A Dictionary of Music and Musicians/Vaudeville

by Gustave Chouquet

VAUDEVILLE, a French word, which has had successively four meanings: (1) a popular song, generally satirical; (2) couplets inserted in a play; (3) the play itself; and lastly (4) a theatre for plays of this kind, with songs. Most etymologists derive the word from Vaux de Vire, the name given to songs sung in the valleys (vaux) near Vire by a certain fuller and song-writer named Olivier Basselin, who died at Vire in the 15th century. His songs were collected and published in 1610 by an avocat named Jean le Houx, who may virtually be considered their author.^[1] They contain such lines as these:

Faisant l'amour, je ne saurais rien dire
Ni rien chanter, sinon un vau de vire.

Others^[2] maintain that vaudeville comes from voix de ville, quoting as their authority the 'Recueil des plus belles et excellentes chansons en forme de voix de villes' (Paris, 1575) by Jean Chardavoine, a musician of Anjou, but we, with Ménage, prefer the former derivation. It is at any rate certain that the word 'vaudeville' was employed by writers in the 16th century to denote a song sung about the town, with a catching tune. Many lampoons, such as the Mazarinades, are vaudevilles. The word was used in this sense, for some time, as is evident from a passage from Rousseau's 'Confessions': 'A complete collection of the vaudevilles of the court and of Paris for over 50 years, contains a host of anecdotes which might be sought in vain elsewhere, and supplies materials for a history of France, such as no other nation could produce.'

It was about 1700 that the mere street-song passed into 'topical' verses in a dramatic piece. The plays at the fairs of St. Germain and St. Laurent contained vaudevilles, generally adapted to well-known tunes, so as to ensure their immediate popularity. Occasionally fresh music was written for them, and the vaudevilles composed by Joseph Mouret (a Provençal, called by his contemporaries 'le musicien des Graces'), Gillier, Quinault the elder, and Blavet, had great success in their day.

The next step was to conclude the play with a vaudeville final, in which each character sang a verse in turn. Of this Beaumarchais's 'Mariage de Figaro' (1784) gives a well-known example.

The rage for vaudevilles gave rise to pieces entirely in verse, and parodies of operas, and largely contributed to the creation of the OpéraComique. To distinguish between these different classes of pieces the name comédies à ariettes was given to what are now called opéras-comiques, and the others became successively 'pièces en vaudevilles,' 'comédies melées de vaudevilles,' then 'comédies-vaudevilles,' and finally 'vaudevilles.'

II. It is thus evident that the word would afford material for a book embracing some most curious chapters in the history of French dramatic literature; for the vaudeville includes all styles, the comedy of intrigue, scenes of domestic life, village pieces, tableaux of passing events, parodies, and so forth. It was therefore natural that from having found a home wherever it could, it should at last have a special house erected for it. The Théâtre du Vaudeville was built in 1792, on the site of a dancing-saloon called 'Vauxhall d'hiver,' or the 'Petit Panthéon,' between the Rue de Chartres and the Rue St. Thomas du Louvre, on the site of the Hotel Rambouillet, and on ground now occupied by the Galerie Septentrionale, and by a part of the new court of the Louvre. This theatre was burnt down in 1838, when the company removed to the Théâtre des Nouveautés, in the Place de la Bourse. This new Théâtre du Vaudeville having disappeared in its turn, was replaced by the present pretty house in the Boulevard des Capucines, at the corner of the Rue de la Chaussée d'Antin. We cannot enumerate here the authors who have contributed to its success; suffice it to say that vaudeville, born so to speak simultaneously with the French Revolution, crystallised into one of the most characteristic forms of the old French 'esprit'; that later, as has been justly remarked, it launched boldly into all the speculations of modern thought, from the historic plays of Ancelot and Rosier, and the Aristophanesque satires of 1848, down to the works—as remarkable for variety as for intense realism—of Emile Augier, Dumas fils, Theodore Barriere, Octave Feuillet, George Sand, and Victorien Sardou.

This last period, so interesting from a literary and philosophical point of view, is, musically, wellnigh barren, while the early days of Vaudeville were enlivened by the flowing and charming inspirations of Chardin (or Chardiny) and Wecht, Doche (father and son), Henri Blanchard, and others less known. Most of the vaudevilles composed by these musicians are to be found in 'La Clé du Caveau' (1st ed. 1807, 4th and most complete, 1872). The airs are in notation without accompaniment. In the library of the Paris Conservatoire is a MS. collection of vaudevilles in 18 vols., with 1 vol. index, made by Henri Blanchard. These have an accompaniment for four strings.

The Comédie-vaudeville, or vaudeville proper, has now been abandoned for the Comédie de genre, but it is not improbable that it may be revived. At any rate, the couplet is not likely to die in a land where, as Beaumarchais said, everything ends with a song. Since his day manners in France have, it is true, greatly changed, but the taste for light, amusing, satirical verses, with a catching refrain, remains, and is likely to remain. Unfortunately the vaudeville, in the old sense of the word, has taken refuge in the Café-concerts, where the music is generally indifferent, and the words poor, if not objectionable. Occasionally in the Revues at the small Paris theatres a smart and witty vaudeville may still be heard.

[ G. C. ]

1. The 'Vaux de Vire of Jean le Houx of Vire,' have been recently published in English by J. P. Muirhead (London. 1875).
2. See Fétis, Biographie, under 'Leroy,' p. 280b.