Jean-Baptiste Lully

Monsieur de Pourceaugnac

Monsieur de Pourceaugnac is a three-act comédie-ballet—a ballet interrupted by spoken dialogue—by Molière, first presented on 6 October 1669 before the court of Louis XIV at the Château of Chambord

Synopsis#

Monsieur de Pourceaugnac is betrothed to Julie, the daughter of Oronte. Unbeknownst to him, Julie is in love with the young and handsome Parisian Éraste and has no desire to wed Pourceaugnac. In order to avoid the impending marriage, Julie and Éraste solicit the help of Sbrigani who uses all of his guile to help the young couple through a series of clever deceits.

Performances#

The piece premiered at the Château de Chambord for the entertainment of the King of France, Louis XIV on 6 October 1669. The work was a big success and was performed 49 times in the lifetime of its author; in addition to the first performance at Chateau de Chambord, it played once, 4 November 1669, at Versailles and 47 times in the theatre of the Palais Royal in Paris between 15 November 1669 and 11 September 1672. After the death of Molière, the play was performed once the theatre of the hotel Guénégaud, Paris, in 1680, at Saint-Germain-en-Laye in 1681, twelve times in the theatre of the rue des Fosses in Saint-Germain, Paris, between 1701 and 1750, once at the Château de Bellevue in 1751, five times at the Grand Theatre de la Monnaie in Brussels between 1753 and 1785, three times in the theatre du Capitole in Toulouse between 1786 and 1789, the theatre national Caen, then twice at the Grand Theatre de la Monnaie in Brussels in 1791.

Adaptations#

Squire Trelooby (1704) is an English-language adaptation of the play by William Congreve, William Walsh and John Vanbrugh. Operatic settings of the play include those by Castil-Blaze (a pasticcio using music of Rossini, Weber, and others; 1826), Alberto Franchetti (Il signore di Pourceaugnac; 1897), and Frank Martin (1962). The play is also one of the sources of the opera Der Rosenkavalier by Richard Strauss and Hugo von Hofmannsthal. There are film versions of Molière’s play from 1930 and 1985 (by Michel Mitrani). Gaetano Donizetti’s comic opera Il giovedì grasso, o il nuovo Pourceaugnac is not a setting of Molière’s play, but instead depicts a scheme which the characters consciously model on Monsieur de Pourceaugnac.

Composer: Jean-Baptiste Lully