Love as a doctor

Love as a doctor , original title: L'Amour médecin , is a comedy in three acts by the French poet Molière . The first performance took place on September 14, 1665 in front of King Louis XIV in the Palace of Versailles , the public premiere on September 22 of the same year in the Palais Royal in Paris . In this ballet comedy there was an extensive collaboration between Molière and the composer Jean-Baptiste Lully for the first time .

The piece contains a traditional love intrigue, but is above all a satire on the medical profession. Molière's comedy served as the basis for the opera of the same name, L'amore medico by Ermanno Wolf-Ferrari .

action

1st act

Lucinde suffers from an inexplicable depression . To cheer her up, her father Sganarelle promises the fulfillment of all her wishes. However, when she tries to explain to him that she wants to marry her lover, the father rejects this wish and storms off the stage angrily. In a monologue he admits that he cannot bear to lose his daughter to another man who would inherit all of his property. Lucinde and her servant Lisette decide to cheat Sganarelle, whereupon Lucinde becomes ill and her father is forced to call for doctors.

2nd act

Four doctors have gathered, talking about their daily errands and praising the quality of their mounts . When Sganarelle asked how his daughter was, differences of opinion about diagnosis and therapy emerged : Dr. Tomès recommends bloodletting , while Des Fonandrès prefers emetics . After the two left the stage in anger, the two remaining colleagues Bahys and Macroton inform the patient's father about further therapy options. His daughter would probably die anyway, but he could comfort himself with the fact that the rules of conventional medicine had definitely been observed beforehand . In his desperation, Sganarelle turns to a quack on the street and buys the panacea Orvietan from him .

3rd act

A fifth doctor, Dr. Filerin, accuses his colleagues of ruining the reputation of the medical profession with their careless disagreement. Clitandre, Lucinde's lover, now appears disguised as a doctor and immediately heals Lucinde of her ailment. He explains to Sganarelle that it is a case of mental illness, combined with a reprehensible marriage wish. In order to counteract this weakness and to cheer up the patient, he told her that he was ready to marry her. Sganarelle agrees and signs a contract in front of the notary in which he promises the couple 20,000 thalers. Lisette surprises him with the news that the marriage was not a pretend game, but had actually taken place. Because of his anger, the bride's father is held back by the dancers and musicians who play for the wedding.

Satire of the medical profession

In this piece, Molière criticizes the medical profession with a harshness never seen before. He depicts the five medical professionals who appear as greedy grocer souls who literally walk over corpses in the exercise of their profession and who consider compliance with formalities to be more important than saving the lives of patients. These are portraits of actually existing contemporaries whose names were graced by Nicolas Boileau at Molière's request . Des Fonandrès, for example, is a caricaturing representation of Élie Bédé des Fougerais (1599–1667), the personal physician of Liselotte von der Pfalz , the sister-in-law of the "Sun King".

Web links

Wikisource: L'Amour Médecin - Sources and full texts (French)