The citizen as a nobleman

Data
Title:	The citizen as a nobleman
Original title:	Le Bourgeois gentilhomme
Genus:	Ballet comedy
Original language:	French
Author:	Molière
Music:	Jean-Baptiste Lully
Publishing year:	1671
Premiere:	October 14, 1670
Place of premiere:	Chambord Castle
Place and time of the action:	Paris, mid 17th century
people
Monsieur Jourdain , bourgeois. Madame Jourdain , sa femme. Lucile , fille de M. Jourdain. Nicole , servante. Cléonte , amoureux de Lucile. Covielle , valet de Cléonte. Dorante , comte, amant de Dorimène. Dorimène , marquise. Maître de musique . Maître à danser . Maître d'armes . Maître de philosophy . Maître tailleur . u. a.

The citizen as nobleman (original title: Le Bourgeois gentilhomme ) is a ballet comedy by Molière (Jean-Baptiste Poquelin 1622–1673) and the composer Jean-Baptiste Lully , the culmination of the collaboration between the two. The first performance took place on October 14, 1670 in front of the court of King Louis XIV in Chambord Castle , with Pierre Beauchamp contributing the ballets. The title role took over, skinny and already visibly ill, Molière, Lully played the mufti. The comedy is a social satire from the time of Molière and is set in Paris. The figure of the citizen is typical of the hypocrisy of that time , but also nowadays, since the citizen type is still alive for a long time. The comedy does exactly what Molière intended: it is better to laugh and live than to be angry and annoying with grief.

action

The wealthy but rather simple-minded businessman Monsieur Jourdain in Paris would like to become a member of the aristocracy because he does not like his bourgeois existence. In order to train himself as a future noble lord, he employs a music teacher, a dance teacher, a fencing master and a philosopher and also a tailor with his journeymen. He wants to make his pretty daughter Lucile marquise by trying to marry her to a nobleman, but Lucile loves Cléonte, a middle-class merchant whom she wants to marry against her father's will. He himself falls in love with an elegant marquise and advertises politely by giving her plenty of presents. Dorante, an impoverished nobleman, intrigues in the love affair with the revered Marquise Dorimène and covers his own debts. Jourdain's wife criticizes his silly charity and suspects that the noble couple is playing the wrong way with him and his money. Jourdain, the noble bourgeoisie, is ultimately the victim of an ingenious family plot. Cléonte realizes that he can only marry Lucile if Monsieur Jourdain allows it, and so he now appears as the son of a sovereign Turkish ambassador in order to finally secure the marriage. In a festive act, Monsieur Jourdain is finally appointed "Mamamouchi" (a word created by Molière) by a mufti and a double wedding is celebrated, because Lucile's maid has found the right husband, the valet of Cléonte.

Historical context of the formation

From the 16th century onwards, a political friendship had developed between France and the Sublime Porte , which cooled sharply in 1669 as France continually supported the opponents of the Ottoman Empire in the defense of Candia . The Sultan therefore sent Suleyman Aga from his entourage with a letter to the French court. He was initially received by Foreign Minister Hugues de Lionne , but insisted on a personal meeting with the king. This took place on December 5th and Süleyman Aga expected that Louis XIV would rise in honor of the sultan, which he did not. Louis XIV, on the other hand, hoped that Aga would deliver the credentials of an extraordinary ambassador. The Sun King therefore stiffened on the strange idea of ​​receiving the Ottoman ambassador in Ottoman ceremonial - including sumptuous honorary robes, divan and taburet on a raised dais , perfume, coffee and sherbet . A message of greeting was not mentioned in Aga's letter, which led Louis XIV to angrily cut short the meeting. Aga, in turn, understood this as an affront. When he was asked afterwards what impression the French king had made on him, he replied that “his master's horse would be much more richly decorated if he went to Friday prayers.” He publicly ridiculed the king's exaggerated contingent whose annoyance added. In short - the meeting ended with mutual dissatisfaction, and the French king commissioned Molière and Lully to make fun of the Ottoman Empire in such a way that a cérémonie turque would be staged on the stage . Le Bourgeois gentilhomme was built around this scene, which sometimes serves as an explanation for dramaturgical weaknesses. However, those citizens who paid admiring attention to Suleyman Aga during his stay were also ridiculed. Molière and Lully were supported in their work by the Chevalier Laurent d'Arvieux , who had returned in 1665 from a twelve-year trip to the Orient. The "Turkish consecration" resembled a dervish rite he described. As far as the wearing of a headgear is concerned, Molière's critics at court wanted to recognize a similarity with an episcopal ordination .

Molière was also not well-disposed among the ministers to Jean-Baptiste Colbert . Nevertheless, he dared to write a sentence in the play that reveals Monsieur Jourdain to be the son of a cloth merchant. The audience at the first performance in Paris on November 23, 1670 must have known that this was also the case for Colbert. Pierre Perrin , who had received the privilege to found an opera academy in 1669 , was sponsored by Colbert . One point against him was the little song he wrote that Molière lets his protagonist sing in the second scene of the first act:

“I thought Hannchen was
as beautiful as virtuous;
I thought Hannchen was
much gentler than a lamb. "

Carlo Vigarani had hastily had a makeshift theater built for the premiere in Chambord, which was then used for years. He was unable to exhaust his repertoire of possible stage sets because of the spatial conditions, and so the costumes designed by Henri de Gissey according to d'Arvieux's instructions attracted increased attention from the audience.

expenditure

The work was first published in 1670 by Robert Ballard , the dialogues with separate sung texts ( " livret " ). In 1671 the publisher Pierre Le Monnier published an edition that summarized both. Finally, a Molière edition was added in 1682, in which new text to be sung and more detailed scene instructions were included. It is unclear whether the new songs were composed by Lully.

Edits

• The ballet suite Der Bürger als Edelmann and Ariadne auf Naxos by Richard Strauss (1912) was created as an insert in Hugo von Hofmannsthal's adaptation of the piece .
• As a play by Michail Bulgakow ( Der verrückte Jourdain , 1932), which in turn served as the basis for an opera in three acts by Fritz Geißler in 1970/71 .
• As a ballet comedy by the ensemble “Le Poème Harmonique” (2004).
• As a pantomime with the title "Mandragora" (1920) by Karol Szymanowski
• The Revue Bourgeois remains Bourgeois by Ernst Toller and Walter Hasenclever consists half of a relatively faithful adaptation of the Bourgeois gentilhomme , the other half of a modernization of the piece to the circumstances of the time it was written around 1929.

Adaptation

• The citizen as a nobleman. Director: Wilhelm Semmelroth , adaptation: Hugo von Hofmannsthal , Hartmann Goertz , participants: Hermann Thimig , Chariklia Baxevanos , Peter René Körner , Romuald Pekny , Eva Petrus , Hanns Ernst Jäger , Alfred Balthoff , Hermann Pfeiffer , Paul Bürks ; Singing: Concert Association of the Vienna State Opera Choir, music: Mozarteum Orchestra Salzburg under the direction of Ernst Märzendorfer, 90 min., NWDR / RSB / RB / ORF 1955

literature

• Michel Pougeoise: Le bourgeois gentilhomme. Series of Balises Oeuvres. Fernand Nathan, Paris 1999 a. ö. ISBN 2-09-180747-8

Web links

Commons : The citizen as nobleman  - collection of pictures, videos and audio files

• The Citizen as a Nobleman : Sheet Music and Audio Files in the International Music Score Library Project

Individual evidence

1. ^ Jérôme de La Gorce and Herbert Schneider (eds.): Jean-Baptiste Lully. Oeuvres Complètes. Series II. Volume 4 , Georg Olms Verlag, Hildesheim u. a. 2006, p. XLV.
2. ^ Ekkehard Eickhoff: Venice, Vienna and the Ottomans. Change in Southeast Europe 1645–1700 . Stuttgart 1988, p. 285 .
3. ^ Ekkehard Eickhoff: Venice, Vienna and the Ottomans. Change in Southeast Europe 1645–1700 . Stuttgart 1988, p. 286 .
4. ↑ Michael F. Klinkenberg: The image of the Orient in French literature and painting from the 17th century to the fin de siècle. Universitätsverlag Winter, Heidelberg 2009, pp. 93-102
5. ^ Thomas Betzwieser: Exotism and "Turkish Opera" in the French music of the Ancien Régime. Laaber-Verlag, Laaber 1993, pp. 125-133
6. ^ Johannes Hösle: Molière. His life, his work, his time. Piper Verlag, Munich 1987, ISBN 3-492-02781-4 , p. 287.
7. ^ Emmanuel Haymann: Lulli , Flammarion, Paris 1991, p. 113.
8. ^ Molière: The citizen as a nobleman. Comedy with dances in five acts , ( Le Bourgeois gentilhomme , Paris 1670, German), trans. by DLB Wolff, in: Louis Lax (Hrsg.): Molière's all works , Aachen and Leipzig 1837, p. 190. (Je croyais Jeanneton / Aussi douce que belle; / Je croyais Jeanneton / Plus douce qu'un mouton.)
9. ↑ Jérôme de La Gorce: Carlo Vigarani, intendant des plaisirs de Louis XIV. Editions Perrin / Etablissement public du musée et du domaine national de Versailles, 2005, p. 101.
10. ↑ Herbert Schneider: On the versions and musical sources of the Bourgeois gentilhomme by J.-B. Lully . In: Jérôme de La Gorce and Herbert Schneider (eds.): Source studies on Jean-Baptiste Lully. L'œuvre de Lully: Etudes des sources , Georg Olms Verlag, Hildesheim u. a. 1999, pp. 175-199.

Remarks

1. ↑ La vie de Molière * Chronologie * L'oeuvre de Molière * Sommaire du texte * Les personnages * Résumés et commentaires * Synthèse littéraire * La genèse et l'histoire de la pièce * L'apothéose de la comédie-ballet * La comédie de moeurs * La composition de la pièce * Quelques citations * Jugements critiques * Plans et sujets de travaux scolaires