Drame lyrique

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Program sheet of the Dame lyrique Mignon from 1866

Drame lyrique ( French , roughly "musical drama", also the literal translation "lyrical drama" occurs) is a name for French operas mainly in the 18th and 19th centuries. In the case of drame lyrique , an external operatic drama is greatly reduced, in favor of the soul conflicts in which the main characters find themselves.

Unlike Grand opéra and Opéra-comique , Drame lyrique was not associated with a Paris opera house of the same name and is therefore less sharply defined as a genre. A certain connection to the Théâtre-Lyrique Impérial (today's Théâtre de la Ville ), which opened in 1862, can be observed.

history

Drame lyrique or Scène lyrique were already called individual melodramas and sensitive or sentimental operas in the 18th century since Jean-Jacques Rousseau's Pygmalion (1770). Jean-Frédéric Edelmann and Étienne-Nicolas Méhul used this designation. It distinguishes itself from the sumptuous courtly tragédie lyrique and is related to a new bourgeois interest in the state of mind of the individual in the context of the French Revolution . These early drames lyriques (as well as the opéra-comique with which they are related) are often associated with ballet dance .

As a generic name, however , Drame lyrique only became relevant after 1860, when the competition between Grand opéra and Opéra-comique , which had dominated Parisian opera life since around 1830, had weakened. The drame lyrique is differentiated from Richard Wagner's musically more massive musical drama and from the blatant drama of the verismo opera, but also takes up elements from them. Giuseppe Verdi (e.g. La traviata , 1853) suggested the creation of this genre . For this genre from the second half of the 19th century, the term Opéra lyrique is occasionally used .

The narcissistic heroes from Faust (1859) by Charles Gounod , from Mignon (1866) by Ambroise Thomas or Werther by Jules Massenet (1892) are characteristic of the drame lyrique. Claude Debussy made it an impressionist art form with Pelléas et Mélisande (1902), replacing its sentimentality with a kind of psychoanalytic coolness. Giacomo Puccini incorporated features of the drame lyrique into his operas. The avant-garde at the beginning of the 20th century increasingly rejected this art form.

literature

  • Sieghart Döhring, Sabine Henze-Döhring: Opera and music drama in the 19th century (= handbook of musical genres. Vol. 13), Laaber, Laaber 2016. ISBN 978-3-89007-136-7