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French Comedy Moliere Criticism of his Works Scarron, Beursault, Regnard; Comedies in the Time of the Regency; Marivaux and Destouches; Piron and Gresset Later Attempts The Heroic Opera: Quinault Operettes and Vaudevilles Diderot's attempted Change of the Theatre The Weeping Drama Beaumarchais Melo-Dramas Merits and Defects of the Histrionic Art.
How much were it to be wished that the Tragedy of the French, and even their Comedy in court-dress, had but a little of this truth of circumstance, this vivid presence, and power of arresting the attention. In several operettes, for instance in a Richard Coeur de Lion and a Nina, the traces of the romantic spirit are not to be mistaken. The vaudeville is but a variation of the comic opera.
In this state of things, translations and imitations of foreign novelties, and especially of the French after-pieces and operettes, are indispensable. The companies of actors ought to be under the management of intelligent judges and persons practised in the dramatic art, and not themselves players.
Jery und Bately is a charming natural picture of Swiss manners, and in the spirit and form of the best French operettes; Scherz List und Bache again is a true opera buffa, full of Italian Lazzi. Die Mitschuldigen is a comedy of common life in rhyme, and after the French rules.
Erwin und Elmire and Claudine von Villabella, if I may say so, are ideal operettes, which breathe so lightly and airily that, with the accompaniments of music and acting, they would be in danger of becoming heavy and prosaic; in these pieces the noble and sustained style of the dialogue in Tasso is diversified with the most tender songs.
I purpose now to make a few observations on the secondary species of the Opera, Operettes, and Vaudevilles, and shall conclude with a view of the present condition of the French stage with reference to the histrionic art.
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