As Gordana Lazarevich and Ortrun Landmann state in their article on the intermezzo in Die Musik in Geschichte und Gegenwart, most intermezzo librettos have an uneven quality, save for a few with sincere artistic ambitions—including those six written in imitation of Molière.4 Molière’s relationship to the intermezzo is therefore a relatively distant and discrete one. They simply went about their work and left the task of interpretation to audiences and critics. Molière’s importance to the late seventeenth- and early eighteenth-century Italian theatrical scene was extensively documented a century ago by Pietro Toldo in his seminal L’Œuvre de Molière et sa fortune en Italie.50 The hero of Toldo’s account is Goldoni, whom he saw as the first Italian playwright to fully absorb the lessons of Molière’s comedy—the first Italian genius of the comedy of manners. Neapolitan philosophers of the first two decades of the eighteenth century were faced with knitting together a metaphysical conception of man based on the frayed threads of seventeenth-century philosophical debates. Romanticists admired his plays for the unconventional individualism they portrayed. Next, as Vanesio arrives, Salvi reinterprets the elastic gag involving the fencing lesson from Act II, scene 2, and the fencing match with Nicole from Act III, scene 3, of Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme. Albino, ridiculous a figure as he may appear to be, is nevertheless an aspiring politician attempting to be properly educated in order to serve the public good in the Roman senate. 20 Rainer Bayreuther, ‘Sentimentale Komik: Zu Tendenzen musikalischer Empfindsamkeit in Hasses Intermezzi’, in Bert Siegmund (ed. As Andrews suggests, this is the climax of the sequence and is usually the funniest line of the entire gag. But it was a commercial flop, forcing Molière to immediately write Le médecin malgré lui (The Doctor Despite Himself), a satire against the official sciences. 43 Perrucci, A Treatise on Acting, trans. As Vincenzo Ferrone suggested vividly, The group’s professed naturalism so naively disposed towards any dangerous overture—even materialist atomism and Spinozan theories—had become an embarrassing burden at the very moment when Rome had decided on a drastic turn of the inquisitorial screw for Italian culture, obliging the novatores to abandon their cause.90. 35 Here the librettist uses the plural masculine form of ‘lips’ (in contrast to the feminine plural above), presumably to maintain the hendecasyllable (the eleven-syllable line that when paired with a seven-syllable line forms the basis for versi sciolti). This sequence continues with the usual procedure, building in comic intensity until Salvi punctuates the dialogue with the necessary cue line. His interest was in charting the rise of the Italian comedy of manners rather than examining the means of transmission of Molière’s ideas. 21 See Johann Adolf Hasse, L’artigiano gentiluomo, ed. Since 2008, The-Philosophy.com acts for the diffusion of the philosophical thoughts. I owe many thanks to my adviser, Mary Ann Parker, and my committee members, Gregory Johnston and Domenico Pietropaolo, for their insight and guidance, and to Dale Monson for his perceptive and helpful comments, which have much improved my research. According to his birth certificate he was born on November 21, 1694, but the hypothesis that his birth was kept secret cannot be dismissed, for he stated on several occasions that in fact it took place on February 20. Molière’s use of standard ‘gags’ (lazzi) from the Italian improvised theatre is well documented.39 How Molière’s early education in Italian theatrical practice relates to his reading of Cordemoy, however, is not apparent until we examine the common structure that underpinned many of the lazzi he used. In 1661, Molière introduced the comédies-ballets in conjunction with Les Fâcheux. Similar to the court ballets, both professionally trained dancers and courtiers socialized together at the comédies-ballets - Louis XIV even played the part of an Egyptian in Molière's Le Mariage forcé (1664) and also appeared as Neptune and Apollo in his retirement performance of Les Amants magnifiques (1670).[23]. She cites the correspondence between Descartes and Princess Elisabeth of Bohemia, one of the few women of philosophical accomplishment who received training from professional philosophy tutors, rather than being self-taught.103 Naples itself had a woman of philosophical training in the aristocrat Aurelia d’Este (1683–1719). Published by Oxford University Press. In addition to performing the small role of Sulla’s military commander in the seria action, Albino is the main male character in the intermezzo, playing opposite Plautilla, a new character created to be the prima donna’s maidservant. Ah how beautiful that is! ), Antonio Vivaldi: Teatro musicale, cultura, e società (Florence, 1982), 168–88. Molière's friendship with Jean-Baptiste Lully influenced him towards writing his Le Mariage forcé and La Princesse d'Élide (subtitled as Comédie galante mêlée de musique et d'entrées de ballet), written for royal "divertissements" at the Palace of Versailles. He simply had to add an interlocutor (Jourdain) to provide the requisite sounds the philosopher prescribed. He did so by continuing his practice of combining characters (as in his serious librettos). ), Laboratorio di nuova ricerca: Investigating Gender, Translation and Culture in Italian Studies (Leicester, 2007), 217–28; Eric Nicholson, ‘Ophelia Sings like a Prima Donna Innamorata: Ophelia’s Mad Scene and the Italian Female Performer’, in Robert Henke and Eric Nicholson (eds. ), Theatre of the English and Italian Renaissance (New York, 1991), 21–54. The original pronunciation gag (in its more serious form in Cordemoy’s treatise) was trimmed by Molière and set as dialogue. She then sings a compact da capo aria about the allure of money (‘La moneta è un certo che’). For sceptical views see Michael Robinson, Naples and Neapolitan Opera (Oxford, 1972); Francesco Degrada, ‘“Scuola napoletana” e “opera napoletana”: Nascita, sviluppo e prospettive di un concetto storiografico’, in Carlo Marinelli Roscioni (ed. Vanesio is smitten and the rest of Part I is dedicated to his histrionic excitement at her imminent appearance. He utters inanities about Hippocrates, is overjoyed to find a patient ignorant of Latin, so that he need not bother about meaning. The autonomous nature of an elastic gag, as we have seen, makes it a highly adaptable structure. It poked fun at the limited education that was given to daughters of rich families and reflected Molière's own marriage. This comédie-ballet featured extensive musical sections by Jean-Baptiste Lully, and was his first extensive foray into theatrical music.33 The plot centres on the character of Monsieur Jourdain, a nouveau riche merchant who aspires to become a member of the established nobility. The French occupation was brief. Boileau also supported him through statements that he included in his Art poétique. La, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, ca, la, la, la, la, la. Vinci’s intermezzo would not be performed again. It is as though he had frozen the moment of performance in amber—preserving the perfect improvisation for use in his play. They were later joined by Madeleine's brother and sister. 103 For an account of this correspondence see Margaret Atherton, Women Philosophers of the Early Modern Period (Indianapolis, Ind., 1994), 9–21; for a critical perspective see Jacqueline Broad, Women Philosophers of the Seventeenth Century (Cambridge, 2002), 13–34. They can be seen as a series of beads threaded on a string, or as a set of blocks which together will build a wall—in either analogy, the structure of the scene which they compose can be described as ‘modular’. The starting point of Le Médecin malgré lui, the idea of beating a man to make him pretend he is a doctor, is certainly not subtle, but Molière plays with the idea, makes his woodcutter enjoy his new experience, master the jargon, and then not know what to do with it. No less than Rousseau or Diderot, he listened and watched as an outsider and not a connoisseur. Rather, he gives a long and detailed explanation of the mechanics of speaking to show that the body was designed as an instrument of sound production.