Louis de Cahusac

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A year after Cahusac's death, a German translation of the play Zénéïde was published in Leipzig (first published in Paris 1743).

Louis de Cahusac (born April 6, 1706 in Montauban , † June 22, 1759 in Paris ) was a French playwright and librettist and one of the main contributors to the Encyclopédie for the topics of dance, music and festivals. He is best known for his longstanding collaboration with the French composer Jean-Philippe Rameau , for whom Cahusac wrote a series of librettos .

life and work

Early years

Louis de Cahusac grew up in Montauban in southwest France. His ancestors had been in the service of the French king and were clerics, officers and lawyers. His father, a prominent lawyer, had him educated at the Jesuit college in Montauban and later sent him to Toulouse , where Louis de Cahusac completed his legal training. He then returned to Montauban, practiced there for a short time as a lawyer and later entered the service of the artistic director , intendants de la généralité de Limoges of Montauban , Pierre Pajot de Nozereau (1691–1772) as secretary .

Turning to literature

Cahusac's strong inclination towards literature is documented for the first time in 1730. He was one of the co-founders of the literary society Sociétée littéraire de Montauban , which was later converted into an "Académie". At the same time he began to work literarily. In 1736 his play Pharamond was performed by the Comédie-Française . With twelve performances in Paris and one at the Versailles court, the piece was only moderately successful. The financial income as an author was insufficient to secure a life in the capital for Cahusac, who had meanwhile moved to Paris. So he returned to Montauban in the service of Intendant Pajot and later followed him to Orléans . Around 1740, however, Cahusac fell out with Pajot and returned to Paris. As recently as 1739, in his work Epître sur les dangers de la poésie (Eng. Epistle on the dangers of poetry ), he had left out about the difficulties of making a living with poetry.

On the way to becoming a writer

According to Frank A. Kafker, it is unclear how Cahusac initially kept himself afloat after his return to Paris. In 1742 he joined the entourage of the Count of Clermont and, as sécrétaire des commandements, was empowered to sign documents in Clermont's name. In the same year Cahusac's next play appeared with the Compte de Warwick . The tragedy was staged again by the Comédie-Française, but the premiere had to be canceled due to considerable ridicule from the audience. A year later, Cahusac's comedy Zénéïde , an adaptation of the play of the same name by Claude-Henri Watelet (1718–1786), was more successful . In 1744, L'Algérien, a comédie-ballet in three acts, was published in which Cahusac discussed the recovery of the French king after a severe wound and which was more popular.

After accompanying the Count of Clermont for some time during the War of the Austrian Succession , Cahusac decided to give up his position in order to devote himself exclusively to writing. In the Minister of State Louis Phélypeaux de Saint-Florentin (1705–1777) he found a sponsor who gave him a state pension of 2,000 livres . Kafker suspects that Madame de Pompadour was also one of Cahusac's patrons.

Librettist Rameaus: Cahusac's most fruitful creative period

Title page of the first volume of Cahusac's treatise on the art of dance (Paris 1754)

Cahusac's most fruitful creative period began in 1745, when Jean-Philippe Rameau , one of the most famous French composers of the time, accepted Cahusac's libretto for Les Fêtes de Polymnie (Opéra-Ballet, 1745). This was the prelude to a collaboration that lasted almost nine years, which was reflected in a series of opera and ballet libretti. The works set by Rameau included Les Fêtes de l'Hymen et de l'Amour (Opéra-Ballet, 1747), Zaïs (Pastorale Héroïque, 1748), Naïs ou le Triomphe de la Paix (Pastorale Héroïque, 1748), Zoroastre ( Tragédie lyrique, written in 1747 but not performed until 1749), La Naissance d'Osiris ou la Fête de Pamilie (Acte de Ballet, 1754) and Anacréon (Acte de Ballet, 1754).

Some of these productions were very expensive. The first performance of the opera Zoroastre in 1749 cost the city of Paris between 40,000 and 50,000 livres . Giacomo Casanova translated Zoroastre into German and helped ensure that the play was performed at the Royal Theater in Dresden (where Casanova's mother was an actress). The success of the production brought Cahusac to the Royal Prussian Academy of Sciences between 1751 and 1753 .

Frank A. Kafker writes that Rameau's music for the operas surpassed Cahusac's texts, but that Cahusac had a lightness of poetry, a taste for representation and some inventive ideas. Rameau's biographer Cuthbert Girdlestone sees Cahusac as a forerunner of Calzabigis and Gluck in that he knew how to link the dance interludes with the plot, so that the musical interludes reinforced the plot instead of interrupting it.

During this period, Cahusac turned to other literary forms. The plot of his "Roman exotique" Grigri , published anonymously in 1749 , set in a fictional royal court and mocked the high nobility, politicians and courtiers. Kafker assumes that this ridicule was intended to amuse the audience; however, it cannot be ruled out that this was precisely why Cahusac stood before the court as a suspect in 1749. A year later, however, he was appointed royal censor, so that there should have been no doubt about his loyalty.

In 1754 Cahusac published La danse ancienne et modern ou Traité historique de la danse, a treatise on the art of dance in which he first provides a chronologically structured history of dance in order to develop his own poetics of the art of dance. Obviously, the traité was widely used during Cahusac's lifetime: his biographer Soleville writes that Cahusac's treatise was not missing in any theater library at the time.

Contributor to the Encyclopédie

Cahusac incorporated parts of his Traité into his contributions to the Encyclopédie . In total, he wrote more than 120 articles for the first eight volumes of the Encyclopédie . His main subject areas were dance, musical theater and festivals. In addition, he contributed a number of articles on subjects such as singing, voice, literature, stage machinery, and theater decoration. He was not very critical of the church or the French king: the article Danse sacrée is in a respectful tone of religion, in Festins royaux Cahusac praises Louis XV. with the words:

“ Jamais monarque n'a gouverné ses peuples avec autant de douceur; jamais peuples also not été si tendrement attachés à leur roi. "

“Never has a monarch ruled his people with so much gentleness; the people were never so closely bound to their king. "

- Louis de Cahusac : Encyclopédie , Volume 6, p. 564.

Modern commentators rate Cahusac's contributions to the Encyclopédie extremely positively. In his volume The Encyclopedists as critics of music , published in 1947, Alfred R. Oliver wrote that the articles on dance were consistently well documented and showed a professional interest in the progress of art. And about the article Execution , Oliver says that nowhere else in eighteenth-century literature is there such a clear and concise account of the beginnings of French opera as in Cahusac.

Last years and death

Cahusac's last few years have been tragic. Despite a good financial security of around 8,000 livres annually, his state of mind was apparently never particularly happy. This was made worse when Madame de Pompadour withdrew her favor and the opera soprano Marie Fel turned down his marriage proposal. Finally, in 1759, Cahusac went mad, was briefly admitted to the Charenton asylum and died soon after his release in Paris.

Fonts (selection)

Plays
  • Pharamond (1736)
  • Le Comte de Warwick (1742)
  • Zénéïde (1743)
  • L'Algérien (1744)
Libretti
  • Les Fêtes de Polymnie (1745)
  • Les Fêtes de l'Hymen et de l'Amour (1747), available online through Gallica , the French National Library's digitization project
  • Zaïs (1748)
  • Naïs ou le Triomphe de la Paix (1748)
  • Zoroastre (written 1747, first performed in 1749), available online through Gallica
  • La Naissance d'Osiris ou la Fête de Pamilie (1754)
  • Anacréon (1754), available online through Gallica
novel
Representations
  • Epître sur les dangers de la poésie (1739), available online through Gallica
  • La danse ancienne et Moderne ou Traité historique de la danse (1754), available online through Gallica
Lexicon article

For a list of the contributions to the Encyclopédie made by Cahusac, see the Web Links section below. Cahusac's contributions are marked in the Encyclopédie with the letter "B".

literature

  • Emmanuel de Soleville: Louis de Cahusac, poète dramatique , in: Emerand Forestié (ed.), Biographie de Tarn-et-Garonne, Montauban 1860, pp. 201–239 (contains a catalog raisonné).
  • Cahusac, Louis de , in: Frank Arthur Kafker, The encyclopedists as individuals: a biographical dictionary of the authors of the Encyclopédie, Oxford 1988, ISBN 0-7294-0368-8 , pp. 79-82 (there also references to further literature ).
  • Alfred R. Oliver: The Encyclopedists as critics of music , New York 1947.
  • Stefanie Schroedter: From "Affect" to "Action". Source studies on the poetics of dance art from the late Ballet de Cour to the early Ballet en Action , Würzburg 2004, ISBN 3-8260-2538-5 .

Web links

Wikisource: Louis de Cahusac  - Sources and full texts (French)
Commons : Louis de Cahusac  - Collection of Images, Videos and Audio Files

Remarks

  1. ↑ Kafker notes that both Cahusac's date of birth and the spelling of his name are inconsistently reproduced in the literature. Kafker, The Encyclopedists as Individuals , p. 81.
  2. ↑ Frank A. Kafker: Notices sur les auteurs of dix-sept volumes de "discours" de l'Encyclopédie. Research on Diderot et sur l'Encyclopédie. 1989, Volume 7, Numéro 7, p. 134
  3. ↑ Soleville refers to archival documents according to which Cahusac had a decisive influence on the establishment of the Sociétée littéraire . Soleville, Louis de Cahusac , p. 203.
  4. ↑ Kafker, The Encyclopedists as individuals , S. 79th
  5. ↑ Kafker, The Encyclopedists as Individuals , p. 80.
  6. ↑ Kafker, The Encyclopedists as Individuals , p. 80.
  7. ^ "Rameau's music for these operas outclassed Cahusac's words, but Cahusac did have a facility for poetry, a taste for display, and some innovative ideas". Kafker, The Encyclopedists as Individuals , p. 80.
  8. ^ "[Cahusac] sought to unite dancing with plot so that the interludes enhanced the action instead of breaking into it; he was in this respect a forerunner of Calzabigi and Gluck ". Cuthbert Girdlestone, Jean-Philippe Rameau: his life and work , London 1957, p. 274.
  9. ↑ Kafker, The Encyclopedists as Individuals , p. 80.
  10. ↑ On Cahusac and his Traité cf. Schroedter, Source Studies on the Poetics of Dance Art , pp. 98-106 and passim.
  11. ↑ Soleville, Louis de Cahusac , p. 231; Schroedter believes that this statement should be believed. Schroedter, Source Studies on the Poetics of Dance Art , p. 103f. Footnote 200.
  12. ↑ Kafker refers here primarily to the articles Danse des funérailles and Danse sacrée . Kafker, The Encyclopedists as Individuals , p. 80.
  13. ^ "[Cahusacs articles on dance are] on the whole [...] well documented and show a professional interest in the advance of the art". Alfred R. Oliver, The Encyclopedists as critics of music , p. 75
  14. ^ "Nowhere else in an eighteenth-century work is such a clear, concise rendering of the inception of French opera". Alfred R. Oliver, The Encyclopedists as critics of music , p. 75
  15. ↑ Kafker, The Encyclopedists as Individuals , p. 81.
personal data
SURNAME Cahusac, Louis de
BRIEF DESCRIPTION French playwright, librettist, royal censor and contributor to the Encyclopédie
DATE OF BIRTH April 6, 1706
PLACE OF BIRTH Montauban
DATE OF DEATH June 22, 1759
Place of death Paris