In France, as in Italy, the regular musical drama was preceded by
mysteries, masks, and religious plays, which introduced short musical
parts, as also action, mechanical effects, and dancing. The ballet,
however, where dancing was the prominent feature, remained for a long
time the favourite amusement of the French court until the advent of
Jean Baptiste Lulli. The young Florentine, after having served in the
king's band, was promoted to be its chief, and the composer of the
music of the court ballets. Lulli, born in 1633, was bought of his
parents by Chevalier de Guise, and sent to Paris as a present to
Mdlle. de Montpensier, the king's niece. His capricious mistress,
after a year or two, deposed the boy of fifteen from the position of
page to that of scullion; but Count Nogent, accidentally hearing him
sing and struck by his musical talent, influenced the princess to
place him under the care of good masters. Lulli made such rapid
progress that he soon commenced to compose music of a style superior
to that before current in divertisements of the French court.
The name of Philippe Quinault is closely associated with the musical
career of Lulli; for to the poet the musician was indebted for his
best librettos. Born at Paris in 1636, Quinault's genius for poetry
displayed itself at an early age. Before he was twenty he had written
several successful comedies. Though he produced many plays, both
tragedies and comedies, well known to readers of French poetry, his
operatic poems are those which have rendered his memory illustrious.
He died on November 29, 1688. It is said that during his last illness
he was extremely penitent on account of the voluptuous tendency of his
works. All his lyrical dramas are full of beauty, but "Atys,"
"Phaëton," "Isis," and "Armide" have been ranked the highest. "Armide"
was the last of the poet's efforts, and Lulli was so much in love with
the opera, when completed, that he had it performed over and over
again for his own pleasure without any other auditor. When "Atys" was
performed first in 1676, the eager throng began to pour in the theatre
at ten o'clock in the morning, and by noon the building was filled.
The King and the Count were charmed with the work in spite of the
bitter dislike of Boileau, the Aristarchus of his age. "Put me in a
place where I shall not be able to hear the words," said the latter to
the box-keeper; "I like Lulli's music very much, but have a sovereign
contempt for Quinault's words." Lulli obliged the poet to write
"Armide" five times over, and the felicity of his treatment is proved
by the fact that Gluck afterwards set the same poem to the music which
is still occasionally sung in Germany.
Lulli in the course of his musical career became so great a favourite
with the King that the originally obscure kitchen-boy was ennobled. He
was made one of the King's secretaries in spite of the loud murmurs of
this pampered fraternity against receiving into their body a player
and a buffoon. The musician's wit and affability, however, finally
dissipated these prejudices, especially as he was wealthy and of
irreproachable character.
The King having had a severe illness in 1686, Lulli composed a "Te
Deum" in honour of his recovery. When this was given, the musician, in
beating time with great ardour, struck his toe with his baton. This
brought on a mortification, and there was great grief when it was
announced that he could not recover. The Princes de Vendôme lodged
four thousand pistoles in the hands of a banker, to be paid to any
physician who would cure him. Shortly before his death his confessor
severely reproached him for the licentiousness of his operas, and
refused to give him absolution unless he consented to burn the score
of "Achille et Polyxène," which was ready for the stage. The
manuscript was put into the flames, and the priest made the musician's
peace with God. One of the young princes visited him a few days after,
when he seemed a little better.
"What, Baptiste," the former said, "have you burned your opera? You
were a fool for giving such credit to a gloomy confessor and burning
good music."
"Hush, hush!" whispered Lulli, with a satirical smile on his lip. "I
cheated the good father. I only burned a copy."
He died singing the words, "_Il faut mourir, pécheur, il faut
mourir_," to one of his own opera airs.
Lulli was not only a composer, but created his own orchestra, trained
his artists in acting and singing, and was machinist as well as
ballet-master and music-director. He was intimate with Corneille,
Molière, La Fontaine, and Boileau; and these great men were proud to
contribute the texts to which he set his music. He introduced female
dancers into the ballet, disguised men having hitherto served in this
capacity, and in many essential ways was the father of early French
opera, though its foundation had been laid by Cardinal Mazarin. He had
to fight against opposition and cabals, but his energy, tact, and
persistence made him the victor, and won the friendship of the leading
men of his time. Such of his music as still exists is of a pleasing
and melodious character, full of vivacity and fire, and at times
indicates a more deep and serious power than that of merely creating
catching and tuneful airs. He was the inventor of the operatic
overture, and introduced several new instruments into the orchestra.
Apart from his splendid administrative faculty, he is entitled to rank
as an original and gifted, if not a great composer.
A lively sketch of the French opera of this period is given by Addison
in No. 29 of the _Spectator_. "The music of the French," he says, "is
indeed very properly adapted to their pronunciation and accent, as
their whole opera wonderfully favours the genius of such a gay, airy
people. The chorus in which that opera abounds gives the parterre
frequent opportunities of joining in concert with the stage. This
inclination of the audience to sing along with the actors so prevails
with them that I have sometimes known the performer on the stage to do
no more in a celebrated song than the clerk of a parish church, who
serves only to raise the psalm, and is afterwards drowned in the music
of the congregation. Every actor that comes on the stage is a beau.
The queens and heroines are so painted that they appear as ruddy and
cherry-cheeked as milkmaids. The shepherds are all embroidered, and
acquit themselves in a ball better than our English dancing-masters. I
have seen a couple of rivers appear in red stockings; and Alpheus,
instead of having his head covered with sedge and bulrushes, making
love in a fair, full-bottomed periwig, and a plume of feathers; but
with a voice so full of shakes and quavers, that I should have thought
the murmur of a country brook the much more agreeable music. I
remember the last opera I saw in that merry nation was the 'Rape of
Proserpine,' where Pluto, to make the more tempting figure, puts
himself in a French equipage, and brings Ascalaphus along with him as
his _valet de chambre_. This is what we call folly and impertinence,
but what the French look upon as gay and polite."