Ballet: A Neglected Key to Moliére's Theatre

Abstract

When Moliere began to incorporate ballet into his comedies and to perform them at court for the entertainment of Louis XIV and his courtiers, he was building on, and radically recasting, a traditional court spectacle which had already been in vogue in France for more than a century. On her marriage to Henri II of France in 1533, Catherine de Medici had brought with her from Italy a taste for entertainment in which dancing and music were prominent, and this led to the establishment of a new genre known as 'ballet de cour'. Le Balet Comique de la Reyne (1581) was one of the earliest known attempts in France closely to combine music, poetry and dancing in one spectacle.' Beaujoyeulx, the director of court festivals, gave a predominant place to dance, using this element of the entertainment to depict Ulysses' escape from the wiles of the sorceress Circe. Marie de Medici, wife of Henri IV, maintained the tradition of court ballets with regular performances each Sunday. Her son, Louis XIII, used ballet to express and affirm his political power and authority.2 Mythological and romanesque subjects tended to predominate, giving way to a 'ballet burlesque' of more improvised character during the years 1620-36. Ballet gradually came to be regarded more as a form of social entertainment than as a magnificent spectacle mounted for royal occasions, and was increasingly performed at the Louvre, Saint-Germain, Fontainebleau, Chantilly, or in private apartments. The subject of ballet in Moliere's theatre has been accorded much less prominent treatment in comparison with other aspects of the plays. The reason for this is probably that attention tends to focus on the great and enigmatic character-comedies such as Le Tartuffe, Dom Juan, and Le Misanthrope. Beside such theatrically and philosophically substantial plays, comedies involving ballet may appear at first sight to be distinctly flimsy and unimportant in dramaturgical terms. The notion of a comic genius who was constantly thwarted in his wish to create comic masterpieces by the need to provide and at