Henri Guichard, Sieur d'Hérapine

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Henri Guichard, Sieur d'Hérapine (* around 1634/35 in Paris , † around 1705) was a French architect and librettist .

Life

Henri Guichard was the son of a valet of Gaston d'Orléans , the younger brother of Louis XIII. Although he was orphaned by the age of eleven, he remained connected to the House of Orléans, as some of his relatives served there. After training with the Jesuits, Guichard was able to take over the office of "surintendant et commissaire général des vivres des camps et armées du Roy" in 1657, as well as that of "intendant et ordonnateur quatriennal des bastiments du Roy" until 1667. In 1668 he was appointed "conseiller d'Etat" and in 1671 as "gentilhomme ordinaire de Monsieur ". In 1658 he had married Jeanne Le Vau, daughter of the well-known architect Louis Le Vau . Since he barbarously beat her, the 60,000 livres dowry and the prospect of an inheritance may have been the reason for his solicitation. Nor did he shrink from breaking into his father-in-law. Molière knew Guichard quite well and may have given the title character of Tartuffe some of his characteristics.

What made Guichard interesting for the House of Orléans was his urge to organize plays of all kinds by all means. The marriage of King Louis XIV's brother Philip of Orléans to Liselotte von der Pfalz , where Guichard also wrote the text for the opera Les amours de Diane et d'Endymion, which was ordered in October 1671 - the music came from Jean de Granouilhet, sieur de Sablières , "intendant de la musique de Monsieur". Performed on November 3, 1671 in Versailles , the opera was also liked by the king, who ordered another opera from both of them for the 1672 Carnival. The result was Le Triomphe de l'amour , one in the 18 February 1672 Saint-Germain-en-Laye listed Pastorale that actually only one with choreographed interludes was enriched version of the Opera from the previous autumn.

Up until then, the king's favorite composer, Jean-Baptiste Lully , had enjoyed satisfying current tastes at court and was averse to opera - the French language was hardly suitable for large pieces. The fact that Pomone, the first French opera in Paris, was a success, may have been uncomfortable for him; that the opera had now arrived at court forced him to act. Pomone librettist Pierre Perrin had founded a music academy with royal privilege, but two windy business partners initially left him no money to pay bills and then thwarted his attempt to liquidate by selling his rights to Sablières and Guichard. All this did not fit with Colbert's request to increase prestige through the music academy of the king, which is why the institute fell to Lully on March 16, 1672 as the "Académie royale de musique". Two pieces written together with Madame de Villedieu - Céphale et Procris and Circé et Ulysse - Guichard tried to have Lully set to music in 1674, but in vain. In order to be able to perform pieces with a popular tendency, he had the king grant him the privilege of founding an “Académie royale des spectacles”. A musical contribution was required to make the pieces so pleasant, again Lully's consent, which the latter refused. Guichard still managed to contract Lully's stage decorator Carlo Vigarani when the "affaire Guichard" relaxed shortly afterwards, fitting the " poison affair " of those days - Guichard himself was suspected of having poisoned his father-in-law Le Vau.

The key figure in the affair was Marie Aubry , Guichards maîtresse (he treated no better than his wife) and the daughter of Sébastien Aubry (Molière supporter in his early years). She informed Lully of a plan hatched by Guichard and her brother in January 1675 to poison him with arsenic mixed in tobacco. Lully filed a complaint, called for justice from the king, and Guichard was incarcerated in Châtelet for 15 months. As a partner for his acting academy, he replaced Vigarani, who had turned away from him, in 1678 by Jean-Louis Gilbert de Coussecourt, "commissaire ordinaire de la Marine". Lully won a three-year trial, Guichard's appeal hearing, without being able to save his privileges and jobs.

In 1679 Guichard went to Spain, wanted to establish an opera house there in the service of the king and queen and failed. He was accompanied by the highly talented singer Anne Boscreux , whom he, like Vigarani, had removed from Lully's troupe. Back in France, Valence was his first stop, where he played a key role in the repression of the Protestants. He was nicknamed "La Rapine" (robbery) by the Huguenots . He went to Grenoble in 1687 as a result of a trial against him. The year 1701 saw him again as "Intendant de l'hôpital général" in Valence, the position being that of a prison director. In 1703 Jean-Féry Rebels Ulysse was given at the Paris Opera , with Guichard's text and little success. He continued to spread terror in Valence and disappeared with the prison treasury.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Patricia Ranum: Lully plays deaf: reading the evidence on his privilege . In: John Hajdu Heyer (Ed.): Lully Studies , Cambridge 2000, p. 19.
  2. ↑ a b c d Denise Launay: Guichard, Henri, Sieur d'Hérapine . In: Ludwig Finscher (Hrsg.): The music in past and present. Person part 8 . Bärenreiter Verlag, second, revised edition, Kassel u. a. 2000, p. 218.
  3. ↑ Jérôme de La Gorce: L'Opéra à Paris au temps de Louis XIV.Histoire d'un théâtre , Paris 1992, p. 26.
  4. ↑ Jean-Claude Brenac: De l'arsenic dans la tabatière, website "operabaroque.fr", March 2007
  5. ↑ a b c d e f Philippe Beaussant : Lully ou Le Musicien du Soleil . Gallimard, Paris 1992, ISBN 2-07-072478-6 , pp. 568-570.
  6. ↑ Jérôme de La Gorce: L'Opéra à Paris au temps de Louis XIV.Histoire d'un théâtre , Paris 1992, p. 25.
  7. ↑ Jérôme de La Gorce: L'Opéra à Paris au temps de Louis XIV.Histoire d'un théâtre , Paris 1992, p. 30.
  8. ↑ Jérôme de La Gorce: L'Opéra à Paris au temps de Louis XIV.Histoire d'un théâtre , Paris 1992, p. 27.
  9. ↑ Jérôme de La Gorce: L'Opéra à Paris au temps de Louis XIV.Histoire d'un théâtre , Paris 1992, p. 31.
  10. ^ A b Jérôme de La Gorce: L'Opéra à Paris au temps de Louis XIV.Histoire d'un théâtre , Paris 1992, p. 58.
  11. ↑ Jérôme de La Gorce: L'Opéra à Paris au temps de Louis XIV.Histoire d'un théâtre , Paris 1992, p. 59.
  12. ↑ Jérôme de La Gorce: L'Opéra à Paris au temps de Louis XIV. Histoire d'un théâtre , Paris 1992, p. 57.
  13. ↑ 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. 196.
  14. ↑ Henri Guichard d'Hérapine (Biographical details) Website "britishmuseum.org" (accessed July 20, 2019)

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Guichard, Henri Sieur d'Hérapine
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Guichard, Henry
BRIEF DESCRIPTION French architect and librettist
DATE OF BIRTH around 1634 or around 1635
PLACE OF BIRTH Paris
DATE OF DEATH around 1705