Comédie-Ballet

Comédie-Ballet 

a theatrical genre combining dialogue, dance, pantomime, instrumental and sometimes vocal music, and the fine arts (scenery, costumes). Created by Molière, it was characteristic of the French theater of the mid-17th century. Together with the composers J. B. Lully and M.-A. Charpen-tier, the balletmaster P. Beauchamp, and the set designer G. Vigarani, Molière staged his own comédies-ballets, including Les Fâcheux (1661), Le Manage forcé (1664), La Princesse d’Elide (1664), George Dandin (1668), Monsieur de Pourceaugnac (1668), Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme (1670), Les Amants magnifiques (1670), and Le Malade imaginaire (1673). The comédie-ballet exerted a considerable influence on the subsequent development of the French musical theater.

REFERENCES

Gvozdev, A. A. “Operno-baletnye postanovki vo Frantsii XVI-XVII vv.” In the collection Ocherkipo istorii evropeiskogo teatra. Petrograd, 1923.
La Laurencie, L. de. Frantsuzskaia komicheskaia opera 18 veka. Moscow, 1937. (Translated from French.)
Tiersot, J. La Musique dans la comédie de Molière. Paris, 1922.