From ballet de cour to tragedie en musique

Abstract

Among the many treasures accumulated by Baron Ferdinand de Rothschild at his 19th-century country estate of Waddesdon Manor, Buckinghamshire, is a luxurious volume containing many of the original costume and set designs for the Ballet royal de la Nuict. This work, which appeared in 1653 in the wake of the period of civil war known as the Fronde, has a particular significance in marking the young Louis XIV’s first personification of the Sun, thus assuring his sobriquet le roi soleil. It also heralded a new era in the development of the ballet de cour in which all aspects—dance, verse and staging—were exploited to assert the monarch’s authority. This was clearly an extraordinary event: the combined actions of the 43 entrées occupied at least twelve hours in more-or-less real time, from 6 p.m. until sunrise the next day. The entrées are grouped into four Watches, which deal respectively with the end of the day’s activities; the evening’s entertainments (including a play-within-a-play); the horrors and perils of the night; and preparations for daybreak, leading up to Louis’s climactic appearance as the rising Sun. The cast-list names 150 characters, these ranging from classical deities to ‘modern’ low-life characters, among them beggars, footpads and amputees.