French Studies 1993 CRONK 6 19

8/13/2019 French Studies 1993 CRONK 6 19

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THE PLAY OF WORDS AND MUSIC IN

MOLIERE-CHARPENTIER'S LE MALADE IMAGINAIRE

C est une grande question de savoir si laMusique ajoute a la passion, ou si elk ladiminue. (Grimarest)1

Words and Music: The Theatre of Spectacle

'EST-CE QUE C'EST LA MODE D E PARLER EN M USIQUE ?' exclaims Polichinelle,as he is suddenly confronted by singing guards of the watch in the first

intermMe of he Malade imaginaire.

2

The question was a pertinent one inearly 1673, at a time when opera was enjoying enormous success withParisian audiences. T he w ork usually described as the first French opera,Pomone, had run for eight mo nths in 1671, and this had been followed by asecond pastoral opera th e following y ear, Les Femes et lesplaisirs de I amour.Moliere could hardly ignore this revolution in public taste, and Le Malade

imaginaire can be seen as both a product of, and a response to , the popularsuccess of Pomone. T hen , only two mon ths after the first performance ofLe Malade imaginaire, came the premiere of Cadmus et Hermione, the firstof a succession of tragidies en musique by Lully and Quinau lt which wouldestablish definitively the form of French opera for the rest of the centuryand beyond.

Le Malade imaginaire, the only full-length collaboration betweenMoliere and Charpentder, is more spectacular by far than any of thecomSdie s-ballets which Moliere had written with Lully. The elaboratecom bination of music , dance and speech is unpreceden ted in its ambitionand takes the work to the thresho ld of operatic form (more precisely, to thethreshold of opera-comique).

3 However, an important consequence of thisinnovative complexity is the problematic nature of the work's structure:how do th e various constituent p arts relate to each other? This structuralproblem is not posed so acutely by Moliere's other musical works, despitethe inh eren t instability of the comidie-ballet: in Le Bourgeois Genttlhomme,for exam ple, the intermedes extend and develop the action of the precedingspoken scenes, so that comedy and ballet seem, at the end of the play, tofuse naturally. Le Malade imaginaire presents a quite different prospect.The brilliant finale, clearly indeb ted to that o f Le Bourgeois Gentilhomm e, issimilarly successful in integrating the twin threads of comidie and ballet.Th e prologue and intermedes are much m ore puzzling, how ever, since these

episodes of pas toral, commedia deW arte, and exotic dance appear perverselydislocated from the spoken scenes which precede and follow them. The1673 'Eglogue en musique et en danse', for example, a lavish pastoral inhyperbolic praise of the King, requires six singers and takes some thirty

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LE MALADE IMAGINAJRE 7

minutes to perform; it has no point of contact at all with the scene whichfollows, the monologue in which A rgan enum erates his medical bills.

Critics view this apparent looseness of stru ctu re in different ways. A few

admit bluntly to finding the work incoherent, but the majority are keen todemonstrate that, despite appearances, the work does cohere at somelevel.

4 Certainly it seems reasonable to identify elements which link the

spoken scenes and the musical intermedes. Many of the comic routines inthe spoken scenes, for example, have (or should have) a balletic quality inperformance; more generally, there is the influence of the Italian theatre,equally strong in both spoken and sung sections of the work; mostsignificant of all (we shall return to this point) is the thematization oftheatrica lity, evident in almost every scene, whether spoken or sung.

T he identification of such recu rren t themes does not however amount toevidence of coherence. A theatrical work must be judged by its theatricalimpact, and it has requ ired considerable ingenuity on the part of critics tosmooth over the provocative disjunction of a sung pastoral prologue and aspoken comic monologue. This essay will seek to show that the clashbetween words and music in Le Malade imaginaire is pivotal, and thatMoliere exploits it both to construct his wo rk, and to comment on the genrewhich he is constructing: the w ord-m usic tension has a function which is atonce theatrical and theoretical.

Words versus M usic: A Theatrical Structure

Th e first observation to be made about the musical sections of the work isthat their length and complexity make them far more than merelyincidental or decorative interludes. In reading the text it is easy tounderestimate their full extent; in performance they constitute hah

0 the

total work , and possibly, for Mo liere's early audiences, the more im portanthalf.

Secondly, the intermedes are sharply differentiated from each other. Weare presented with four types of musical entertainment: pastoral, comme-

dia, court dance, and burlesque; and these alternate, in order ofperformance, between high and low: pastoral (noble), commedia (low),court dance (noble), and burlesque (low). This lends the work anextraordinary dynamic, for the musical scenes contrast with each other asmuch as, collectively, they contrast with the spoken scenes. It is as ifM oliere and C harpentier w ere celebrating the idea of theatre (and showingoff th eir own skills?) by constructing a sample-book containing a set-pieceof each typ e of theatrical spectacle. T he very fact of bringing these differentforms together is both a provocation an d a celebration.

The structural function of the final intermide is clear: it combines wordsand m usic in what is perhaps M oliere's most skilful denouement, and bringsthe work happily to its carnivalesque conclusion. Obviously it is with theearlier intermedes that difficulties of interpretation arise. One strategy is to


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8 NICHOLAS CRONK

focus on the protagonist and to identify his relationship with the variousmusical happenings. T he con trast between the prologue and the first scenecould hardly be more violent: from the pastoral world of nobility and g race ,

of refined and delicate emotion, we are brutally translated in to a bourgeoisinterior and confronted with a comic figure crudely obsessed with hisbowel movem ents. While the participants in the prologue turn outward toothers, singing in praise of the King and in declarations of love, Argan,alone on the steps, is turned inward on himself, his obsession with hisbodily functions cuttin g him off irrevocably from the imaginative world ofmusic which preceded.

Love is again a central them e of the mu sic and of the commedia routinesof the first intermede; the noble love of the shepherds and shepherdesses in

the prologue is relativized by the parodic love of Polichinelle, but Argan isexcluded even from this. The first occasion on which Argan comesunavoidably face to face with music is in n, 5, and this scene, in whichm usic is the medium of love, is situated, hardly by chance, exactly in them iddle of the work. T he young lovers Cleante and A ngelique, em barrassedin the presence of Argan and of the ridiculous fianc£ whom he is wishing onAng61ique, need urgently to communicate. The couple, who first met atthe th eat re, pu t their knowledge of theatre to good use, by improvising 'unpetit op£ra imp rom ptu ', so contriving to converse spontaneously th roug hthe stilted conventions of pastoral opera (which we, the audience, havealready experienced in the prologue). Argan, who at first is only mildlyinterested in what is going on , begins gradually to become sensitive to thetru th underlying this mu sic, and ab ruptly b rings the performance to a halt:'Cette com6die-la est de fort mauvais exemple'. Thomas Diafoirus,needless to say, is impervious to the world of music, and thereforeblissfully unaw are of what is happen ing .

The second intermede at the end of this act reverts to the courtlyatmosphere of the prologue, as four Moorish women dancers singconventionally of young love (the fourth woman being sung in earlyperformances by a male alto). The form is conventional enough: Moliereand Lully had already written 'morescas', as such entertainments werecalled, in Le Sidlien and Les Amants magn ifiques. W hat is most rem arkableabou t the scene is the fact that A rgan remains present on stage throu gho ut.B6ralde brings on the dancers at the end of Act 11, saying to Argan 'this isjust what the doctor ordered':

Je vous amene ici un divertissement, que j'ai rencontre, qui dissipera votrechagrin, et vous rendra l ame mieux disposed aux choses que nous avons a dire

[ . . . ] . Cela vaudra bien une ordonnance de Monsieur Purgon. (11,9)

The therapy of art and music is thus proposed as an alternative to thetherapy of me dicine.

5 The stage directions tell us that Argan is seated at


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LE MALADE IMAGINAIRE 9

this point, so he must presumably remain sitting, a passive spectator,centre-stage, as the singers and dancers swirl aroun d him .

H er e, for the first time , Argan finds himself at the cen tre of the musical

action, thou gh as yet he is no more than a passive participant. Th e m usicmust seduce Argan as mu ch as the audience, and Charp entier's dram aticsense prompts him to write music of remarkable beauty. This perform-ance, staged-managed by B6ralde, is Argan's true initiation into the worldof music , ar t, and imagination , and it paves the way for the final scene. Asthe work reaches its climax in the concluding intermbde, A rgan makes thedecisive shift from passive to active participant, emerging finally as thepivotal point of the musical as well as of the theatrical action. Argan, for thefirst t ime, is integrated fully in to the harmo ny of his surrou ndin gs.

Moliere's stage directions concerning set changes underline this essen-tial structure: the instruction 'le theatre change' occurs between thePrologue and Act I (outside to inside, from 'un lieu champ€tre' to 'unecham bre'), between Act I and the first intermMe (inside to o utside, from aroom into an urban street) and again between the first intermMe and Act n(from outside back into the room). The installation of thea tre machinery atthe Palais-Royal in 1671 had made available to Moliere a radically differentform of d6cor: the two fixed angle wings which until then had beenstandard could now be replaced by pairs of flat wings painted inperspective, and these, being machine-operated and therefore movable atwill, permitted multiple set-changes.6 Le Malade imaginaire is the firstcomedy in which Moliere chose to exploit the potential of this new('operatic') technology, and he deploys the changes of set to establish aseries of fundamental dichotomies: town/country, indoors/outdoors,reality/fantasy, and, most importantly, speech/music.

Since, in the first hah0 of the w ork, music is confined to the iniermedes

and Argan to the spoken scenes, the set changes which keep the twoworlds of speech and music firmly apart also preserve Argan from allpossible contact with the world of music. But half-way through Actn, at

the mid-point of the work, music invades the world of speech, and hishom e, in the form of the 'petit op£ra im pro m ptu '; thereafter there are nofurther set changes. T he various oppositions cited above are conflated asAct 11 leads seamlessly, thanks to B 6ralde, into the second intermMe,which itself flows into th e third Act, and on into th e concluding intermide.The 'realism' of the room which isolates Argan from the outside worlddissolves as Argan is encircled fantastically by singers and dancers. Thestage directions could not be more eloquent: in the first hah0 of the work,the separateness of the different worlds of speech and music is under-

pinned by the separateness of different sets; at the work's half-way poin t,these barriers are broken down, and thereafter the action plays contin-uously on one set, perm itting the spheres of music and speech to convergeand ultimately coalesce.


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10 NICHOLAS CRONK

When we have once identified this underlying theatrical structure,Argan's illness becomes mu ch easier to diagnose. His malady is essentiallya spiritual one, his dilemma, in common with other of Moliere's

monom aniac pro tagonists, that he is 'out of tun e' with his surrounding s.The very s tructu re of the work excludes him initially from 'the m usic of thespheres' ,

7 and the dram atic mom entum of the work is created by the need

to reclaim Argan, to save him from himself, by integrating h im in the worldof fantasy and imagination as embodied in m usic. T he work thus describesthe progress of a 'musicien malgr6 lui' who moves in stages from being firstoutside music (prolog ue, first intermede), to being an unwilling spectator ofmusic (the 'petit ope'ra impromptu'), then a willing, though passive,spectator (second vntermtde), and becoming, finally, an active and central

participant in carnival (third intermede).Such a juxtaposition of Comedy and M usic is not un ique to Le Malade

imaginaire. There is an anticipation of Moliere-Charpentier's last work inthe final scene of UAmour mSdecin (1665), in which 'La Com6die', 'LeBallet' and 'L a M usiq ue' sing in unison about their therapeu tic powers:

Sans nous tous les hominesDeviendraient mal sains,Et c est nous qui sommesLeurs grands medecins;

and the 'Prologue' to Thomas Corneille's Circi (1675) concludes with a'Dialogue de la Musique et de la Come'die' in which the two join forces toenhance their celebration of the K ing. M ore broad ly, tensions between thecomponent elements of the comidie-baUet may be said to be intrinsic to thegenre.

8 The particularity of Le Malade imaginaire derives from the way in

which it generates theatre ou t of this rivalry.

At the start of the work, the two worlds of music and speech stand apartfrom and opposed to each other. The same stark contrast is found, for

example, in George Dandin (or rathe r, in Le Grand Divertissement royal deVersailles), in the contrast between peasant and pastoral; but whereas inthat work the two worlds of speech and music remain distinct, in LeMalade imaginaire, they tend increasingly to converge as the w orkproceeds. The calculated disjunction between different linguistic registersis a recurrent and crucial characteristic of Moliere's theatrical language. LeMalade imaginaire extends this process by juxtaposing different musicalregisters and by further juxtaposing spoken and musical registers, and in amanner more sophisticated than in any of the earlier musical works. The

pastoral prologue which opens the work, in itself purely conventional, isnot merely different from Argan's following monologue; it is intended toshock us by its difference into a realization of Argan's spiritual isolation.Th us the tension between w ords and mu sic, so far from being a problem ,constitutes the mainspring of the work 's structu re, for it is in the resolution

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LE MALADE IMAGINAIRE 1 1

of the apparent conflict between words and music that Argan's theatricalsalvation lies.

Words versus Music: A Theatrical ManifestoIf the tension between words and m usic is central to LeMalade imaginaire,it is no less central to contemporary theoretical discussion about vocalmusic in the thea tre. T he biggest single stumbling-block in the creation ofope ra, in F rance as elsewhere, lay in establishing a reciting style or form ofdeclamation which achieved the appropriate balance between poetry andmusic. The French, more even than the Italians, were especially anxiousthat m usic should no t detract from the power of the spoken word (which iswhy spec tators of the comidies-ballets held livrets containing the texts of the

songs and ch oruses, though not the spoken dialogue).9

The potency of thetragic declamation was widely appreciated in this period — witness Mmede S6vign6 on L a C hamp meste's performances of Racine — and there wasan und erstandab le suspicion that m usic could only diminish the impact ofthe spoken word. In his preface to Andromede (1651), Corneille insistsrather engagingly that he has made his work comprehensible by en suringthat only unim portan t p arts of the text are set to music:

Je me suis bien gard6 de faire rien chanter qui fQt necessaire a Pintelligence de laPiece, parce que communement les paroles qui se chantent etant mal entendues des

auditeurs, pour la confusion qu'y apporte la diversite des voix qui les prononcentensemble, elles auraient fait une grande obscurite dans le corps de l'ouvrage, sielles avaient eu a instruire l'Auditeur de quelque chose d'important. ('Argument')

Pierre Perrin's 'Lettre ecrite a Monseigneur l'archeveque de Turin' of1659, the first artpoitique of Fren ch opera, is almost uniquely preoccupiedwith the relationship of words to music, and its author launches acom prehensive attack on Italian opera before defending his own Pastorale:

Ce qui m'est pareillement singulier en cette Comedie, c est une maniere

particuliere de traitter les paroles de Musique Francoises, dans laquelle il y a desobservations et des delicatesses jusqu'icy peu connues et qui demandent un art etun genie tout particulier.10

The received opinion of Moliere's generation about the primacy oflanguage in vocal music is best summed up in Bacilly's influentialRemarques curieuses sur Van de chanter:

Je scay qu'autrefois on avoit peu d'egard aux Paroles que Ton chantoit, et que laPrononciation estoit presque comptee pour rien: ainsi il semble que Ton abeaucoup fait, lors qu 'on l'a introduite dan s le Ch ant, quand ce ne seroit que pou r

faire entendre distinctem ent les Paroles. M ais a present qu'il semble que le Chantest venu au p lus haut degre de perfection qu 'il puisse jamais estre, il ne suffit pas depronon cer sim plem ent, mais il le faut faire avec la force necessa ire; et c est un abusde dire qu 'il faut Chanter comm e Ton parle, a moins que d'ajouster comm e on parleen Public, et non pas comme Ton parle dans le Langage fam ilier.n


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1 2 NICHOLAS CRONK

In o ther word s, Bacilly wants to have the best of both w orlds: the beauty ofm us ic, bu t w ithout in any way sacrificing the pow er of declaimed speech.The break-up of the Lully-Moliere partnership in 1672 seems to have

been, at least in part, on account of an underlying difference of operaticaesthetic: Lully aspired towards works of continuous music with recita-tive, while M ohere w ished to retain the spoken word to a significant extenteven in 'musical' works. There was, in effect, a trial of strength betweencomposer and poet.

12 Lu lly's great success, beginning w ith Cadmus in the

months after Moliere's death, was that he did precisely what Bacillywanted: he bro ugh t to perfection a style of recitative which was much lessflorid than that of Italian opera and was even moulded, so he boasted, oncontemporary spoken theatre. 13

N ot everyone however was convinced by L ully's answer to the problemof combining poe try and music, and in the late 1670s both La Fontaine andBoileau were still exercised by this tension. In h is 'Ep itre a M . de N iert, surI op6ra , written in 1677 (and first pub lished in the following cen tury ), LaFontaine insists that poetry, dance and music are best appreciated asseparate arts:

Ces beautfe, n£anmoins, toutes trois s£par6es,Si tu veux l avouer, seraient mieux savouries.De genres si divers le magnifique appasAux regies de chaque art ne s accommode pas [ . . . ] .

Mais ne vaut-il pas mieux, dis-moi ce qu'il t'en semble,Qu'on ne puisse sentir tons les plaisirs ensemble,Et que, pour en gouter les douceurs purement,II faille les avoir chacun s6par6ment?14

D urin g these same years, Boileau was invited to com pose a prologue for anopera which Racine was supposed to be writing for Lully. The projectcame to n oth ing , bu t Boileau did complete the p rologue, and his choice ofsubject is revealing : a dram atization of the conflict between 'la Po6sie' and'la M usiq ue'. Poetry declares that she can express more than M usic, and in

vain Music argues back that she can embellish Po etry:LaPoisteQu oy, par de vains accords et des sons im puissansVous croi6s exprimer tout ce que je scay dire?

La Musique

Aux doux transpo rts, qu'Apollon vous inspireJe croy pouvoir m esler la douceur de mes ch ants.

LaPoisieOu i, vous pouv6s au bord d une fontaineAvec moi soupirer une amoureuse p eine,Faire gemir Ty rsis, faire p laindre Climene.M ais, quand je fais parler les Heros et les D ieux,

Vos chants audacieuxN e me scauroient prester qu'u ne cadence vaine.

Qu ittes ce soin am bitieux. 15



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Th ere is a happy ending to this argum ent, bu t only just. As they are aboutto separate, Poetry and Music are reconciled by the last-minute arrival of'la divine H arm onie^Q ui descend des Cieux '. It is clear, despite the final

reconc iliation, tha t Boileau's own symp athies lie with those who believe inthe supremacy of Poetry. And it is hard to think that Lully would havemu ch relished having to set to music Boileau's text.

A more ex tended discussion of this ques tion, and one exactly contempo-rary with LeMalade imaginaire, is Saint-Evrem ond 's essay 'Sur les ope'ra',which was mostly w ritten (though not published) in 1669-70, just prior toLully's first operas and to Le Malade imaginaire.

16 Saint-Evremond

proclaims his dislike of 'les Comedies en Musique' (p. 149) as they arecurrently performed, and declares that he finds them boring, a chargewhich La Bruyere was to echo. Saint-Evrem ond's objections to opera aretwofold. Firstly, the subject-matter is thin, and the poetry bad: 'Unesottise charged de M usiqu e, de D anses, de M achines, de Decorations, estune sottise magnifique, maistoujo urs so ttis e'( p. 151). Secondly, and mo reinterestingly, he is nervous that the mixing of poetry and music ends upbeing to the detriment of both: 'Si vous voulez savoir ce que c est qu 'unOpera, je vous dirai que c est un travail bizarre de Poesie et de M usiqu e, oule Poete et le Musicien 6galement gene's l'un par l'au tre , se donnen t bien dela peine a faire u n m 6chant o uvrage' (p . 154).

So far, this sounds very much like Boileau and La Fontaine, and criticsfrom Voltaire onw ards have caricatured Saint-Evrem ond as an opponent of

opera. In fact, he was a passionate lover of music, and a particularenthusiast for opera .17 What is habitually overlooked in Sa int-Evrem ond'sessay is the fact th at he is attem pting to outline a different operatic aestheticfrom the one then taking shape in Fran ce. Saint-Evremond insists that thepoet rather than the composer should be in overall control of the work: 'Dfaut que la M usique soit faite pour les Vers, bien plus que les Vers pou r laM usiq ue ' (p . 155). Saint-Evremond finds it absurd to use music to expressbanal and simple phrases, and in his comedy Les Opera (written 1676-78),

about a young girl who has been driven mad by her infatuation for operaand who communicates only in song, he particularly pokes fun at thenotion of setting to music such trivial utterances as 'Com m ent, M onsieur,vous portez-vous?' and 'Je me porte a v6tre service' (1,4 ).18

But this does not m ean tha t h e is mocking opera in general; his target isthe type of opera which sets to music every single word of the text. Suchworks, in Saint-Evremond's view, lack verisimilitude: 'Car rharmonie nedoit Stre qu 'u n simple accom pagnem ent, et les grands maitres du Th eatrel ont ajout6e comme agr6able, no n pas com me ne"cessaire, apres avoir re'gietout ce qui regarde le sujet et le discours' (pp . 151-52). On the other han d,it is quite possible to sing a part of the text without offending 'labien-s£ance' and 'la raison' — Saint-Evremond cites the example of thechorus in Greek tragedy (p. 153) — and he goes on to outline his preferred






































1 4 NICHOLAS CRONK

form of 'mu sic dram a', in which a spoken text is broken u p by interludes ofmusic and dan ce, exactly in the m anne r of the English semi-opera w hichwas first seen in London in the 1670s, and which Saint-Evremond must

have known. Moliere could not have read Saint-Evremond's essay, anymore than Saint-Evremond could have seen Le Malade imaginaire: yetthere is a quite rem arkable sympathy of spirit between his ideas and thoseof M oliere and Cha rpentier:Si je me sentois capable de dormer conseil aux Honnfites-gens qui se plaisent auTheatre, je leur conseillerois de reprendre le gout de nos belles Comedies, ou Tonpourroit introduire des Danses et de la Musique, qui ne nuiroient en rien a larepresentation. On y chanteroit un Prologue avec des accompagnemens agr£ables;dans les Intermedes le Chant animeroit des paroles qui seroient commc l'esprit dece qu'on auroit reprfeent.6; la representation finie, on viendroit a chanter une [sic]

Epilogue, ou quelque reflexion sur les plus grandes beautfe de l'ouvrage enfortifieroit I'id6e, et feroit conserver plus cherement l'impression qu'elles auroientfait [sic] sur les Spectateurs. (p . 154)

The reference to 'nos belles Comedies, oil Ton pourroit introduire desDanses et de la Musique' recalls Moliere-Charpentier's coinage for theirfirst joint work, 'comddie m£16e de musique et de danses': Le Maladeimaginaire, at least by Saint-Evremond's criteria, is an opera.

Words and Music: The Theatricality of Spectacle

Just as Saint-Evremond expressed some of his views about opera throug hthe medium of a com edy, so M oliere, no t for the first tim e, conceived of aplay which embodied a theoretical statement about theatre. Le Maladeimaginaire should be read, among other things, as an artistic manifesto.The work is a deliberate dem ons tration of the viability of a certain form ofmusic theatre in which music is an essential element, yet does not swampthe spoken w ord.

The concept of the 'semi-opera' was not universally admired. GabrielGilbert, the librettist to Ca m bert's n ext work after Pomone, Les Peines et les

plaisirs de Vamour (1672), clearly believed th at a work of continuo us mu sicwas superior to a work which alternated between music and spokendialogue:

Je ne puis m'empescher de dire que la Musique est une beauts essencielle quimanque faux Comedies], et qui est le plus grand oraement de la Scene. Les Grecsqui sont les Inventeurs du Poeme Dramatique, ont finy tous les Actes de leursTragedies par des Choeurs de Musique, ou ils ont mis ce qu'ils ont imagine' de plusbeau sur les mceurs. Les Inventeurs de l'Opera ont enrichy sur les Grecs, ils ontmesl6 la Musique dans toutes les parties du Poeme pour le rendre plus accomply, etdormer une nouvelle ame aux Vers.19

This was Lully's view too, but it was not the only possible operaticaesthetic, and Moliere and Charpentier propose an alternative whichaccords separate status to words and music, while none the less makingeach fully dependen t on the oth er.


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Le Malade imaginaire prop oun ds therefore a particular theatricalaesthetic an d, m oreover, one constructed in deliberate opposition to Lully.This debate with his erstwhile collaborator bubbles to the surface in two

scenes in p articular. Th e first is n , 5, when Cleante and Angelique adoptpastoral roles to sing their 'petit op£ra im pro m ptu '. At one level, M oliereparodies the contemporary vogue for concert performances in privatehouses, all the m ore ironical here as Argan is as yet imm une to m usic .20 Atano ther leve l, the scene allows Moliere and Charpentier to show the ir skillin using music as a dramatic device. As this improvised performanceproceeds, it becomes abundantly clear that the pastoral convention, farfrom inhibiting spontaneous expression, is actually the only way in whichthe lovers can express themselves 'n atu rally '.

21 This is an object lesson, not

least for Lully and Quinault, in the proper and effective use of sung text,and Ch arpentier rises to the challenge with music which is subtly sensitiveto the dramatic situation.22

T o A rgan's qu estion 'Les vers en sont-ils beau x?', C16ante replies:C est proprement ici un petit op6ra impromptu, et vous n'allez entendre chanterque de la prose cadencee, ou des manieres de vers libres, tels que la passion et lanecessity peuvent faire trouver a deux personnes qui disent les choses d'eux-memes, et parlent sur-le-champ.

It is an odd response in as much as it is not really an answer to Argan's

question. Remembering that Lully and Quinault were at that moment atwork on their first major joint project, C16ante's answer soun ds m ore UkeMoliere's own view on the proper relationship of words to music. Theclarity of the sung text m ust no t be obscured by the m usic, it should remain'de la prose cadencee'; and it must involve the expression of immediateem otion, n ot th e exchange of trivial thoug hts. T hese are all principles, ofcourse, which are observed in Moliere-C harpentier's own w ork.

Having halted the performance, Argan observes that Angelique andCleante have been singing from music with no wo rds, and th e situation issaved only by C leante's quick-wittedness: 'Est-ce que vous ne savez pas,M onsieur, qu 'on a trouv6 depuis peu l'invention d'ecrire les paroles avecles notes memes?'. The joke is not only or even principally on Argan,however; Perrin, in the 'Avant-Propos' to his 'Recueil de paroles demusique' (1667), had boasted of 'plusieures [sic] choses curieuses et parmoy inventtes, entre autres la maniere de composer des paroles sur unchant not6 sur la note mesme'.2 3 Moliere must have been galled thatPerrin, a thoroughly mediocre poet, had been given the first privilege toperform opera and h ad scored such a convincing success with Pomone; thisjibe at the man who had written tirelessly on the problems of setting the

Fren ch language to music , and had announ ced his intention of writing an'Art Lyrique' on the same subject, is further evidence of Moliere'sengagement in this work with contemporary debate about the nature ofopera.


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1 6 NICHOLAS CRONK

Th e second scene which reflects directly upon contemporary theoreticalissues is the opening section of the first intermide, which amusinglyhighlights and dramatizes the clash between words and music which we

have seen to be central to the work as a whole. The struggle betweenPolichinelle and the violins which repeatedly interrupt him is a knownlazzo,

24 and Moliere cleverly employs the routine here as a device to

dramatize the theoretical crux of the work. In a monologue, Polichinelledescribes his unreq uited love, and decides to serenade his beloved, w henhe is cut sho rt by the intrusion of the violins:

VIOWNS

POLICHINELLE — Quelle impertinente harmonie vient interrompre ici ma voix?

VIOLONS

POLICHINELLE—Paix la, taisez-vous, violons. Laissez-moi me plaind re a mon aisedes cruaut6s de m on inexorable.

VIOLONS

POLICHINELLE — Taisez-v ous, vous dis-je. C est moi qui veux cha nter.

VIOLONS

POLICHINELLE— Paix done

The struggle of wills continues, Polichinelle mimics the sound of theviolins, the violins play out of tun e in mimicry of him , leading Polichinellefinally to explain in exasperation: 'La musique est accoutumSe a ne point

faire ce qu'on veu t' (again, a remark which Moliere may well have intendedfor Lully). Polichinelle then embarks on an elaborate routine whichinvolves tuning his lute, when some archers arrive, singing 'Qu i va la, qu i vala?'. Polichinelle mocks the notion of singing such a banal phrase, in justthe same way that Saint-Evremond in Les Optra mocks the a ttempt to sing'Comment, M onsieu r, vous portez-vous?'. Polichinelle replies deliberatelyin prose, and throughout the ensuing exchange — 'Qui va la, qui va la?'(sung) / 'Moi, moi, moi' (spoken) — the spoken word repeatedly answersthe sung question. T his staged battle between words and music stands as a

microcosm of a battle which underlies the work as a whole. Hence theparticular resonance of Polichinelle's response to the archers (which is alsothe response of Moliere and Charpentier to Lully and Quinault): 'Quidiable est cela? Est-ce que c est la mode de parler en m usique ?'.

Le Malade imaginaire is quintessentially a product of the moment whenopera was establishing itself on the Paris stage. Moliere-Charpentier'swork may be seen at one level as a comic opera about the problem of opera,and as such it is a forebear of Salieri's Prima la musica, poi le parole and of

Richard Strauss's Capriccio. The pivotal tension between music and speechwhich determines the internal dynamic of the work also reflects (andcontributes to) external theorizing about the place of the spoken word inmusic theatre: the drama is constructed out of its own theoreticalpreoccupations.


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LE MALADE IMAGINAIRE 17

Moliere's most spectacular work is also therefore his most self-

consciously spectacular, and th is quality of self-reflecting theatricalitygives LeMalade imaginaire its particular dram atic cha rge.

25 Many previous

plays had experimented with the theme: La Critique de I E cole des Femmesand L Impromptu de Versailles are only the best-known cases of a theatricalself-awareness which is manifest to some degree in all the musical works,from the opening of Les Fdcheux, and Eraste's apology for his lateness onaccount of being detained — where else? — at the theatre. The skill andcomplexity with whidh the theme of theatricality is exploited in Le Maladeimaginaire is however unpreceden ted in Moliere's ceuvre. The conflictbetween words and music, a recurrent feature of contemporary theoreticaldiscourse, becomes here the driving force of the plot (how to integrateArgan?) while also being central to the aesthetic manifesto which is beingadvocated (how may the spoken and sung word be made to coexistfruitfully?). Th roug h the world of music and the thea tre, Argan learns tomake contact with those around him; and the word-music tension isresolved when he is finally absorbed into the world of carnival. Meanwhile,we , as audience, are being taug ht how to construct a music dram a, as wellas how to profit from it. By a neat mise en abyme, as Argan learns abou t the

theatre , so do we. VT „' NICHOLAS CRONK

ST EDMUND HA LL , OXFORD

An earlier version of thispap er was given at the 1991 French Studies Conference at Lancaster. la mvery grateful to Janet Clarke for her comments on that occasion, and to Richard Parish forcom men ting on a subsequent draft.

1 J.-L. Le Gallois de Grimarest, T raixtdu r(ctiattf(Pans, Le Fevre, 1707), p. 196.

2 Quotations from M oliere use the text of the (Euvres compu tes, ed . by Georges Couton , 2 vols,

Pleiade (Paris, Galhmard, 1971)3 See my article 'Mohere-Charpentier's Le Malade unaginmre: The First Opera-comtque?',

Forum for Modern Langu age Studies, forthcoming.4 For exam ple, 'Saufla fameuse Ceremo nie , les lntermedes sont moins des agrements qu'une

surcharge. Le Malade ima ginaire n'est plus une com&iie-ballet; c'est une com6die, et ce sont desballets' (Pierre M elese, 'Mohere a la cour', XVII Slide, 98-99 (1973), 57-65 (p. 64)). On theother hand, Claude Abraham finds in the work 'a profound structural unity (On the Structure ofMoliere's Comidtes-BaUets (Pans, PFSCL, 1984), p. 86). The most suggestive discussion of thisproblem is that of Louis E. Auld, 'The Unity of Moliere's Comedy-Ballets: A Study of theirStructure, M eanings, and Values' (P h .D . thesis, Bryn Maw r, 1968), p. 75.

5 See Philip R. Berk, 'The Therapy of Art in LeMalade imagmaire , French Review, 40 (1972),

special issue No. 4, 39-48.6 See Roger W. Herzel, 'The Decor of Moliere's Stage: The Testimony of Bnssart and

Chauveau', PMLA, 93 (1978), 925-5 4 (pp. 950-5 1). On the expense of set-changes, see EdouardThierry, D ocuments sur le Malade imaginaire (Pa ns , Berger-Levrault, 1880), pp 121-3 5.

7 See Louis E. Auld, 'The Music of the Spheres in the Comedy-Ballets', L'Espru criateur, 6

(1966), 176-87.

° See Louis E. Auld. 'The comedy-ballet dealt with the still-unresolved challenge of musicaltheatre by attaching elem ents from the Fre nch ballet tradition to the dramatic frame of com edy in aflexible association. Its specific trouva ille was the incorporation within its structure of a calculatedplay of juxtapositions or contrasts betwe en the m usical and non-musical section s' (The Lync An ofPierre Pemn, Founder of French Opera, 3 vols (Henr yville, Pennsylvania, Institute of M ediaevalMusic, 1986), 1,82).


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young peop le in l ove ' ( 'Mus ic , Fant asy and I l lus ion in Mol i ere ' s Le Malade vnagmm re', Music andLetters, 7 3 ( 1 9 9 2 ) , 2 2 2 - 4 3 ( p p . 2 3 0 - 3 1 ) )

2 3 SeeA\ild,7TieLyncAnofPierrePemn,ii,p. 146 , and m , p . x i i . M ol i ere ma y not have read t he'Recue i l de paro le s de mus ique ' ( 1667) , which was in manuscr ip t , but he would have heard of i t si d e a s : Pernn was t i r e l e s s in pub l i c i z ing h i s proj ec t s . Mohere had a l ready poked f un at h im in

Le Bourgeois Genttlhomme: Pe rn n i s t he aut hor o f the words o f t he so n g' Je c roya i s Jann e t on ' wh ichJourdain s ings wi t h r id i cu lous e f f ec t ( 1 ,2 ) ; s ee Loui s E . Auld , 'Une nva l i t e sournoi se : Mol i erecontre Pierre Pernn', in Le Bourgeois Gentdhomme'. Problemes de la comedie-ballet, ed. by VolkerKapp ( P a n s , P F S C L , 1 9 9 1 ), p p . 1 2 3 - 3 7 .

24 See Cordelia Gundolf, Moliere and the Commedia de l l ' ane ' , AUMLA, 39 (1973) , 22-34

( p - 3 3 ) . See also G ay McAuley, Language a nd Theatre in Le Malade rniagmatre , Australian Journal of

French Studies, 11 ( 1974) , 4 - 18 .

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French Studies 1993 CRONK 6 19