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The Foundation of the Royal Academy of Music in 1674 and Pierre Perrin's Ariane

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  26 March 2014

Pierre Danchin
Pierre Danchin
Affiliation:
Professor of English at the Université de Nancy.
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Extract

One of the more obscure episodes in the long history of the English stage is the foundation and short-lived existence of a French language Royal Academy of Music in the early 1670s. I intend to sum up here the evidence so far available and to show, using for the purpose a double MS. of Pierre Perrin's Ariane in the Bibliothèque Nationale, together with a few other documents, that the enterprise was indeed a very serious one, and was modelled on an earlier and very similar attempt in Paris a few years previously.

Type
Articles
Information
Theatre Survey , Volume 25 , Issue 1 , May 1984 , pp. 55 - 67
Copyright
Copyright © American Society for Theatre Research 1984

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References

NOTES

1 The London Stage. 1660–1800, Part 1, 1660–1700, ed. William Van Lennep, Emmett L. Avery, and Arthur H. Scouten (Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1965). Referred to hereafter as LS.

2 LS, pp. 213–14.

3 LS, p. 215.

4 “S.Bre. French Librettist at the Court of Charles II,” TN, 9 (1954), 20–21.

5 BN MS. N. acq. fr. 9185, f. 23, v.

6 Ibid. f. 23, v., / 24, r.

7 State Papers Domestic. Entry Bool: 28, f. 108 (see Grobe, p. 21).

8 For other early occurrences of such libretti, provided for the convenience of spectators, see McManaway, J.G., “Songs and Masques in The Tempest,” in Theatre Miscellany, Luttrell Society Reprint 14 (Oxford: Blackwell, 1953), pp. 71–96Google Scholar, and Haywood, C., “The Songs & Masques in the New Tempest,” Huntington Library Quarterly, 19 (1955–1956), 39–56.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

9 De Lafontaine, H.C., ed., The King's Musick. A Transcript of Records Relating to Music and Musicians, 1460–1700 (London, 1909Google Scholar; rpt. New York, 1973).

10 Nicoll, Allardyce, A History of English Drama, 1660–1900, rev. ed., 6 vols. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1952–1959), I, 354–55Google Scholar, quoting LC 5/140, p. 456.

11 BN MS. 24352, ff. 181 r. to 233 v.

12 Ibid. f. 200 r.v.

13 Orrell, John, “A New Witness of the Restoration Stage, 1670–1680,” TRI, 1 (1976), 86–97.Google Scholar

14 Ibid. p. 91.

15 I have used a number of modern studies on the early history of French Opera, but have also had recourse to the important but unpublished MS. “Histoire de l'Académie Royale de Musique depuis son établissement jusqu'à présent” written towards the middle of the eighteenth century by the brothers Parfaict. BN MS. N. acq. fr. 6532.

16 See Rolland, Romain, “L'opéra anglais au 17ème siècle,” p. 1884Google Scholar, in Encyclopédie de la Musique el Dictionnaire du Conservatoire. Ière Partie: Histoire de la Musique.

17 “Cambert se voyant inutile à Paris, après l'établissement de Lully, passa à Londres, ou sa Pomone qu'il fit joüer luy attira des marques d'amitié, et des bienfaits considerables du Roy d'Angleterre Charles II et des plus grands Seigneurs de sa Cour.” (Brothers Parfaict, “Histoire de l'Académie …,” p. 8).

It'is to be noted that, according to the brothers Parfaict (p. 15), the Duke of Monmouth, Charles II's son, had taken part in the ballet at one of the early performances of Lully's Les Fêtes de l'Amour et de Bacchus (May or June 1672).

See also: “Lorsque Lully prit possession de l'Opéra, Cambert demanda en vain quelque emploi ou / quelque dédommagement. Sablières lui proposa de partager avec lui sa charge d'intendant de la musique du due d'Orléans et un traité fut passé entre eux le 21 mars 1673, mais il resta lettre morte. Cambert partit pour l'Angleterre en 1674, et, le 3 Septembre de cette année, sa charge d'organiste de Saint-Honoré était donnée à Simon Lemaire, l'Ariane de Perrin fut représentée à Londres en 1674, et Pomone y fut également jouée.” (Laurencie, De la, Les Créateurs de l'Opéra Français, pp. 191–192)Google Scholar

“C'est de ce royaume [la France] que ees représentations [les opéras] ont passé en Angleterre. Le / sieur Cambert, qui les avoit commencées en France, les porta en ce pays-là, et fit voir plusieurs fois la Pomone, les Peines et les Plaisirs de l'Amour et quelques autres pièces qu'il avoit fait jouer à Paris quelques années auparävant.” (Père Ménestrier, Des Représentations en Musique [1681], quoted in Pougin, Arthur, Les Vrais Créateurs de l'Opéra Français… [Paris, 1881], pp. 243–44)Google Scholar

18 “Quelques personnes sont même portées à croire, j'ignore sur quels indices, que la partition d'Ariane en aurait été jouée en cette ville [Londres], après la mort de Cambert, par les soins d'un musicien français nommé Grabu, alors établi à Londres, et peut être avec quelques changements dus à ce dernier.” (Pougin, p. 256, n.)

19 A somewhat later indication, found in M me de la Roche Guilhen's Rare en Tout, 1677, seems to confirm this. Rare en Tout, the hero of the operatic comedy, is a Gascon, like most of those whom Cambert had recruited for his Paris “Academie” from the Cathedrals of Southern France: here is what Latreille, Rare en Tout's valet, says: “Aujourd'huy, Tous ceux de l'opéra sont Gascons corrime luy.” (p. 11)

20 See Anon., Dictionnaire Portatif des Théâtres … (Paris, 1754), under “Ariane”; Beauchamps, Recherches sur les Théâtres de France, quoted in Pougin, p. 244.

21 Nicoll, p. 355, quoting LC 5/140, p. 472, and Index.

22 Parfaict, Brothers, “Histoire de l'Académie …,” p. 33Google Scholar, Note.

23 Ibid., p. 31.

24 Orrell, p. 92.

25 Pougin, p. 243, n.

26 It was one of the characteristics of the privilege granted to Lully by Louis XIV for the performing of operas, that noble persons could act in them “sans déroger.” (see Parfaict, p. 13).

27 Boswell, Eleanore, The Restoration Court Stage (London: Oxford University Press, 1932), pp. 222–23, 225.Google Scholar

28 Jusserand, J.J.,(ed.), Recueil des Instructions données aux Ambassadeurs et Ministres de France… Vol. XXV, Angleterre, II, p. 165Google Scholar, quoting Archive des Affaires Etrangères, Correspondance d'Angleterre, t. CXIX, f. 24. The phrase “le Roi… bat toujours la mesure” meant, in contemporary usage, that he always conducted the music.

29 The performance at Court, on May 29th, 1677, of Mme de la Roche Guilhen's Rare en Tout, “Comedie Meslée de Musique et de Balets,” was the last attempt to bring French singers and dancers to a London Court audience. The mediocrity of the play was not balanced by the quality of the dances and voices (See LS, p. 257).

30 See Calendar of Slate Papers Domestic IV, 20: 1683 Aug. 25th s.n. Paris Lord Preston to the Earl of Sunderland: “I have received the honour of your lordship's by Mr. Betterton with his Majesty's commands to me to assist him in treating with some persons capable of representing an opera in England” (p. 288); 1683 Sept. 22nd s.n. Paris Lord Preston to His Royal Highness: “Mr. Betterton coming hither some weeks since by his Majesty's command, to endeavor to carry over ye Opera, and finding that impracticable, did treat with Monsr Grahme [was this Grabut?] to go over with him to endeavour to represent something at least like an Opera in English for his Majesty's diversion” (p. 290).

31 This article is based on a paper read September 3, 1981, at the conference of the International Federation for Modern Languages and Literatures, Arizona State University.