Comédie-ballet
Comédie-ballet is a genre of French drama which mixes a spoken play with interludes containing music and dance. History. The first example of the genre is considered to be "Les fâcheux", with words by Molière, performed in honour of Louis XIV at Vaux-le-Vicomte, the residence of Nicolas Fouquet, in 1661. The music and choreography were by Pierre Beauchamp, but Jean-Baptiste Lully later contributed a sung courante for Act I, scene 3. Molière, Lully and Beauchamp collaborated on several more examples of "comédie-ballet", culminating in the masterpiece of the genre, "Le Bourgeois gentilhomme", in  1670, and the scenically spectacular "Psyché" of January 1671, a "tragicomédie et ballet" which went well beyond the earlier examples of the genre. After quarrelling with Lully, Molière retained the services of Beauchamp as choreographer. His one-act prose comedy "La Comtesse d'Escarbagnas" premiered in December 1671 at the Château de Saint-Germain-en-Laye as part of a larger entertainment referred to as the "Ballet des Ballets". The play recycled musical episodes from several of Molière's earlier "comédies-ballets", including "La pastorale comique", "George Dandin", "Le Bourgeois gentilhomme", and "Psyché". It "has sometimes been characterized as little more  than a platform for songs and dances." Molière turned to the composer Marc-Antoine Charpentier for the music for "Le Malade imaginaire" in 1673. While performing in "Le malade", Molière was taken ill on stage and died shortly afterwards. In the 18th century, the "comédie-ballet" became almost completely outmoded but it still exercised a long-lasting influence on the use of music in French theatre. A late example of a genuine "comédie-ballet" is "La princesse de Navarre" by Voltaire, which was performed at Versailles on 23 February 1745. It consisted of a prologue and three acts, with the  addition of an overture and three musical divertissements, one per act, composed by Jean-Philippe Rameau. The vocal music is particularly difficult to sing and includes a virtuoso duet for hautes-contre. Section::::"Comédie-ballet" and "comédie lyrique". Even though scholars tend to limit the use of the term "comédie-ballet" to the form described above, in the 18th century some authors also applied it to other kinds of stage work, particularly a type of comic opera, usually in three or four acts, without spoken dialogue. This differed from "opéra-ballet" (another genre mixing opera and dance) in that it contained  a continuous plot (rather than a different plot for each act) as well as frequently having comic or satirical elements. It was essentially the same as the "comédie lyrique". Examples include "Le carnaval et la folie" (1703) by André Cardinal Destouches and "La vénitienne" (1768) by Antoine Dauvergne, a late reworking of the 1705 ballet of the same name by Michel de la Barre. A completely different use of the term "comédie-lyrique" as a sort of modern revival of the "comédie-ballet" is "Le piège de Méduse" (1913) by Erik Satie, which is a play in one act with  seven short dances originally composed for the piano. References. Notes Sources "Portions of this article are a translation of the equivalent page on the Italian Wikipedia"