Jean-François Bayard

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Jean-François Alfred Bayard
(Portrait of Marie Alexandre Alophe)

Jean-François Alfred Bayard (born March 17, 1796 in Charolles , Département Saône-et-Loire , † February 20, 1853 in Paris ) was a French playwright .

Life

As a law student and later as a trainee lawyer, Bayard wrote plays in his spare time. His early work Christine ou la Reine de seize ans had great success in 1828 at the Théâtre du Gymnase in Paris. As a playwright, he was as hardworking as he was resourceful. A close friendship connected him with the theater writer Eugène Scribe , with whom he wrote some plays together and whose niece he married.

In the style of the school of Louis-Benoît Picard , he wrote witty, humorous, often sensitive, as the 19th century audience wanted to see on the stage. More than 200 pieces for various theaters were created in this way, many of them in collaboration with other authors, such as Léon-Lévy Brunswick , Michel Delaporte , Théodore Barrière , Charles Varin , Antoine-François Varner and Mélesville . Bayard was one of the most zealous contributors to the Société des Auteurs et Compositeurs Dramatiques , which was founded in 1829 to enforce the rights of authors.

In 1837, for family reasons, he was forced to accept a managerial post at the Théâtre des Variétés , which he held for only a short time, but with considerable success. After leading the theater out of an audience crisis that had displaced it from the top tier of the Parisian theater boulevard, he soon discovered that his work as a writer was incompatible with the time-consuming management work. So he resigned and made his friend, the librettist Philippe Dumanoir , his successor - a successful solution for the Théâtre des Variétés.

Also in 1837, Jean-François Alfred Bayard was appointed a member of the Légion d'honneur .

In 1839 he was able to use his royalties to purchase the Désert de Retz park .

In 1840 he wrote the libretto for the comic opera La fille du régiment by Gaetano Donizetti together with Jules-Henri Vernoy de Saint-Georges .

Bayard also wrote articles in several literary journals, as well as poems and verse dramas for anthologies . The author and book publisher Louis Hachette published Bayard's Théâtre choisi in 12 volumes from 1855 to 1858.

Works (selection)

  • La Belle-mère
  • Christine ou la Reine de seize ans
  • Les Fées de Paris
  • Marie Mignot
  • Les enfants de troupe
  • The Premières armes de Richelieu
  • La manie des places
  • La Fille de l'avare
  • Mathilde ou la jalousie
  • Le Gamin de Paris
  • La Foire aux places
  • Roman à vendre
  • Un ménage parisien
  • Un château de cartes, verse comedies
  • Le Mari à la campagne, his main work
  • Paris, Orléans et Rouen
  • Boquillon à la recherche d'un père
  • La niaise de Saint-Flour

literature

  • Gustave Vapereau : Dictionnaire universel des littératures , Hachette, Paris 1876, p. 687.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Article in the English language Wikipedia
  2. ↑ comédie-vaudeville , premiered on September 25, 1830 at the Théâtre du Vaudeville
  3. ↑ comédie-vaudeville, premiere on September 1, 1843 at the Théâtre du Palais-Royal ; Template for railway marriages by Johann Nestroy
  4. ↑ comédie-vaudeville, premiered on January 15, 1845 at the Théâtre des Variétés; Template for Unexpected by Johann Nestroy
  5. ↑ comédie-vaudeville, premiered on June 19, 1848 at the Théâtre du Gymnase
personal data
SURNAME Bayard, Jean-François
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Bayard, Jean-François Alfred
BRIEF DESCRIPTION French playwright
DATE OF BIRTH March 17, 1796
PLACE OF BIRTH Charolles , Saône-et-Loire department
DATE OF DEATH February 20, 1853
Place of death Paris