The Cracow Premieres of Molière and Racine in 1676 and Other Unknown Facts from the Court Theater of King John III Sobieski and Queen Maria Kazimiera
Karolina Targosz
Institute for the History of Science, Polish Academy of Sciences (Poland)
Abstract
This article recounts theater events at the court of King John III Sobieski and Queen Maria Kazimiera. The author relies mainly on the writings and communications of the royal secretary Cosimo Brunetti, supplementing them with information provided by other associates of the court milieu. Based on these sources, the author has established that, in all likelihood, the French comedies staged at the Sobieski residence in Złoczów at the turn of April and May 1675 included Molière's Les Fourberies de Scapin (Scapin the Schemer). The comedy was certainly presented on 12 April 1676, as part of Sobieski’s coronation celebrations at the Wawel castle in Krakow, alongside Jean Racine’s Andromache (with Françoise Faidherbe as the heroine), and a ballet performance with the participation of the children of the royal couple. The author also managed to establish that on 24 June 1682, François Paulin Dalerac played the title role in Pierre Corneille’s Le Menteur (The Liar), staged at the Sobieski residence in Jaworów. The article also describes the visit of the singer Clementini, whose performance in Jaworów on 30 April 1684 accompanied a banquet in honor of the Spanish envoy Leopold Philip Montecuccoli, as well as the performances of French comedies and ballet held there on 10 July 1684, in the presence of the Venetian envoy Angelo Morosini and the nuncio Andrea Santa Croce. According to the author, on the latter occasion, the manor garden in Jaworów hosted Molière’s L’école des femmes (The School for Wives) and L'Amour Médecin (Dr. Cupid), comedies which had already been presented on 24 June that year. She emphasizes that the testimonies of plein-air shows in Jaworów suggest that a garden theater functioned in this royal residence; probably modelled on French theaters of this kind, it appears as the first such enterprise in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth.
Keywords:
Molière, Jean Racine, Old Polish theater, court theaterReferences
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Authors
Karolina TargoszInstitute for the History of Science, Polish Academy of Sciences Poland
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