Children of the Chapel
The Children of the Chapel is a choir made up of boys with unbroken voices . They are part of the Chapel Royal and sing on the occasion of spiritual events whenever the King or Queen of England orders it. Between the 1510s and 1616 they were also active as a successful theater company. As this they dissolved and in 1626 they were re-established as a pure church choir. It still exists today.
The Children of the Chapel Royal
The Chapel Royal had an important choir. This reached its greatest height during the reign of Elizabeth I , when William Byrd and Thomas Tallis jointly held the office of royal organist. The Master of the Children possessed to 1684 on the right, especially talented Boys' Choir of the choirs of the country zwangszuverpflichten for service in the Royal Chapel. These boys' choir were also used as actors in theater productions at court until 1626 and as sopranos in performances of George Frideric Handel's oratorios and other works in the 18th century . Under King Charles II , the choir was often reinforced by strings from the royal orchestra; in addition to singers and organists, the Chapel Royal also employed composers, lutenists and viol players in its ranks.
In the late 13th century, the establishment of the Chapel Royal emerged as a local institution, whereas before, like the rest of the rest of the court , it always traveled with the monarch and held services at his place of residence. In the 17th century, the chapel had its own building in the Palace of Whitehall , which burned down in 1698; since 1702 it has been in St James's Palace.
The Chapel Royal choir claims to be the oldest continuously existing music group in the world. The children's voices in the church are intended for the voices of the angels in one's neighbor.
The young choir members, there are currently 10, are traditionally known as the "Children of the Chapel Royal" and wear the characteristic red state uniform (see also red skirt ), which was first presented in the restoration . Your former, separate training facility at St James's Palace no longer exists; the boys all attend the City of London School and receive choir lessons from the Queen . In the past, when they were still being taught within the court, they were part of court life and received many small privileges.
At that time, the choir's duties were limited to regular appearances in the monarch's chapel and upon separate request. Their sphere of activity was the two chapels of St James's Palace, but they also sang in the churches of Kensington and Buckingham Palace . The choir also participated in many state and national ceremonies, as well as in private events of the Royal Household . Today the choir consists of six men and ten young choir singers as well as an organist (here: "sub-organist").
The changing boys' choir
The Children of the Chapel (also known as the Children of Her Majesty's Chapel Royal , the Children of the Chapel Royal , the Children of the Queen's Revels , the Children of the Revels ) and the Children of the Blackfriars Theater or Children of the Blackfriars for short and finally the Children of the Whitefriars Theater or Children of the Whitefriars for short were the various names of this ensemble of child actors in the Elizabethan and Jacobean ages of England.
When James I ascended the throne in 1603, the choir of the Chapels Royal consisted of a dean , an assistant dean and a group of 32 men, which consisted of priests and lay people, and a choir of 12 boys. William Cornysh , who was the so-called “Master of the Children” from 1509 to 1523, ie the choirmaster, first began to perform plays with the boys' choir as part of the interludes at court (including “The Triumph of Love and Beauty”, originating from his pen). William Hunnis, who succeeded him in 1566, continued this tradition until 1584.
1576, when James Burbage be The Theater Built in the era of Elizabethan theater began hired the assistant Hunnis, Richard Farrant , a plot of land in the former monastery of the Blackfriars and was there with the young choir public performances. From 1584 the ensemble no longer performed at court; the reason is unknown. When another well-known boys 'choir, Children of Paul’s, under its leader John Lyly, was banned from performing in the course of the Marprelate controversy in 1590, this also had an impact on the other boys' choirs. For the next 10 years or so they could hardly perform in public or at court, including the Children of the Chapel.
When Christopher Marlowe's Dido, Queen of Carthage was published in 1594 , it was connoted "Played by the Children of Her Majesty's Chapel". However, the exact time of the performance is unknown.
From 1600 onwards, the Children of the Chapel appeared regularly on public stages. Nathaniel Giles , its director from 1597 to 1634, together with Henry Evans tenants of the Blackfriars Theater , which James Burbage built in 1596 and had the boys' choir perform here. The children also played at court (January 6th and February 22nd, 1601). You had a great success that year with the satirical comedy "The Poetaster" by Ben Jonson .
In the course of recruiting young talent, there were often questionable actions. Giles recruited new choirboys he was dying to do, in ways that were not always appropriate. The children were pressed to participate and almost kidnapped. The Master of the Children even had the right to do so. However, this right was limited to the choir, not actors. Solomon Pavy, a young actor, after whose untimely death in 1603 Ben Jonson himself gave a commendatory obituary, was one of those boys who was “pushed into service” in this self-glorious way. According to reports, this is how Nathan Field joined the choir. In one notorious case, a man named Henry Clifton brought a complaint to the Star Chamber in December 1601 alleging that Giles had abducted Clifton's young son Thomas while the boy was walking home from high school. Giles was reprimanded and Clifton got his son back.
The Children of the Chapel put on performances by Jonson, George Chapman , John Marston , Thomas Middleton and others in the years that followed; A focus here was on satirical comedies, which were aimed at the discerning at court, the so-called "court wits", and an upscale audience. These pieces contrasted with the more popular performances of William Shakespeare , Thomas Heywood , Thomas Dekkers and comparable playwrights. The theater group had a lot of success at the beginning of the century. When the throne passed to the House of Stewart , the Children of the Chapel, like other children's play troops, received royal graces and became the Children of the Queen's Revels from 1603 (the old English word "Revel", a loan word from French) for festivity).
When the troupe brought the play "Eastward Hoe" to the stage in 1605, it was all about the beautiful aristocratic title. The play was censored and two of the three authors, Jonson and Chapman, were jailed. The boys had to be content with the shortened title Children of the Revels . In 1606 they gave "The Isle of Gulls" by John Day and this piece was also sharply criticized. Then they renamed themselves after their venue in Children of the Blackfriars . But they managed to snub the king a third time two years later: In the two-parter "The Conspiracy and Tragedy of Charles, Duke of Byron" by George Chapman, they insulted the French ambassador to the court Antoine Lefèvre de la Boderie . He complained in particular about the scene in which the French queen slaps the king's lover (a scene that did not appear in the book) and enforced a game ban.
When the court was not in London, the Children of the Blackfriars played the piece anyway - in full form. The enraged king swore to the boys that “they should never play again, but first beg for their bread”. However, the king loved the theater too much and would not have kept up this decision for long. The ensemble played again at court at Christmas 1608.
In 1608 the King's Men took over the lease of the Blackfriars Theater and terminated the previous ensembles. The children's troupe moved to the newly built Whitefriars Theater in 1609 and inevitably renamed themselves to Children of the Whitefriars . In 1610, however, through the influence of their new leader, Philip Rosseters , lute player in the royal household, they were restored to the prestigious title of Children of the Queens Revel’s .
The troupe played "Epicoene, or the Silent Woman" (by Jonson) in 1609 and Nathan Fields "A Woman is a Weathercock" in 1611, both at the Whitefriars and at court. Field was also part of the cast in both plays. They played at court four times between 1612 and 1613 and performed pieces by Beaumont and Fletcher . Around 1613 they played briefly with the Lady Elizabeth's Men .
Homoeroticism
The Boy Actors playgroups performing at the Whitefriars Theater often brought homoerotic allusions to their performances , which also attracted a corresponding audience. There were literally pieces written only for the typical Whitefriars audience. For example, the legacy comedy "Epicoene" by Ben Jonson (Children of the Queen's Revels) in which a boy represents a woman willing to marry. Homosexual relationships with pleasure boys and the like are also mentioned here. a. m. indicated.
"Epicoene has a 'fascination with gender, a category of signification which, through stage conventions of crossdressing and the deployment of boy actors to play women's parts was represented as protean and ambiguous."
In the prologue to this play, the author Ben Johnson addressed the "men and daughters of Whitefriars", where he could have addressed the homosexual visitors with "men" and with "daughters" (daughters) the prostitutes of the nearby red light district, who were often in the theater looking for customers.
In "The Turke" (in full: "An Excellent Tragedy of Mulleasses the Turke, and Borgias Governor of Florence") written by the co-owner of the Whitefriars Theater, John Mason and performed by the King's Revels Children, a. addresses homosexual encounters.
The end of the drama and the present
When the lease on Whitefriars expired after seven years in 1614, they moved to the still unfinished Porter's Hall Theater the following year . There they performed their last piece, "The Scornful Lady" (a comedy by Beaumont and Fletcher). The ensemble broke up around 1616.
An assurance given to Nathaniel Giles in 1626, the year after King Jacob's death, to accept singers for the service of the Chapel Royal, stated that the children who were to be accepted should not be employed as comedians or actors, or do not perform plays, interludes, comedies or tragedies, since "it is not appropriate or decent that such things as singing in praise of the Almighty Lord be trained or used through such lascivious and profane exercises".
The Chapel Royal still exists today, but has lost its importance and charisma compared to previous centuries. Today the choir consists of six professional singers and ten choirboys.
literature
- Chambers, EK The Elizabethan Stage. 4 volumes, Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1923.
- FE Halliday A Shakespeare Companion 1564-1964. Baltimore, Penguin, 1964.
- Munro, Lucy. Children of the Queen's Revels: A Jacobean Theater Repertory. Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2005.
Individual evidence
- ^ The choir of the Chapels Royal Archived copy . Archived from the original on December 3, 2010. Retrieved September 11, 2019.
- ^ Chambers, EK The Elizabethan Stage. , Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1923. Volume 3, p. 426.
- ↑ Ioppolo, Grace. Dramatists and Their Manuscripts in the Age of Shakespeare, Jonson, Middleton, and Heywood. London, Routledge, 2006. p. 129
- ↑ Michael Shapiro “Audience vs. Dramatist in Jonson's Epicoene and other Plays of the Children's Troupes. "English Literary Renaissance 3 (1973): pp. 400-417.
- ↑ "Introduction. Enacting Gender on the English Renaissance Stage ”, Ed .: Viviana Comensoli and Anne Russell. Chicago: U of Illinois Press, 1999. 1-22.
- ↑ a b Mary Bly. "Queer Virgins and Virgin Queans on the Early Modern Stage" Oxford: Oxford UP, 2000.