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45-591: La Basoche is an opéra comique in three acts, with music by André Messager and words by Albert Carré . The opera is set in Paris in 1514 and depicts the complications that arise when the elected "king" of the student guild, the Basoche , is mistaken for King Louis XII of France . The opera was first performed at the Opéra-Comique in Paris in 1890. Productions soon followed in continental Europe, Britain and

90-814: A solecism . Some of them were never "good French" , in the sense of being grammatical, idiomatic French usage. Some others were once normal French, but have become very old-fashioned, or have acquired different meanings and connotations in the original language, to the extent that they would not be understood, either at all, or in the intended sense, by a native French speaker. A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z Not used as such in French — Found only in English — French phrases in international air-sea rescue — See also — References c'est la guerre: "That's war!", or... c'est la vie: "That's life!" or "Such

135-758: A great success. Parisian audiences of the time also loved Italian opera, visiting the Théâtre Italien to see opera buffa and works in the newly fashionable bel canto style, especially those by Rossini , whose fame was sweeping across Europe. Rossini's influence began to pervade French opéra comique . Its presence is felt in Boieldieu's greatest success, La dame blanche (1825) as well as later works by Auber ( Fra Diavolo , 1830; Le domino noir , 1837), Ferdinand Hérold ( Zampa , 1831), and Adolphe Adam ( Le postillon de Lonjumeau , 1836). Notes Sources cortege Many words in

180-502: A quarrel between advocates of French and Italian music, was a major turning-point for opéra comique . Members of the pro-Italian faction, such as the philosopher and musician Jean-Jacques Rousseau , attacked serious French opera, represented by the tragédies en musique of Jean-Philippe Rameau , in favor of what they saw as the simplicity and "naturalness" of Italian comic opera ( opera buffa ), exemplified by Pergolesi 's La serva padrona , which had recently been performed in Paris by

225-541: A row: Le bourgeois de Calais (1888), Isoline (1888), and Le mari de la reine (1889). Carré, after a successful career as an actor, had turned to theatre management, and from 1885 he had been director of the Théâtre du Vaudeville . The two men were lifelong friends and had collaborated once before, on Les Premières armes de Louis XV (1888), a revised version of an opérette by Firmin Bernicat . The Basoche of

270-522: A traveling Italian troupe. In 1752, Rousseau produced a short opera influenced by Pergolesi, Le Devin du village , in an attempt to introduce his ideas of musical simplicity and naturalness to France. Its success attracted the attention of the Foire theatres. The next year, the head of the Saint Laurent theatre, Jean Monnet , commissioned the composer Antoine Dauvergne to produce a French opera in

315-458: A wide variety of subjects from the Oriental fairy tale Zémire et Azor (1772) to the musical satire of Le jugement de Midas (1778) and the domestic farce of L'amant jaloux (also 1778). His most famous work was the historical "rescue opera", Richard Coeur-de-lion (1784), which achieved international popularity, reaching London in 1786 and Boston in 1797. Between 1724 and 1762

360-636: A work. Carte's faith in the composer led to his producing Messager's Mirette in 1894. An American version, in a new translation by Madeleine Lucette Ryley , with her husband J. H. Ryley as the Duke, was produced by the James C. Duff Opera Company at Chicago's Auditorium Theatre on 2 January 1893 and the Casino Theatre on 27 February 1893 for a two-week run on Broadway . Gustave Kerker conducted. The critic of The New York Times stated that "for

405-528: Is Mary who says that she is the wife of the king and the duke who in turn says that he is Mary's wife. After everyone else has left, the king's entourage arrive – only for Colette to receive them, and be taken to the Hôtel des Tournelles . Louis XII greets Colette, who cannot believe that the old man is her husband. Believing that he has been deceived, the King decides to send Longueville and Colette to England; alone,

450-481: Is life!" entente: diplomatic agreement or cooperation. L' Entente cordiale (the Cordial Entente) refers to the good diplomatic relationship between France and United Kingdom before the first World War. Through the evolution of the language, many words and phrases are no longer used in modern French. Also there are expressions that, even though grammatically correct, do not have the same meaning in French as

495-736: Is on a tragic subject. As Elizabeth Bartlet and Richard Langham Smith note in their Grove article on the subject, composers and librettists frequently rejected the use of the umbrella term opéra comique in favor of more precise labels. Opéra comique began in the early eighteenth century in the theatres of the two annual Paris fairs, the Foire Saint Germain and the Foire Saint Laurent. Here plays began to include musical numbers called vaudevilles , which were existing popular tunes refitted with new words. The plays were humorous and often contained satirical attacks on

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540-532: Is taken. Convinced that he will hang, Marot makes his farewell, but he is pardoned by Louis, and leaves Paris with Colette, while Louis marries Mary. Act 1 Act 2 Act 3 La Basoche was revived at the Opéra-Comique up to the Second World War and given at least another 150 performances, with Jean Périer and André Baugé playing Clément Marot, and Lucien Fugère repeating the role of

585-421: The "king". The Duke returns from the royal palace where he has announced the arrival of Mary, who sends him off to request that the "king" attend her for dinner, and then goes off to get ready to receive him. Marot reaffirms his love for Colette, but Mary returns and sees the one she thinks is to be her husband; Colette begins to serve them dinner. Roland's party burst in to reveal Marot's existing marriage, but it

630-452: The 1920s and 30s (including some by Fugère). A complete performance of the score was broadcast by the BBC in 1930 using the English version by Harris and Oudin, with a cast headed by Maggie Teyte and Frank Titterton , conducted by Percy Pitt . A complete French radio broadcast of July 1960, with Nadine Sautereau, Camille Maurane , Irène Jaumillot and Louis Noguéra , conducted by Tony Aubin ,

675-399: The English lexicon without ever losing their character as Gallicisms: they remain unmistakably "French" to an English speaker. They are most common in written English, where they retain French diacritics and are usually printed in italics. In spoken English, at least some attempt is generally made to pronounce them as they would sound in French. An entirely English pronunciation is regarded as

720-753: The English vocabulary are of French origin, most coming from the Anglo-Norman spoken by the upper classes in England for several hundred years after the Norman Conquest , before the language settled into what became Modern English . English words of French origin , such as art , competition , force , machine , and table are pronounced according to English rules of phonology , rather than French , and are commonly used by English speakers without any consciousness of their French origin. This article covers French words and phrases that have entered

765-621: The English words derived from them. Some older word usages still appear in Quebec French . International authorities have adopted a number of words and phrases from French for use by speakers of all languages in voice communications during air-sea rescues . Note that the "phonetic" versions of spelling are presented as shown and not the IPA . It is a serious breach in most countries, and in international zones, to use any of these phrases without justification. See Mayday (distress signal) for

810-744: The Feydeau included Luigi Cherubini , Pierre Gaveaux , Jean-François Le Sueur and François Devienne . The works of Méhul (for example Stratonice , 1792; Ariodant , 1799), Cherubini ( Lodoïska , 1791; Médée , 1797; Les Deux journées , 1800) and Le Sueur ( La caverne , 1793) in particular show the influence of serious French opera, especially Gluck , and a willingness to take on previously taboo subjects (e.g. incest in Méhul's Mélidore et Phrosine , 1794; infanticide in Cherubini's famous Médée ). Orchestration and harmony are more complex than in

855-445: The French stage. Monsigny collaborated with Sedaine in works which mixed comedy with a serious social and political element. Le roi et le fermier (1762) contains Enlightenment themes such as the virtues of the common people and the need for liberty and equality. Their biggest success, Le déserteur (1769), concerns the story of a soldier who has been condemned to death for deserting the army. Philidor's most famous opéra comique

900-596: The Opéra-Comique theatre was located at the Foire Saint Germain. In 1762 the company was merged with the Comédie-Italienne and moved to the Hôtel de Bourgogne . In 1783 a new, larger home was created for it at the Théâtre Italien (later renamed the Salle Favart ). The French Revolution brought many changes to musical life in Paris. In 1793, the name of the Comédie-Italienne was changed to

945-618: The Opéra-Comique, but it no longer had a monopoly on performing operas with spoken dialogue and faced serious rivalry from the Théâtre Feydeau , which also produced works in the opéra comique style. Opéra comique generally became more dramatic and less comic and began to show the influence of musical Romanticism . The chief composers at the Opéra-Comique during the Revolutionary era were Étienne Méhul , Nicolas Dalayrac , Rodolphe Kreutzer and Henri-Montan Berton . Those at

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990-502: The US. After that, the piece was revived repeatedly in France and elsewhere well into the 20th century. During the 1880s Messager had met with mixed fortunes. His opérette La fauvette du temple (1885) and opéra comique La Béarnaise (1885) ran well, and his ballet Les deux pigeons (1886) was a box-office triumph. But in the late 1880s success eluded him, and he had three failures in

1035-462: The duke thinks that the young woman loves him. The cortege of the Basoche passes by the palace, and the two women realise who their "king" was. Colette consoles herself with the thought that she will have Clément back. Mary is disappointed, finding the false king more charming than the real one. The duke realizes what has happened and wants Marot arrested, but it is Roland, now the Basoche king, who

1080-482: The duke. Messager himself conducted the 1900, 1902 and 1919 productions at the Opéra-Comique; later revivals were conducted by Gustave Cloëz and Albert Wolff . In 1908 the work entered the repertoire of the Théâtre de la Gaîté in Paris, the cast including Baugé, Edmée Favart and Fugère and was revived there in 1927. It was presented at the Théâtre de la Porte-Saint-Martin in 1934 under the management of Maurice Lehmann with Baugé and Yvonne Brothier . La Basoche

1125-642: The great nineteenth-century French comic operas" ("le dernier des grands opéras-comiques français du XIX siècle") and considers it of the greatest importance not only in Messager's career but in the history of French musical theatre. Gervase Hughes in his 1962 study of operetta considers the work to have a good claim to be the composer's masterpiece. In 1995 The Times's music critic, John Higgins, judged La Basoche to be "inspired" and – despite "a twaddly plot involving British royalty" – "one of Messager's most substantial pieces". Various extracts were recorded during

1170-437: The most famous of these dramatists. Notable composers of opéras comiques in the 1750s and 1760s include Egidio Duni , Pierre-Alexandre Monsigny and François-André Danican Philidor . Duni, an Italian working at the francophile court of Parma , composed Le peintre amoureux de son modèle in 1757 with a libretto by Anseaume. Its success encouraged the composer to move to Paris permanently and he wrote 20 or so more works for

1215-585: The music of the previous generation; attempts are made to reduce the amount of spoken dialogue, and unity is provided by techniques such as the "reminiscence motif" (recurring musical themes representing a character or idea). In 1801 the Opéra-Comique and the Feydeau merged for financial reasons. The changing political climate – more stable under the rule of Napoleon – was reflected in musical fashion as comedy began to creep back into opéra-comique . The lighter new offerings of Boieldieu (such as Le calife de Bagdad , 1800) and Isouard ( Cendrillon , 1810) were

1260-453: The music, warm words of praise may be spoken", but thought the genre was "far too unfamiliar on the local stage" and Ryley ill-suited to the part, "not as funny as one could have wished." More recently, the opera has been staged at Monte Carlo in 1954, with a cast including Denise Duval and Pierre Mollet , conducted by Albert Wolff , and at Enghien-les-Bains Casino in 1958 with Willy Clément , conducted by Jésus Etcheverry . Reviewing

1305-533: The official theatres such as the Comédie-Française . In 1715 the two fair theatres were brought under the aegis of an institution called the Théâtre de l'Opéra-Comique. In spite of fierce opposition from rival theatres the venture flourished and leading playwrights of the time, including Alain-René Lesage and Alexis Piron , contributed works in the new form. The Querelle des Bouffons (1752–54),

1350-622: The opening night and took curtain calls along with the conductor, François Cellier . The London cast was: The piece received exceptionally high praise from the London critics but was not a great box-office success. It ran for 61 performances, from 3 November 1891 to 16 January 1892. When Carte withdrew the piece, several newspaper critics, including Bernard Shaw in The World , condemned the British public for its failure to support so outstanding

1395-552: The opera "a work of very great beauty and charm", though its reviewer teased Messager about a few conspicuously Wagnerian passages where "the influence of Die Meistersinger is felt to an extent that is almost absurd". The Daily Telegraph commented that the composer had a rare gift, and that "the connoisseur can hear La Basoche for the charm of its scholarship, and the average opera-goer can enjoy it for its tunefulness". The composer Henry Février in his André Messager: Mon Maître, Mon Ami (1948) calls La Basoche "the last of

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1440-561: The original production, Les Annales du théâtre et de la musique commented that Carré's libretto was good enough to be presented as a straight play, without music, but that Messager's score lived up to it – "light and vivacious" – everything needed to maintain a place in the repertoire of the Opéra Comique. The critic in Le Ménestrel praised Carré's imagination, though finding an excess of fantasy and some loose construction in

1485-515: The pedant Roland (in a poem "Oui, de rimes je fais moisson"). As the king of the basochians is required to be a bachelor, he hides the existence of a wife, Colette, whom he has left behind in Chevreuse . When she arrives in Paris he pretends not to know her – but tells her secretly that he will rejoin her soon. She gets herself taken on at the tavern, where the next day the widowed Louis XII will receive his new young wife, Princess Mary of England,

1530-406: The piece; he thought Messager had composed a major score, of which the first act contained the finest music. In La Nouvelle Revue , the critic Louis Gallet praised the finesse, delicacy and spirit of the score, and hoped the success of the piece would encourage the Opéra-Comique to promote further comic operas, a genre that it had neglected of late. The London critics were outspoken in their praise of

1575-499: The sister of Henry VIII . Mary now arrives incognito, disguised as a Norman , accompanied by the Duc de Longueville . When the procession of the king of the Basoche comes along, Colette takes Marot to be the real king, while Mary thinks that the man is her husband. While clerks party, and Roland hopes to unmask Marot and his wife, Colette, at work, dreams of her future life as a queen. In a duet, both Mary and Colette declare their love for

1620-402: The students of Paris to form a guild called "La Basoche ". The guild continued for nearly five hundred years. The head of "La Basoche", elected annually, assumed the title of "King" and wore the royal crown and mantle. In the opera, the student Clément Marot is elected King of the Basoche and is mistaken for Louis XII , King of France. Clément Marot puts himself forward as a candidate against

1665-566: The style of La serva padrona . The result was Les troqueurs , which Monnet passed off as the work of an Italian composer living in Vienna who was fluent in French, thus fooling the partisans of Italian music into giving it a warm welcome. Dauvergne's opera, with a simple plot, everyday characters, and Italianate melodies, had a huge influence on subsequent opéra comique , setting a fashion for composing new music, rather than recycling old tunes. Where it differed from later opéras comiques , however,

1710-475: The theatres of the Paris fairs which contained songs ( vaudevilles ), with new words set to already existing music. The phrase opéra comique en vaudevilles or similar was often applied to these early-stage works. In the middle of the 18th century, composers began to write original music to replace the vaudevilles , under the influence of the lighter types of Italian opera (especially Giovanni Battista Pergolesi 's La serva padrona ). This form of opéra comique

1755-612: The title was an ancient Parisian guild of law clerks, which from 1303 until it was abolished in 1791 during the French Revolution was to some extent a state within a state, electing its own king and regulating its own affairs. La Basoche was first performed at the Opéra-Comique , Paris (then in temporary residence at the Salle du Théâtre Lyrique ), on 30 May 1890 and had an initial run of 51 nights. The action takes place in Paris in 1514. In 1303, King Philippe IV had permitted

1800-433: The work. The Era said, "The Basoche is more than a success; it is a triumph … the most artistic and beautiful comic opera the modern stage has witnessed for years". The Observer , like The Era and The Times , predicted an exceptionally long run for the work; its reviewer commented that the score showed Messager as "a master of his art – endowed with the gift of melody and guided by a refined taste". The Times thought

1845-431: Was Tom Jones (1765), based on Henry Fielding 's 1749 novel of the same name. It is notable for its realistic characters and its many ensembles. The most important and popular composer of opéra comique in the late 18th century was André Grétry . Grétry successfully blended Italian tunefulness with a careful setting of the French language. He was a versatile composer who expanded the range of opéra comique to cover

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1890-805: Was given French-language productions in Brussels in 1890 and Geneva in 1891. It was translated into German and performed as Die zwei Könige on 19 October 1891 at the Stadttheater, Hamburg , and as Die Basoche on 29 October 1891 at the Friedrich-Wilhelm-Städtisches Theater in Berlin. The opera was presented in English as The Basoche in London in 1891, in an English translation by Augustus Harris (dialogue) and Eugène Oudin (lyrics) at Richard D'Oyly Carte 's Royal English Opera House . Carré and Messager were present at

1935-490: Was often known as comédie mêlée d'ariettes , but the range of subject matter it covered expanded beyond the merely comic. By the 19th century, opéra comique often meant little more than works with spoken dialogue performed at the Opéra-Comique theatre, as opposed to works with recitative delivery which appeared at the Paris Opéra . Thus, probably the most famous of all opéras comiques , Georges Bizet 's Carmen ,

1980-402: Was subsequently issued on CD. Extended excerpts were recorded in 1961, featuring Liliane Berton , Nicole Broissin, Henri Legay and Michel Dens , conducted by Jacques Pernoo. Op%C3%A9ra comique The term opéra comique is complex in meaning and cannot simply be translated as " comic opera ". The genre originated in the early 18th century with humorous and satirical plays performed at

2025-485: Was that it contained no spoken dialogue. In this, Dauvergne was following the example of Pergolesi's La serva padrona . The short, catchy melodies which replaced the vaudevilles were known as ariettes and many opéras comiques in the late 18th century were styled comédies mêlées d'ariettes . Their librettists were often playwrights, skilled at keeping up with the latest trends in the theatre. Louis Anseaume , Michel-Jean Sedaine and Charles Simon Favart were among

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