French dramatist and librettist
Philippe Quinault
(
French:
[kino]
; 3 June 1635 ? 26 November 1688), French
dramatist
and
librettist
, was born in Paris.
Biography
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]
Quinault was educated by the liberality of
Francois Tristan l'Hermite
, the author of
Marianne
. Quinault's first play was produced at the
Hotel de Bourgogne
in 1653, when he was only eighteen. The piece succeeded, and Quinault followed it up, but he also read for the bar; and in 1660, when he married a widow with money, he bought himself a place in the
Cour des Comptes
. Then he tried tragedies (
Agrippa
, etc.) with more success.
He received one of the literary pensions then recently established, and was elected to the
Academie francaise
in 1670. Up to this time he had written some sixteen or seventeen comedies, tragedies, and
tragi-comedies
, which began at the
Hotel de Bourgogne
in 1653, and of which the tragedies were mostly of very small value and the tragi-comedies of little more. But his comedies?especially his first piece
Les Rivales
(1653),
L'Amant indiscret
(1654), which has some likeness to
Moliere
's
Etourdi, Le Fantome amoureux
(1659), and
La Mere coquette
(1665), perhaps the best?are much better. In assessing Quinault's comedy work, Patricia Howard noted the influence of
Preciosite
, especially in the female roles: "For if in French theatre in the second half of the century, women's roles are preeminent, it was the precieux movement which made them so."
[1]
In 1671 he contributed to the singular miscellany of
Psyche
, in which
Pierre Corneille
and Moliere also had a hand, and which was set to the music of
Jean-Baptiste Lully
.
Here he showed a remarkable faculty for lyrical drama, and from this time until just before his death he confined himself to composing libretti for Lully's work. This was not only very profitable (for he is said to have received four thousand livres for each, which was much more than was usually paid even for tragedy), but it established Quinault's reputation as the master of a new style?so that even
Boileau
, who had previously satirized his dramatic work, praised, not the opera, which he did not like, but Quinault's remarkably ingenious and artist-like work in it.
His libretti are among the very few which are readable without the music, and which are yet carefully adapted to it. The very artificiality of the French lyric of the later 17th century, and its resemblance to
alexandrines
cut into lengths, were aids to Quinault in arranging lyrical dialogue.
They certainly do not contain very exalted poetry or very perfect drama. But they are quite free from the ludicrous doggerel which has made the name libretto a byword, and they have quite enough dramatic merit to carry the reader, much more the spectator, along with them. It is not an exaggeration to say that Quinault, coming at the exact time when opera became fashionable out of Italy, had very much to do with establishing it as a permanent European genre. His first piece after
Psyche
(1671) was a kind of classical masque,
Les Fetes de l'Amour et de Bacchus
(1672). Then came
Cadmus et Hermione
(1674),
Alceste
ou le Triomphe d'Alcide
(1674),
Thesee
(1675),
Atys
(1676), one of his best pieces, and
Isis
(1677).
Alceste
was received very negatively by some critics, and this inspired a debate of published opinions by the writers
Jean Racine
and
Charles Perrault
which constitutes one of the first exchanges in what would later become known as the
Quarrel of the Ancients and the Moderns
.
[2]
All these were classical in subject, and so was
Proserpine
(1680), which was superior to any of them.
The Triumph of Love
(1681) is a mere ballet, but in
Persee
(1682) and
Phaeton
(1683) Quinault returned to the classical opera. Then he finally deserted it for romantic subjects, in which he was even more successful.
Amadis de Gaule
(1684) and
Roland
(1685) are arguably his masterpieces, although
Armide
(1686) is probably the best known opera. Lully died in 1687, and Quinault, his occupation gone, became devout, and began a poem called the "Destruction of Heresy". He died on 26 November 1688, in Paris.
Among his less known works is the lyrical, theatrical drama "Bellerephon", in 2 parts: (
one probably first published on 1671
and one probably first published on 1679
), based on the famous, ancient Greek myth:
References
[
edit
]
- ^
Patricia Howard,
"The Influence of the Precieuses on Content and Structure in Quinault's and Lully's Tragedies Lyriques"
in Acta Musicologica 63.1 (January 1991, pp. 57-72) p 58, note.
- ^
Quinault, Philippe (1994). Brooks, William; Norman, Buford; Zarucchi, Jeanne Morgan (eds.).
Alceste, suivi de La Querelle d'Alceste, Anciens et Modernes avant 1680, Textes de Ch. Perrault, Racine et P. Perrault
. Geneva: Droz.
ISBN
2600000534
.
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