• DOI:10.1080/0268117X.2001.10555494
• Corpus ID: 164147509

Dancing King: Louis XIV's Roles in Molière's Comédies-ballets, from Court to Town

@article{Prest2001DancingKL,
  title={Dancing King: Louis XIV's Roles in Moli{\`e}re's Com{\'e}dies-ballets, from Court to Town},
  author={Julia Prest},
  journal={The Seventeenth Century},
  year={2001},
  volume={16},
  pages={283 - 298}
}

• J. Prest
• Published 1 September 2001
• History
• The Seventeenth Century

Until the second half of the twentieth century, Moliere's comedies-ballets (works which are characterized by the inclusion of music and dance and which were written to be premiered before Louis XIV and his court) remained a misunderstood and unappreciated part of his ceuvre. The situation is now gradually improving as many scholars of literature, music, dance and theatre are turning their attention towards the genre. 1 The issues at stake have gradually moved from a recognition of the merit of the texts themselves to an understanding of the original context for which they were written and an assessment of the musical and dancing elements of the originals. Among that ever-increasing amount of literature dedicated to the comedies-ballets, however, one notes a failure to examine fully an essential aspect of the genre: the court-town dichotomy, whereby the court premieres differed in many ways from subsequent town performances even when the same piece was given by the same troupein this case, Moliere's troupe. 2 It is in the light of this court-town dichotomy that Louis XIV's dancing roles in Moliere's comedies-ballets will be examined here. 3 The transferral of a comedie-ballet to the public theatrethe Palais-Royal was an event heavily publicized in advance. Loret, then editor of the Muze historique, heralded the arrival at the Palais-Royal of Moliere's first comedieballet, Les Facheux (1661), in the following terms: