Feerie

The Feerie (also: Féerie , French "magic world") is a theater genre that emerged around 1800 and has been very popular, especially since the 1870s. It has its origin on the Parisian stages (for example in the Théâtre de l'Ambigu-Comique ) or in the English pantomime .

definition

The expression can refer to a fairy-tale-like content ( fairy tale ), but for the time being it means a piece of equipment that uses historical, exotic or fantastic materials as an excuse to go to great lengths with stage design and costumes as well as with sophisticated stage technology . Medieval-historical (" romantic ") subjects replace the traditional remains of the baroque theater : In the fair, the Greco-Roman mythological figures such as furies and satyrs are pushed back or abolished and replaced by fairy tale characters. This looked very modern at the end of the 18th century.

The term Feerie often appears in connections such as féerie-ballet or opéra-féerie . The boundaries to ballet , operetta , theater melodrama or the revue after 1900 are fluid. The US equivalent of the Feerie is called Extravaganza .

Examples

Models were, for example, Carlo Gozzi's fairy tales such as Turandot (1762). A “classic” example of a holiday is La Belle au bois dormant ( Sleeping Beauty ), which has appeared in innumerable variations on European stages from the version by D'Arnould-Mussot (1777) to Tchaikovsky's ballet Sleeping Beauty (1890). Jacques Offenbach's Die Reise zum Mond ( The Journey to the Moon) , 1876, is a modernist fair. Adolphe d'Ennery and Auguste Anicet-Bourgeois are important authors of the fair .

Since 1920, the Feerie has increasingly been replaced by historical , monumental or costume films . - Musicals often still contain elements of the Feerie like Richard Rodgers ' The King and I , 1952.

literature

• Ulrich Schreiber: Opera guide for advanced II: The 19th century , Verlag Bärenreiter 2000, ISBN 3-7618-1028-8