| Dubos
Study Grant: Fourth libretto: Regnard and
Campra's Carnaval de Venise |
11/2006 |
The
Programme Poetry,
Declamation & Music at the Classical Age aims to
examine and describe correspondences, in works written for the
stage in France in the XVIIth and XVIIIth
centuries, between the internal structure and meaning of a
written text and its setting in music by composers. After three
studies dedicated to the study of sung texts in three
different tragedies corresponding to three moments of time, it
was necessary to wonder about the musical translation of un-sung
written text. For this last approach, an opéra-ballet by
Regnard and Campra has been chosen: Le Carnaval de Venise.
The study will lead to a typology of the varied and contrasted
dramatic situations, to be compared to the corresponding
characterisations implemented by Campra.
Project: Fourth libretto : Regnard and Campra's Carnaval de
Venise
Laureate: Camille Tanguy
In
the XVIIth and XVIIIth centuries, the
relations between Text and Music were very different from those
we nowadays ponder over. At a time when the French language was
theorised in many treatises (for pronunciation, and spoken
declamation to be applied to sung declamation), the Tragédie
en musique developed proposing a noble, ideal and lasting
notation of the language's music. Assuming that the structure of
the language determined then the structure of the music - and
not the opposite - the four different pieces studied in the
Programme (every time in search of the terms of this induction)
are looked at, for each of them, from a different point of view.
After
three studies dedicated to Tragédies, it seemed
necessary to wriggle out the formal frame of it in order to
explore the very different genre of the opéra-ballet. In
addition to the greatest variety of this form of representation,
it should also be a good way to focus more on the text which is
not the one of the dialogs. A libretto is made of a good
proportion of unsung text (description of the stage and actions
or didascalia); this text which is not to be pronounced
on stage is anyhow to be heard in the character of the music
written. Thus, the musical setting of a scene can be considered
as the projection of the dramatic situation on the plan
of the dramatic context.
The
piece chosen for this approach is Le Carnaval de Venise by
Regnard and Campra. Campra invented the genre of the
opéra-ballet; besides its major work, L’Europe Galante,
the less famous Carnaval de Venise is definitely worth
putting it at the test of performance. The piece has a very
interesting (in its variety) structure of Entrées and includes
an Italian opera in its last part, a final curiosity which would
allow (in an extreme, sophisticated approach which is aimed at
but not guaranteed) the study to also define the French style
through its own interpretation of Italian music.
Who was Dubos ?
Discover here Jean-Baptiste
Dubos on the site of the Académie Française.
|
