Format:
1 Online-Ressource (1 video file 3 hr., 30 min., 24 sec.)
,
sound, color
Uniform Title:
Bourgeois gentilhomme
Content:
In 1669, Louis XIV received Suleiman Aga, an emissary of Ottoman Sultan Mehmed IV, with the grandiose welcome befitting an ambassador. But all the dazzling ceremonies left Aga (who may have played a key role in introducing Parisian society to coffee) indifferent. The following year--whether inspired, offended, or playing on the popularity of all things Turkish--the Sun King commissioned a spectacle of "turqueries" combining theatre, dance and music. Unlike the Wagnerian Gesamtkunstwerk centuries later, Le bourgeois gentilhomme is not a weighty philosophical statement, but a comédie-ballet crafted by a legendary team--play by Molière, music by Lully--to entertain the court and the king. The comedy draws a satirical parallel between the emerging bourgeoisie (epitomized by a snobby, naive nouveau riche by the name of Monsieur Jourdain--played by Molière himself in 1670!) and the Turkish visitor Suleiman, ignorant of the honorable protocols that left him so cold. The ambitious Jourdain despises his daughter's suitor Cléonte, a fellow bourgeois--played by Lully in 1670!--so, preying upon Jourdain's ambitious, sycophantic nature, he successfully passes himself off as the son of a Turkish sultan to win his favor. This delightful time capsule restages the work as it was seen and heard the day of its premiere: scored with instruments from Lully's era, pronounced with 17th-century inflection, and lit only by (over five hundred!) candles. The amusing, lively production feels like a spontaneous and intelligent dialogue, in verse and in prose, between the forms of art it celebrates and puts on display
Note:
Le Bourgeois gentilhomme /
Language:
English
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