
ing constructed under the guidance of the "divinitieswho preside over the
arts [of] music, dance, painting, and architecture"(i.e., the arts of the ballet);
46. The scene may also representa parodyof the conclusion to the infernalscene in the Ballet
de Psyche,in which the king and his demons perform an "extraordinarydance" to demonstrate
that "love inspiresgaietyeven in Hades."

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Example 2 Andre Campra,Le Carnaval de Venise,act 3 ("Orfeo nell'inferi"),sc. 1, pp. 117-18
Plutone
r ri
:
\: ~
, Il'r~\, ~11' fr,rl'-' , ,
Al - l'ar - mi, al - l'ar - mi, al - l'ar - mi; A1-
K1 <
9 :i Ii N
.ji| j |j|iiiisi7i l 'i )

7
~' r'
v
f r Z' r- I ir r i J 1
-l'ar - mi, al - 'ar - mi, al-l'ar-mial-l'ar-mial-l'ar - mi.
v : r r r~ r rf r r r-_r_
ri r IJ 11
this new theater,like the work itself, is dedicatedto the GrandDauphin. In a

similarsense, Le Carnaval de Veniseitself may be considered a new form of
theater,dedicatedto the dauphinby the artistsof this operaticcountercourt.47
The finalscene of Le Carnaval de Venise,"Le Bal,"depictsa public masked
ball typical of those held during carnivalseason in both Venice and Paris.
Probablyalluding to the final entreeof Le Carnaval,48it reversesthe king's
role as a masqueserieux.There, the preemptingof the masquescomiquesby the
47. Obviouslyflatteredby this tribute,the GrandDauphin showed his favorby attendingfive

performancesof Le Carnaval de Veniseduring the carnivalseason of 1699 (Anthony,introduction
to Le Carnaval de Venise,xxii-xxiii). By 1710, the dauphin'spoliticalfollowing had fallen away,
but his presence was still felt at the Opera, where he was in regularattendanceand was in fact
known for his liaisonswith a seriesof chanteusesand danseuses.
48. In a substantiallyaltered form, the ballet de cour Le Carnaval had been kept alive as a
public ballet (subtitled simply masqueraderather than masqueraderoyale)at the Paris Opera,
where it was performedin 1675 and 1692. In the course of the seventeenth century,the ballet-
mascaradehad been absorbedinto the balletde cour,often bringingwith it the element of carnival
burlesque.But as Louis XIV moved the balletde courin a direction awayfrom ludic play toward
absolutistpropagandain the 1660s, its comic elements were graduallypurged. In the late seven-
teenth century the masqueradewas taken up as a public phenomenon and eventuallybecame an
accepted symbol of political subversion.As Terry Castle has shown in her study of eighteenth-
century English fiction, the masqueradeserves not only as the disruptiveinstrument of generic
transformationand plot diversion,but also as a representationof the breakdownof social stratifi-

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Example 3 Andre Campra,Le Carnavalde Venise,act 3 ("Orfeo nell'inferi"),sc. 3, p. 124
Aria
Allegro
Violini
Bassocontinuo
4 Orfeo
Vit-to - ri-a,
., _=__
___ . , _ .
3 ,:d H
vit-to - ri-a, vit- to - ri-a mio co-re
: .V -
~: \ 1 r ,! Ir - --r~rr rl
masquesserieuseshad set up the ultimate superiorityof Louis XIV's militarism
to the comic trivialitiesof carnival.In contrast, the final masqueradeof Le
Carnaval de Venisepresentsa group of comic masksdominating their serious
counterparts,ridiculingreason and praisingpublic pleasure.As part of this fi-
nale, a soprano disguised as a comic mask sings a full-blown da capo aria,ex-
traordinarilyornate for the period. Her invocation of the cupids-libertine
symbol of love and freedom-ends the work on a note of exuberant anti-
absolutism(Ex. 5).
cation (Masqueradeand Civilization: The Carnivalesquein Eighteenth-CenturyEnglishCulture

and Fiction[Stanford:StanfordUniversityPress, 1986]).

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Example 4 Andre Campra,Le Carnavalde Venise,act 3 ("Orfeo nell'inferi"),sc. 8, pp. 138-39
Allegro
~):Sy I - I - I _ I _ I -_ I I
Violini +
v- 'irIr ir I I - I II
Si can- ti, si go-da, si bal-li, si
y#r I Jjlf:if
-r r~rI~r
-- 1I}4 - I
~:?r r irr'lrri i,j si g- si bli, si

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Example 4 continued
22
ri - da, Si can - ti, si
1 15
II
y?:? I I:' f r r .I 1I
26
rjrrLTrr
9L:r - Ir I
r I
go - da, si bal - li, si ri - da, si can - ti,
- I - I - I - r
31
si go - da, si bal - li, si ri - da.
j .j ;.-==-t Ij l g II
'
~ M I: Jj IJ j_ J IJ. 1i Ir
LesFetesvenitiennes(1710)
Campra'ssecond ballet on the subject of Venetian carnival,Les Fetesveni-

tiennes,held the Frenchoperaticstage with wide acclaimfor almost half a cen-
tury.With a libretto by Campra'slongtime collaboratorAntoine Danchet, it
parallelsthe firstnot only in subjectmatter,but also in almost every aspect of
its subversivestructure.Like Le Carnaval de Venise,LesFetesvenitiennessub-
stitutesthe pleasuresof the Frenchpublic sphere, disguisedas Venetiancarni-
val, for those dispensed by the king. Like the earlierwork, it also uses public

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Example 5 Andre Campra, Le Carnaval de Venise,act 3 ("Le Bal, dernier divertissement"),

pp. 156-57
Unemasquecomique
- S 5 r1 ; 7 Iir r r r rr r -'
A - mo - ri vo - la - te, vo-
Violini
i I IJ J J I I I
-la - te, vo - la - te mi
J J '! I
~ 1.I
n o - la - t, vo - - teI b i
10
ben, vo - la - te, vo - la - temi ben;
0 jj XfC r?i
r Ir r 11lr' r
'oaT^l? r' r ir' ~ | ~ r;, r l r .J Ij 1
entertainmentas the backdropfor allusionsto one of the Lully sons' operas

and to a role danced by Louis XIV in Le Carnaval.49
An allusion to Louis and Jean-Louis Lully's Zephireet Flore is cleverly
entitled "Balletde Flore," set
craftedas an opera-ballet-within-an-opera-ballet
within the framingentree"L'Opera."The setting, ostensiblythe famousopera
house of the Teatro Grimani("le PalaisGrimani")in Venice, may be read as
49. Another example of subversiveinnuendo may be seen in the plot of the entreeentitled
"La Feste des barqueroles,"based on the freeing of a young slavewoman held captiveby a cruel
tyrant.This subject had been popular since the appearanceof the most widely published under-
ground pamphlet of Louis XIV's reign, TheSiqhsof France the Slaveheld Captivebythe King of
1689. A similartheme had been treated by Camprain his entree"La Serenadevenitienne," in-
cluded in his Fragmentsde Lullyof 1702. In that work, Campraand Danchet directlyassociate
the figuresof the commediadell'artewith the comic heroics of liberationby depicting a group of
Scaramouchesfreeing a slave through their acrobaticsand comic tricks.The dancerportrayedin
Figure 1 is reproducedfrom an illustrationof this ballet.

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the backstage to the Paris Opera, where Leontine, a famous chanteuse,is

preparingto sing the role of Flora. Through a cleverplay on plots and titles,
the encapsulated"Balletde Flore" both alludes to the Lully sons' Ziphireet
Floreand like that work may be seen as a satireof Louis XIV through the roles
he had danced in the balletde couralso entitled Ballet de Flore,of 1669. The
pastoralidyll of this inserted work, like the abduction scene from Zephireet
Floreto which it alludes,is similarlyinterruptedby a "storm"symphony,con-
trasting with the pastoral idyll of Flora's court. In this version, however,
Leontine is abducted by her lover (Damire), a passionatefan of her singing
and of the Operaitself,who has disguisedhimselfas Boreasin order to escape
with her.50Damire, insteadof taking "Flore"into captivity,reversesthe plot of
the tragedieen musiqueby stating his intention to make her (and the art she
represents) his "sovereign" rather than his captive. Ultimately, Campra's
comic reversalstransformboth Pluto and Boreas,the villainsof the Lullysons'
tragediesen musique,into harmless or even benevolent instruments of om-
nipotent and changeableFortune.
LesFetesvenitiennesalso reversesthe ideology of the balletde courLe Car-
naval. As in the ballet de cour,the prologue to LesFetesvenitiennesis intro-
duced by le Carnaval,but ratherthan flatteringthe king, this Carnival-like
Zephirusand the comic maskin Le Carnaval de Venise-invokes the cupids as
symbols of love and public pleasure. His words, "Volez amours," weave
through the largechoralframeworksubstitutedfor the chorusesof monarchi-
cal praisein the standardoperaticprologue. As if in answerto le Carnaval'sin-
vitation, Cupid appears,in a later entreeentitled "L'Amour saltimbanque"
("Cupid as Charlatan").At least since the Renaissance, the charlatanhad
served as a symbol of marketplacecultureand of public entertainmentas well,
for the shows produced by charlatansas advertisementsfor their waresconsti-
tuted a primarysite for public diversionamong all classes.51Cupid's appear-
ance in the guise of a charlatan,then, representsan answerto the ills of society
through the libertine"remedy"of public entertainment.
This scene also satirizesLouis XIVs role of a Pleasure,Cupid'smythological
companion. In this version,the Pleasuresaredoubly disguisedas Cupid'sassis-
tants and commediadell'artecharacters,dispensingthe charlatan'sremediesto
their audience. The scene uses Saint Mark'sSquare ("la Place Saint Marc"),
50. Layersof allusionreach a pinnacleof complexityin this entree.Leontine, the sopranoen-

acting the role of Flora,is said to be famous also for the title role of Lully'sArmide, allowing the
librettista clear referencenot only to Lully'sopera, which is describedin detail, but also to the
Versaillesfeteof 1664, in which Louis XIV had danced the role of the hero Renaud. In both those
works, Renaud resistedand overcamethe enchantmentof Armide, confirmingthe superiorityof
absolutist glory over libertine love. In an important reversal,Damire (likened in Danchet's li-
bretto to Renaud) now chooses the enchantment of the soprano, and of the Opera itself, over
duty and glory. In anotherclevertwist upon art and life, Mlle. Journet,the sopranowho sang the
role of Leontine/Flore in the premiere of LesFites venitiennesin 1710, had actuallymade her
debut in the role of Armidein 1703.
51. The term saltimbanquewas used interchangeablywith charlatan,undoubtedly because
of the frequentassociationof the charlatan'srole with acrobaticentertainment.

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where it is ostensibly set, as a mask for the ParisianPont Neuf, the hub of
Paris'spopular festive life, where satiricalchansonswere performed and sub-
versivepamphletstraded openly. Here charlatanscame to peddle their wares,
while their assistants,often dressedin the costumes of the commediadellarte,
drew audiencesby their acrobaticacts, dispensednostrums, and collected pay-
ment.52The scene is introduced by a chorus of charlatans,inviting spectators
to "stepright up" ("Hatez-vous, accourez,volez") to their show (Ex. 6). The
remainderof the entreeis structuredas a brilliantItalianatecantata,sung by
Cupid and punctuatedwith dances by his comic entourage. Like the chorus,
Cupid hustlesthe crowd, urging his audienceto make theirpurchases("Venez
tous, venez faire emplette"). The dances of the comic charactersinclude airs
for the Arlequinsand Polichinelles(Ex. 7), and a chaconne for the entire as-
sembly of comic masks including these charactersas well as male and female
Scaramouchesand Pantalons.With their simplifiedrhythms,repeated notes,
and emphasison tonic and dominant harmonies,Campra'schaconne and airs
for the Arlequins and Polichinelles adumbrate a comic instrumental dance
style, such as may have accompaniedthe acrobaticantics of the masks at the
Comedie-Italiennein its heyday.53The subversivemessageof this scene resides
in the substitution of the humble public figures of the commedia dell'arte
(now a symbol not so much of Italy as of the Parisianpublic sphere) for the
king's image as supreme dispenserof pleasure.In Le Carnaval, Louis XIV's
entreeas a Pleasurehad been set to the dignifieddotted rhythmstypicallyused
for the entreegrave in the balletde cour.Campra'suse of an instrumentalbur-
lesque, then, joins the comic Italianstyle of Pluto's ariaand the more exotic,
floridItalianstyle as anotherfacet of a subversiveoperaticlanguage.
The role of masterof ceremoniesin LesFetesvenitiennesis sharedby le Car-
naval,l'Amour(Cupid), and la Folie (Folly).This lastcharacter,the rhetorician-
heroine of Erasmus's Praise of Folly(ca. 1509), had been picked up in Le
52. Isherwood, Farceand Fantasy,3-21; and CliffordBarnes,"The Theadtre de lafoire (Paris,

1697-1762): Its Music and Composers" (Ph.D. diss., Universityof Southern California,1965),
136. So importantwas the Pont Neuf as the pulse of public Paris,that the vaudeville,or popular
song, was often referredto as a Pont Neuf, and the news of the day was referredto by the expres-
sion "On chante sur le Pont Neuf."
53. Though the Italiancomedies, like the laterplaysfor the foire, call for instrumentaldances,
none are includedin the Gherardicollection. Campra'sdances,however,beara close resemblance
to the comic chaconne portraying "a night at the Comedie-Italienne"in Moliere and Lully's
comedie-balletLe Bourgeoisgentilhomme and may be seen as an instrumentalstyle characterizing
certain dances of the Comedie-Italienne.There is some controversyin the recent literatureover
the representational significance of the chaconne; Geoffrey Burgess, in his article "Cyclic
Temporalityand Power-Representationin Tragediesen Musiquefrom Lully to Rameau"(Theory
at Buffalo, spring 1997, 68-101), associates the genre with absolutist values, while Rose
Pruiksma,in her dissertation" 'Danse par le roi': Constructionsof French Identity in the Court
Ballets of Louis XIV ([Universityof Michigan, 1999], 180-208), traces Lully's use of the cha-
conne as a sign of sensualityand exotic otherness. The chaconnes of Campra'sFetesvenitiennes
and Lully's Bourgeoisgentilhomme suggest the presence of a comic subgenre associatedwith the
Comedie-Italienneand possessinga unique significanceawaitingfurtherstudy.

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Example 6 Andre Campra,LesFitesvenitiennes,entree 2 ("L'Amoursaltimbanque"),sc. 3

Choeur
~f, H u -re - _r r
Ha-tez-vous,ac-cou - rez, vo - lez, vo - lez
Ha-tez-vous,ac-cou - rez, vo - lez, vo - lez,
tezvous, - tez - vous, accou-rez vo lez

Ha-tez-vous,ha-tez - vous, ac-cou-rez, vo - lez, vo -
Ha-tez-vous,ha-tez - vous, ac-cou-rez, vo - lez, vo -
de tou - tes parts,
h' r r r ,r ,
^T'r
_ vo - lez, vo - lez de tou - tes parts,
r_rlezr
f.. r# v-r 11
-lez, vo - lez de tou - tes parts,
-lez defr - tes pas,

tour
-lez de tou - tes parts,

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Example 7 Andre Campra,LesFetesvenitiennes,entree 2 ("L'Amoursaltimbanque"),sc. 3
Air pour les Arlequins
-
t L"-,-zl r f Wr --rrrrrr#r- r'
ilir, r r r r rt r r r r r r
I.,r, r rr r rrrr
IIY,-r :iIrr
:, f4J r r rrrr rI r rrr r
g ~ L ~r
L
rMrr I r r r r r r r
^ir $ F f c
-
r -r r r r r
r^i r r-r f> I rrr Ir r f r
11gJ J J J r ir 1 J j J .L -
Carnaval et la Folie(1703), afoire-inspiredcomedie-balletby Andre Cardinal

Destouches and his librettistAntoine Houdar de La Motte.54It was undoubt-
edly La Motte's treatmentthat inspiredDanchet to revisitthis characterseven
yearslaterin his libretto to LesFetesvenitiennes.At the hands of Campraand
Danchet, la Folie becomes the omnipotent queen of carnivalmadness.55In a
clever substitutionfor Louis XIV, she becomes the object of universalpraise,
to whom the world pays homage. As the king presides over the entertain-
54. La Motte acknowledgeshis debt to Erasmus,whom he creditswith furnishing"the scene

and almost all the charactersof my play"(Recueilgene'raldesoperas2:172).
55. For a discussion of la Folie in the context of seventeenth-centuryfeminist thought and
opera criticism,see GeorgiaCowart, "Of Women, Sex and Folly:Opera Under the Old Regime,"
CambridgeOperaJournal 6 (1994): 205-20. The laughing madwomanwas a prominent figure
of carnival;Dijon, particularly,was known for its carnivalcelebrationof la merefolle.See Fabre,
Carnaval ou la fete a l'envers,66-70.

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ments of his court, la Folie presidesover the high and low entertainmentsof
the public sphere. As the king enters captured cities in triumph, so does la
Folie, in a prologue entitled "Le Triomphe de la Folie," celebrateher victory
over the known world.56In this prologue la Folie claimsfor herselfalone the
power to inspire the Pleasures,and for herself and her cohort Cupid a new
empire of love and folly, from which "cruel Reason" is banished. Like Cupid
and the Pleasuresin this work, she also takes on the role of charlatan.Her
ariette "Accourez, hatez-vous," like Cupid's "Venez tous, hatez-vous" and
the charlatans'chorus "Accourez,venez-vous, volez" (based on a similarmu-
sicalmotive), connects the foursquarerhythmsand da capo form of the Italian
style with the theme of marketplaceentertainment (Ex. 8). Whereas Louis
XIV representsa patriarchyof order and "severereason,"la Folie representsa
matriarchyof subversionunder the guise of comic madness and public plea-
sure. Her domain ultimatelyrepresentsthe chaotic, irrepressiblepublic spirit,
releasedfrom absolutistcontrol. Carnivalin France traditionallybegan with
the Feastof Fools at New Year's,in which a "fool" from the crowd was chosen
as king for a day.Implicitwithin the celebrationof la Folie, then, lies an unmis-
takable allusion, in the carnivalesquereversalof king and female fool, to a
more generalreversal(as in Erasmus)of the establishedsocialorder.57
Finally,LesFetesvenitiennesalso includes a masquerade("Le Bal") parallel
to those in the ballet de cour Le Carnaval and Le Carnaval de Venise.As in
Campra'spreviouswork, the setting of the masqueradeaffordsthe opportu-
nity for a metaphoricalgame of masks.A mattre de musique,boasting of his
compositional skills, quotes direct excerpts from three operas premiered or
reprisedat the ParisOpera in the yearsimmediatelypreceding LesFetesveni-
tiennes:MarinMarais'sAlcyone(1706), Lully'sAtys(1708), and Destouches's
Isse(1708). Callingattention to his own skillin "payingtribute to Italy,"the
music mastersings a florid, Italianatepassageof his own music, set to the text
56. The work was firstperformedon 17 June 1710. Beginning with the twenty-thirdperfor-
mance on 8 August 1710, the originalprologue, "Le Triomphe de la Folie sur la Raison dans le
temps du Carnaval,"was suppressed.With the fifty-firstperformance,it reappearedin a cut and
revisedversion,entitled "Le Camavaldans Venise."In December of 1710 or the springof 1711,
a new prologue was added, entitled "Le Triomphede la Folie, comedie." Despite the title, there is
no connection between the two prologues except for the title character.The substituteprologue,
however, continues the subversivedisplacementof the king, a more usual subject of triumphal
entries, by la Folie. It is possible that the firstprologue, a blatantparody of the typicaloperatic
prologue, was suppressedby censorship.
57. See Mikhail Bakhtin, Rabelais and His World,trans. Helene Iswolsky (Boston: Massa-
chusetts Instituteof Technology, 1968; Bloomington: IndianaUniversityPress, 1984), 196-277
("PopularFestiveForms and Images in Rabelais"),for a discussionof Rabelais'streatmentof the
fool, folly, charlatans,games, and the commediadell'arte. Bakhtin's concept of the "carniva-
lesque," which celebratescarnivalas a temporary ascendancyof popular culture over absolutist
hegemony, has been used as a model for literatureand culturefarbeyond the time of Rabelais(see
particularlyPeter Stallybrassand Allon White, The Politicsand Poeticsof Transgression[Ithaca,
N.Y.: Cornell UniversityPress, 1986]), though Bakhtinviewed the seventeenthcentury as a time
when the regenerativepower of popularculture,representedby carnival,was disastrouslysevered
from seriousliterature.

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Example 8 Andre Campra, Les Fetesvenitiennes,prologue ("Le Triomphe de la Folie sur la

Raison,Dans le temps du Carnaval"),sc. 2
Violon
LaFolie
VI5(, -Wr- 9I- -
ha-tez-vous, gou-tez les char-mes

Ac-cou-rez, de la
Basse continue
vi - e; _ je les dis-pen-se tous: il n'enestpointsansla Fo-li - e.

-
2-j i II
"amori,volate" (Ex. 9). Thus, using the maitrede musiqueas his own mouth-
piece, Camprasubtlyplaceshimselfin this illustriouscompany,yet sets himself
apart by means of an elaborate Italian style. Further, he alludes to his own
Italian aria, set to the text "amorivolate" in Le Carnaval de Venise.Like le
Carnaval'sair "Venezamours"in the prologue, both of these Italianpassages
invoke the Cupids, and in each case, their florid style extends the short
melisma,typicallyassociatedwith the word volezin French opera, to unprece-
dented Italianextremes.58
Although Campra and his librettists borrow the satiric language of the
Comedie-Italienne and the foire, Le Carnaval de Veniseand Les Fetesveni-
tiennesdiffer from standardoperatic parody in some important ways. First,
unlikethe parodiesof the more populartheaters,they seldom (with the excep-
tion of the scene involvingthe maitrede musique)make use of outright musi-
cal quotation. Instead,they confine their specificallusionsto plot reversalsand
specificroles, leaving the music to engage with its models in a more general
dialogue between French and Italianmusical styles-an appropriatestrategy,
58. Interestingly,a collection entitled Airs nouveaux(Paris:Ballard,1690) contains an air,
"Volezl'Amour,"designatedas an additionto Ziphireet Flore.An ariettein da capo form contain-
ing passagesof greatfloridity,it representsa strikingcontrastto the simpler,more traditionaloper-
atic style that characterizesthat work. Set as a prayerto Cupid, the air capturesthe emotional
intensityof Zephirus'sdistressat the loss of Floraand his plea for help from the god of love.

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Example 9 Andre Campra,LesFetesvenitiennes,entree 4 ("Le Bal"), sc. 2

Violons un Violon seul
Le Maitrede Musique
contnue A- mo - ri, vo-la

Basse continue
Tous
"-- - -
"""-
~~~~- ~ te, a-mo - ri
given that audienceswould have been more familiarwith the livretsand im-
ages of the balletsde courthan with their musicalscores.Also, unlike the paro-
dies of the Italian company and the thedtrede la foire, which followed their
models almost immediately, Campra's ballets take aim at works preceding
them by years and even decades, and whereas the plays of the Comedie-
Italienneand the foire had clearlyannounced theirparodicintents and objects,
the politicalinnuendo of Campra'sballetsoperatesin a more covert fashion.A
possible reason for these differences is that more conventional parodies,
though often practicinga brandof politicalsatiresimilarto that of the opera-
ballet, usually took as their targets only the most generalized monarchical
surrogatesof the tragedy and tragedieen musique.As I have demonstrated,
Campra and his librettists follow the pattern initiated by the Lully sons'
Zephireet Floreand Orpheein establishinga type of parody,peculiarto the
Opera itself, that directlytargetsthe icons of royalpropagandathrough refer-
ence to specific roles of the ballet de cour.The dangerous specificityof the
satire, then, is balanced by a reluctance of these works to call attention to
themselves as parody except through subtle codes designed to be read on a
number of differentlevels.

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Parodies of Les Fetes venitiennes at the Com6die-Frangaise

and the Foire
Two parodies of a scene from Les Fetesvenitiennes,produced respectivelyat

the Comedie-Francaiseand the thedtrede lafoire in 1710 and 1712, follow
the more typicalpattern of operaticparody.A few months afterthe premiere
of Les Fetesvenitiennes,Florent Carton Dancourt produced a play for the
Comedie-Francaiseentitled La Comediedes comediens.59 The play-within-a-
play that standsas its climax, "L'Amourcharlatan,"representsa cleverparody
of the entree "L'Amoursaltimbanque"from Campra'sLesFetesvenitiennes.
The frameplot depicts four well-known comedians from the French troupe,
playing themselves, donning the costumes of the commediadell'artecharac-
ters Pierrot, Leandre, Mezzetin, and Scaramouchein order to produce the
internalplay.As in Campra's"L'Amoursaltimbanque"and the inserteddiver-
tissementsof Le Carnaval de Veniseand LesFetesvenitiennes,"L'Amourchar-
latan"provides the young lovers a means of victory and a resolution of the
complicationsof the largerplay. Cupid, "a little libertine," is disguised as a
charlatanin order to escape the absolutist wrath of an avenging Jupiter, a
pathetic figure whose power has been severelydiminished by the success of
Plutus, a minor mythologicalgod ruling over commerce and thereforea con-
venient symbol of the public sphere. As in "L'Amoursaltimbanque,"Cupid
uses the charlatan'splatformto hawk his libertine "remedy"of love, and in a
denouement with clearpoliticalovertones, he subvertsthe power of the king
of the gods. The divertissements of Dancourt'splay,subtlyalludingto those of
LesFetesvenitiennes,exhibit the simplerstylesof the popularchanson. True to
the dialogue of styles contained in LesFetesvenitiennes,however, Dancourt's
play also contains a "Venetian"divertissement,performed by members of M.
Grichardin'shousehold, costumed as two Venetian women and a Pantalon.
To the rhythmsof a Venetianforlana,these characterstaunt the old man for
his ridiculouspursuit of pleasure,thus hinting at the satireof LesFetesveni-
tiennes,wherein charactersof the commediadell'arteco-opt Louis XIV's role
as Plaisir.
Both "L'Amoursaltimbanque"from Campra'sballet LesFetesvenitiennes
and "L'Amourcharlatan"from Dancourt'splay La Comediedescomediensuse
the charactersand characteristicplots and music of the commediadell'arteto
evoke the plays of the Comedie-Italienneand the contemporaryplays of the
thedtrede la foire. The reverseprocess takes place in an actualplay from the
foire, produced at the Foire Saint-Germainin 1712, entitled LesFetespari-
siennes.All that remainsfrom the play are its ecritaux,the placardsdisplaying
the anonymous texts of parodies to be sung to the well-known tunes of Les
Fetesvenitiennes.These texts shift the scene from Venice to popularhaunts of
59. In Dancourt, Oeuvresde theatre (Geneva: Slatkine, 1968), 3:167-99. An appendix,
pp. 232-40, containsthe musicalnumbersof the divertissement.

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lowbrow Paris,finallyunmaskingthe Venetianploy of Campra'sballets. In a

manner typicalof the thedtrede lafoire, French playerswearing the masksof
the commediadell'arte-Arlequin, Pierrot, Polichinelle, and Scaramouche-
portray the roles of lower-class French citizens enjoying the festivities of
carnival.Closely following Les Fetesvenitiennesthrough the parodies of its
arias, Les Fetesparisiennesalso seems to follow, even more closely than the
opera-ballet,the sequence of entreesin Louis XIV's Le Carnaval. Introduced,
like Le Carnaval and LesFetesvenitiennes,by a personificationof Carnival,its
prologue ("Premierefeste: Le Carnaval")is set on the banks of the Seine at
the Porte Saint-Antoine rather than in the royal court of Versaillesor in
Venice. Insteadof descending a throne to flatterLouis XIV, as in the balletde
cour,le Carnavaldescends from a giant casserole,from which the Cupids and
the Pleasuresare eating; and instead of a procession in honor of Louis XIV,
there is one in honor of the fatted ox of Mardi Gras.The second fete is desig-
nated by a double title, "L'Amour saltimbanque/L'Amour charlatan,"di-
rectly alluding to the plays set within Campra's Les Fetes venitiennes and
Dancourt's La Comediedes comediens.This scene is set on the ParisianPont
Neuf, finallyrevealingthe true identity of the "PlaceSaintMarc"in Campra's
ballet.
Though both "L'Amour charlatan" from Dancourt's La Comedie des
comediensand the anonymous Les Fetesparisiennesfollow a standardformat
for operaticparody,again there is an importantdifference.Many of the oper-
atic parodies produced at the foire representattackson the Opera itself as a
rival,officialtheater.These two parodiesof LesFetesvenitiennes,on the other
hand, deliver the same message as their model, though in different guises.
This message includes both a subtle attackon Louis XIV's absolutismand a
glorificationof public entertainmentand its audiences,now joining hands to
reflect the transferof privilegefrom the king to a new society comprisingall
socialclasses.
A New Society of Pleasures
Earlyin his reign Louis XIV had proudlyproclaimeda "societyof pleasures,"

by means of which he would control his nobility as well as the massesthrough
his monopoly on festiveprivilege.60Because entertainmentlay at the heart of
royal image-making,its control continued to representpolitical power even
amid the changes of Louis's late reign. The new orientation of Campra's
opera-ballet,adapting the propaganda of absolutism to a new manifesto of
60. A recent book, KathrynHoffmann's Societyof Pleasures:InterdisciplinaryReadings in
Pleasureand PowerDuring the Reign of LouisXIV (New York:St. Martin'sPress, 1997), is de-
voted to this subject.On the earlyballetde courand its music in this context, see Robert M. Isher-
wood, Music in the Serviceof the King: France in the SeventeenthCentury (Ithaca, N.Y., and
London: Cornell UniversityPress, 1973), 134-41.

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public pleasure,would have carriedpronounced political implications.In his

earlyreign Louis XIV had offered the Italianplayersto his court as a source of
pleasure.Members of the Italian company had performed impromptu plays
within certain balletsde cour,most notably the Ballet des Plaisirs(1655) and
the Ballet desMuses(1666). In others, French dancershad performed under
Italianmasks;for example,Jean-BaptisteLully,known primarilyas a dancerin
Louis's earlycourt, had performed the role of Scaramouchein the Ballet de
L'Amourmalade (1657). Almost from the beginning, however, these Italian
interludeswere used by Louis XIV's image-makersto depict otherness, as a
backdropfor a courtly French identity.61In that context, portions of the bal-
lets exemplifyingan ornate Italianexoticismand occasionalpassionatelaments
in the style of Rossi and Cavalliwere strictlycontained and, once Louis XIVs
absolutist identity had been firmly established in the late 1660s and early
1670s, eventuallysuppressed.By the time of Le Carnaval in 1668, Louis's
reins on the dispensing of pleasurehad tightened, and he no longer needed
the foil of this Italianpresencein his balletroyal.62The ousting of the comme-
dia as carnivalentertainmentfrom the later balletde courwould have seemed
conspicuous to a court accustomed to the associationof its masks not only
with pleasure,but-since its very inception-with carnival.In Le Carnaval,
the role of Louis XIV as a FrenchPleasuredirectlyparallelsthe increasingcen-
tralization of his government and the marginalizationof the non-French.
Likewise,his role as a tragicmasksuccinctlyalludesto the processby which he
graduallypurged his courtlyentertainmentsof their comic scenes;the triumph
of absolutismwas henceforthto be a more seriousaffair.
The new opera-ballets on Venetiancarnivalreinstatean Italian,comic style,
eradicated by Louis XIV from the late ballet de cour and the tragedie en
musique,now to be read as a signifierof an anti-absolutistpublic resistanceto
the crown. ConservativetheoristsperceivedItalianmusic as exotic, feminine,
excessive, and contradictoryto the ideals of purity, patriarchy,and classical
simplicityespoused by Louis XIV and the devout party.Its popularitysparked
a controversyover French and Italianmusic that, beginning in 1702, lasted
over half a century63and, resonating with political overtones, reflected the
generalantagonismof the Italianstyle to Frenchabsolutisthegemony. In fact,
the influx of Italian cantatasand sonatas into France, beginning in the last
years of the seventeenth century, exactly coincided with the ouster of the
Comedie-Italienne and was probably stimulated by a desire to retain the
61. This point is discussedin Pruiksma," 'Danse parle roi,' " 20-78.
62. PhilippeBeaussantmakesa strong case for a progressionfrom the balletde cour,produced
by and for the courtiers,to the absolutistballetroyalin the late 1660s. See his Lullyou le musicien
du soleil(Paris:Gallimard,1992), especiallythe chapter"Du balletde cour au balletroyal," 175-
80, and the list of Louis'sroles on pp. 112-15.
63. Georgia Cowart, The Origins of Modern Musical Criticism:Frenchand Italian Music,
1600-1750 (Ann Arbor:UMI ResearchPress, 1981).

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Italians'music, like their costumes and masks,not only because of their gen-
uine popularappeal,but also as a sign of antimonarchicalprotest.
In Le Carnaval de Veniseand LesFetesvenitiennes,the Italianstyle charac-
terizes the music of the spectacle,while the action of the balletsis carriedby
a traditionalFrench idiom. Almost invariably,the subversivematerialof the
ballets is found within the Italianatespectacle of their divertissements.The
interplayof two stratifieddiscourseswithin one work, particularlyin the posi-
tioning of a politicallycorrect "rational"style againsta subversive"irrational"
one, constitutes a defining characteristicof the ancient genre known as
Menippeansatire.64This genre was transmittedthrough the late Greekwriter
Lucian, and through his RenaissancetranslatorsThomas More and Erasmus;
in fact, Erasmus'sPraiseof Follydrawsstronglyon the language of Menippean
satire.65The genre was embraced by the sixteenth-century French writer
Francois Rabelais and by a wide circle of libertine writers in seventeenth-
centuryFrance.It was also absorbedby the Italiancommediadell'arteand par-
ticularlythe ParisianComedie-Italienne.Imbued with the ancientphilosophy
of Cynicism,Menippean satire takes as its startingpoint a mockery of tradi-
tionalvalue systemsbased on religion,wealth, and power, and a celebrationof
the reversalsbrought about by fortune or chance. Proceedingthrough a series
of infinitely regressive stages containing genres within genres and allusion
within allusion, this satireseeks to undermine systems of establishedpolitical
control by showing that the world is never what one expects, but rather a
"topsy-turvyplace" (Thomas More's term) in which those who are kings
today may be cobblers tomorrow. Despite the many metamorphoses of
Menippean satire through the centuries, a single stylistic feature always re-
mained constant:its prosimetricor "dialogic"form, consistingof a "counter-
point" of styles (originally prose and verse), pointing up through their
juxtapositionthe "topsy-turvy"natureof existence.This stylisticcounterpoint
has been understood as an identifyingfeatureof the world of carnivaland the
Feast of Fools, and it servesas a dual language by which the king and the fool
may be identifiedand reversed.66
Such a stratification of styles typifies Campra's Le Carnaval de Venise
and Les Fetes venitiennes,which exhibit a marked separation between the
64. On the use of Menippean satirein ancient and Renaissancetimes, see FrederickJoseph
Benda, "The Traditionof MenippeanSatirein Varro,Lucian,Seneca and Erasmus"(Ph.D. diss.,
Universityof Texasat Austin, 1979).
65. Ibid., 210-27. See also Martin Fleisher,Radical Reform and Political Persuasionin the
Life and Writingsof ThomasMore(Geneva:Droz, 1973); GeraldineThompson, UnderPretextof
Praise:SatiricModein Erasmus'Fiction(Toronto: Universityof Toronto Press, 1974); and James
Tracy,ThePoliticsof Erasmus:A PacifistIntellectualand His PoliticalMilieu (Toronto: University
of Toronto Press, 1978).
66. On the prosimetricor dialogic style, see Bakhtin'sessay "Discourseand the Novel," in
TheDialogic Imagination: Four Essaysby M. M. Bakhtin, ed. Michael Holquist, trans. Michael
Holquist and CarylEmerson (Austin:Universityof TexasPress, 1981), 259-422.

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florid, metrical style of their Italianate divertissementsand the contrasting,

more proselikepassagesof the action. In a similarfashion, Campra'suse of a
florid, metricalitalianisme,often associatedwith the god of love and libertin-
ism, reversesthe idealsof a Frenchstyle based on the purity,subtlety,and sim-
plicityof languageassociatedwith Louis XIV's absolutism.Echoing an eastern
exoticism, it signals a transgressionof the boundariesplaced by monarchical
taste and academicrules around a carefullycontrolled and regulated French
identity. Interestingly,in Le Carnaval de Veniseand LesFetesvenitiennes,the
Italian style represents forms of invitation, including florid invocations to
Cupid as the symbolic ruler of an alternative,utopian society, and charlatans'
appealsto public audiences as the metonymic representativesof that society.
The act of invitationitself, in fact, sets up a principleof inclusionrepresenting
the antithesisof the exclusivityproclaimedby royalentertainment.
Conclusion
With LesFetesparisiennes, the satireof Louis XIV comes full circle.As demon-
stratedhere, the Comedie-Italiennehad initiateda type of satire,especiallyin
its opera parodies,targetingthe roles that representedabsolutistidentity.The
Lully sons' operas, probablydrawing on methods of the Comedie-Italienne,
had covertlyattackedLouis XIV through roles he had danced in his balletsde
cour.Campramodeled his balletson the playsof the Italiantroupe, while also
alludingto actualscenes and charactersof the Lully sons. The parodiesof Les
Fetesvenitiennesat the Comedie-Francaiseand at the foire followed suit, com-
pleting the game of masks surroundingthe topos of Venetian carnival.With
Le Carnaval de Veniseand LesFetesvenitiennes,Campraset a new standardof
sophisticationfor theatricalsatire, a standardreaching out to the Comedie-
Francaiseand the thedtrede lafoire. By developing a musical italianismeas a
discourse of subversion, Campra added an important dimension to the
Menippeantraditionof Lucian,More, Erasmus,and Rabelais.With his libret-
tists, moreover, he created a compelling vision of a utopian society through
the glorificationof the publicfete and its audience, as opposed to the culture
of court entertainment.As the Comedie-Francaiseand the theatrede la foire
joined with the banished Comedie-Italienneand the Opera in protest of the
crown, so did their respectiveaudiencessee themselvescollectivelydepicted as
the representativesof a free society to whom the prerogativeof pleasurenow
belonged.
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Abstract
After Louis XIVs banishmentof the Comedie-Italiennein 1697, its costumes

and masks became increasingly fashionable among a public disenchanted
with absolutist politics. This article reveals the manner in which the plots,
characters,and subversivesatireof the Comedie-Italienneinform two ballets
of Andre Campra, Le Carnaval de Venise (1699) and Les Fetesve'nitiennes
(1710). Following the satiric strategies used by the Comedie-Italienne,
Campraand his librettistsemploy an exotic Venetiansetting as a mask for the
libertineentertainmentsof a French public sphere. Reversingthe ideology of
Louis XIV's courtly fetes, they deconstruct his official image in three ways:
through a literaryweb of allusion, satire, and parody; through an Italianate
musicalstyle that servesto underminethe Frenchlanguage of absolutism;and
through the thematic celebrationof a new public audience as the subversive
heir to the royalprerogativeof pleasure.

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Cowart 2001 - Carnival in Venice or Protest in Paris

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Carnival in Venice or Protest in Paris?

Louis XIV and the Politics of Subversion at the

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_B5 y the end of the seventeenthcenturythe absolutistimageconstructed

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offer fareincreasinglyattuned to the tastesof a developingpublic sphere.Even

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Parisiantheaterof the commediadell'arte,5whose influencemay be seen in the

5. On the commedia seeAUardyce

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This Italianstrainmay be seen as part of a more generalsystemof satiretar-

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of representationthat had traditionallylinked Louis XIV and members of the

Campra, Commediadell'arte,and the Opera-Ballet

The absorption of the characters,conventions, and music of the Comedie-

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situationsindirectlyrelatedto the action, such as serenades,balls,or even plays

14. The primarysource for the musicalrepertoryof the Comedie-Italiennewas a collection

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Figure 1 A dancer of the Paris Opera costumed as Scaramouche.Aix-en-Provence,Biblio-

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arias(usuallymarkedair italien or ariette,sometimes simply vivementor gai)

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this spiritof satiricreversal,but the consistencywith which it did so and the

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At the same time, more specificreferencesto the balletsde courcould be en-

The Sons of Jean-BaptisteLully and Their Tragediesen

A subversivepoliticallibertinismat the Opera may be tracedto two tragedies

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sensualsarabandes,and ruralfetes champetresmay be seen as a musicalcoun-

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Example 1 Louis Lully,Orphe (Paris,1690), act 2, sc. 2, pp. 124-25

Re-pous- sons, Re-pous-sons cet ou - tra - ge, Ar- mons -

infernalscene, Orpheus, praised as an "Italian"musician, performs a diver-

Le Carnaval de Venise (1699)

Jean-LouisLullydied at the young age of twenty-one, a yearafterthe produc-

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lished L'Europegalante anonymously and Le Carnaval de Veniseunder the

36. Anthony, introduction to Le Carnaval de Venise,viii. Neither of these ruses seems to

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Le Carnaval de Veniserepresentsa reappropriationof carnivalby an urban

LouisLully,Orphee Campra,LeCarnavalde Venise

42. Recent scholarshiphas identified a "myth of Venice," a carefullyorchestratedcampaign

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[What do I hear?So it is true that even [An insolent mortal

Though Campraclothes Pluto's call to arms (Ex. 1) in an Italianstyle (Ex. 2),

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Example 2 Andre Campra,Le Carnaval de Venise,act 3 ("Orfeo nell'inferi"),sc. 1, pp. 117-18

Al - l'ar - mi, al - l'ar - mi, al - l'ar - mi; A1-

.ji| j |j|iiiisi7i l 'i )

this new theater,like the work itself, is dedicatedto the GrandDauphin. In a

47. Obviouslyflatteredby this tribute,the GrandDauphin showed his favorby attendingfive

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Example 3 Andre Campra,Le Carnavalde Venise,act 3 ("Orfeo nell'inferi"),sc. 3, p. 124

vit-to - ri-a, vit- to - ri-a mio co-re

cation (Masqueradeand Civilization: The Carnivalesquein Eighteenth-CenturyEnglishCulture

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Example 4 Andre Campra,Le Carnavalde Venise,act 3 ("Orfeo nell'inferi"),sc. 8, pp. 138-39

Si can- ti, si go-da, si bal-li, si

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ri - da, Si can - ti, si