III
What Alessandro Scarlatti did for opera in Italy, Lully had done for opera in France. The French opera, like the English opera, of which we have the one splendid example in Purcell’s ‘Dido and Æneas,’ was of quite distinct origin from the Italian. Whereas the Italian opera sprang from attempts to restore the method of combining music and dramatic declamation, practised by the Greeks, the French opera developed from a form of entertainment that had long flourished in France and was dear to the hearts of the French people—the ballet.
The famous Ballet-comique de la royne given in Paris at the Petit Bourbon on the 15th of October, 1581, in honor of the marriage of the Duc de Joyeuse and Mademoiselle de Vaudemont, sister of King Henry III, is in a sense the first attempt in France toward what we now call opera. It was a magnificent spectacle in which songs, choruses, and dancing played a part. The plan of it was made by Baltasar de Beaujoyeaulx, whose real name was Baltasarini, groom of the chamber to the king and the queen mother (Catharine de Medici). The music was by the Sieur de Beaulieu, whose true name was probably Lambert, and another composer named Salmon, and the verses were by one named La Chesnaye. A few excerpts from a contemporary account of the performance will best illustrate what the ballet was. It was given before the king and his mother and an assemblage of the highest nobles in France. As for the overture the writer of the account says: ‘After some measure of silence had been established there came from behind the walls the sound of oboes, cornets, sackbuts (trombones), and other sweet-toned instruments.’ After this the Sieur de la Roche, escaping from a garden at the back of the hall, came and delivered an address before the king. He was followed by the sorceress Circe, from whom he had evidently escaped and who was bent on having him back again. But he eluded her and she returned to her garden. Then three sirens and a triton appeared and sang a chorus, which was echoed by singers concealed in a golden arch at the back of the hall. They disappeared and an immense fountain was drawn upon the stage by two sea-horses; and about the fountain twelve naiads were grouped, among whom were ladies of highest rank, covered with gold and jewels. The fountain was drawn round the room, spouting ‘real water,’ surrounded by eight tritons playing lutes, harps, etc., and by a dozen pages or more bearing lighted torches, all singing. After this chorus, Glaucus and Thetis took their place in chairs at the foot of the fountain and sang a little dialogue to which the tritons answered in chorus. The fountain was then drawn off behind Circe’s garden, and ten violinists came forward, dressed in white satin hung with gold, and played for the first dance which was taken by the twelve pages and the twelve naiads who had returned. Circe appeared, furious, from her garden and laid all the dancers under her spell so that they stood motionless, and then she retired to her garden swollen with victory. Suddenly there was a loud clap of thunder and Mercury appeared, descending in a cloud from which he sang. He then stepped from his cloud and freed the dancers from Circe’s spell, whereupon they at once took up the dance again. Mercury went back to his cloud and Circe came again upon the scene and bewitched not only the dancers, but Mercury himself, whose cloud would not conceal him, so that they all followed her two by two into her fatal garden. And here the garden was brilliantly lit, and the spectators saw walking therein a stag, a dog, an elephant, a lion, a tiger, and various other beasts who were once men, who now had undergone Circe’s spell. The first act ended here.
The second act opened with a five-part song for satyrs to which the golden vault replied in echo. A forest advanced across the floor of the hall, a forest with a rock in the middle and oak trees hung with garlands of gold, and four dryads to whom the satyrs sang a song of welcome. The forest went before the king and from its leafy depths a young dryad delivered a speech to him; then the forest turned to the left and proceeded to Pan’s grotto. Here Pan welcomed the dryads with a tune on his flute and they complained to him of Circe who had imprisoned not only their playmates the naiads, but Mercury himself as well. Thereupon Pan promised his aid and the wood went away. Entered then the four virtues, two of whom played upon the lute while the other two sang a little duet. The golden vault responded with an instrumental piece in five parts, and then Minerva approached in a car drawn by a huge serpent, Minerva bringing the head of Medusa. She delivered yet another address to the king and invoked Jupiter, who, after a few claps of thunder, descended in a cloud. He stood on his cloud and sang a song, after which the cloud deposited him upon the floor and he went off with Minerva to Pan’s grotto. Poor Pan was soundly scolded by Minerva for having let Circe steal away the naiads and Mercury. Pan, though replying that the power to overcome Circe belonged alone to Minerva, none the less started off for Circe’s garden followed by eight satyrs armed with knobbed and thorny clubs. Minerva went along, too, to the assault, but Jupiter was left alone on the stage. Once before Circe’s stronghold, that wily lady harangued her assailants and made fun of Minerva and of Jupiter. To Jupiter she said: ‘If any one is destined to triumph over me, it is the king of France, to whom you, even as I, must yield the realm you possess.’ Minerva and her heroes broke down the door of Circe’s garden and Jupiter struck the lady herself with a thunderbolt, who thereupon fell senseless to the floor. Minerva got possession of the magic wand, released those who had been chained by Circe’s spell, and at last restored Circe herself, who joined with her to lead a procession of all who had taken part in the play around the hall. Then followed a grand ballet before the king.
This performance of the Ballet-comique de la royne lasted five hours and a half and the cost of producing it was more than three million six hundred thousand francs. This was approximately a century before the performance of ‘Berenice’ in Padua, of which mention has been made in a previous chapter; but whereas the Italian opera degenerated into a scenic display, the French opera resulted from a cutting down of lavish extravagance and uniting the various scenes and choruses with musical declamation.
The ballet remained the favorite diversion of the French court down to the middle of the seventeenth century, though the splendor of this Ballet-comique was never reproduced. Though it approached what we now call opera, it remained differentiated from opera in a few fundamental points. Parts were taken by members of the court society, the whole entertainment was planned to flatter the king so that the lines spoken by the players were often directed to the monarch in the manner of Circe’s lesson to Jupiter which we have just quoted, and there were long addresses without music and without relation to the plot of the ballet.
In 1645 and 1646 Cardinal Mazarin invited Italian singers to give an exhibition of their opera in Paris. They were coldly received. In Perrin’s famous letter to his protector, the Cardinal de la Rovera, April 30, 1659, the Italian music was likened to plain-song and airs from the cloister. Yet it was with the aim of making an opera for the French on the plan of the Italian opera that Perrin wrote his Pastoral in 1659, for which Cambert composed the music. This pastoral in music, called sometimes L’opéra d’Issy, was performed at Issy near Paris with great success. There was present such a crowd of princes, dukes, peers, and marshals of France that the whole way from Paris to Issy was thronged with their coaches. There was not room in the hall for all who came. Those who could find no place were patient, promenading through the gardens or holding court on the lawns. By express order of his majesty Louis XIV, the Pastoral was repeated at the palace of Vincennes. So French opera was inaugurated.
Of Cambert, who wrote the music, little is known. He had lessons on the harpsichord from Chambonnières, the Nestor of French clavecinists, he was organist at the Church of St. Honoré, and following the success of the Pastoral he was appointed superintendent of music to Anne of Austria, mother of Louis XIV. For more than ten years after the Pastoral Perrin and Cambert kept relatively silent. There are a few drinking songs by Cambert which belong to this time, but the two men rest in obscurity until the first performance of their opera Pomone on the 19th of March, 1671, at the Tennis Court near the Rue Guénégaud. In 1669 Perrin had obtained from Louis XIV the permit ‘to establish throughout the kingdom academies of opera, or representations with music in the French language after the manner of those in Italy.’ Perrin secured Cambert to write music for these representations, and Pomone, their joint product, is the first opera publicly performed in Paris. A great part of their singers had been recruited from churches in the country, but the success of this first performance was enormous. Only the music of one act has been preserved. It is childish, but at moments may stand favorably by that of Lully. What makes it so heavy to our ears are the long passages of dull, unrhythmical recitative which, from the point of view of music, are vague and ill-formed.
To Cambert and Perrin must be given the honor of having established French opera. To them was awarded the first royal warrant to give opera throughout the kingdom. Pomone was an auspicious beginning; but within a year trouble had come between the two men, and Cambert’s next opera was set to words by another poet, Gilbert, well known in his day. And then, apparently as sequence to the split between Cambert and Perrin, Cambert was himself deprived of his royal rights, the opera was given into the hands of one sole man, who had long been plotting to acquire it, and Cambert departed to England.