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Originally Posted by MonctonRad
Who would win in a prosaic showdown? Shakespeare or Moliere???  |
I've always found Shakespeare a bit of a bore (although he has some great lines here and there for sure). His language is honestly hard to access, and most people struggle to understand what is meant. It's also a bit too serious.
Molière, on the other hand, is frankly hilarious. When you go watch a play by Molière you have a good time. His language is also closer to today's language, so more accessible than Shakespeare English. Also, many plays by Molière were in fact musical comedies (something which was forgotten for a long time, people only recited his text but forgot it was made to be accompanied by music and singing, but it has been rediscovered in the past 20 years). A few years ago I went to watch the resurrected 17th century version of Le Bourgeois gentilhomme with my sister in Paris, by a company that meticulously rediscovered and recreated all the music and dances, not just reciting the text of the play, and they went even as far as pronouncing the words as actors in the 17th century would have done it, also using real candles to light the stage as they did in the 17th century, and frankly it was 3 hours of stunning and wonderful spectacle. We left the theater 'avec des étoiles plein les yeux' as we say in French. I doubt I would ever leave a Shakespeare's play 'avec des étoiles plein les yeux' (although I quite enjoyed A Midsummer Night's Dream with Rupert Everett for sure).
That's one of the most famous music from that play (Marche des Turcs, by Lully). For 300 years people had forgotten that Molière's plays were meant to have music, singing and dancing, and they only recited "dry" plays with only text. A bit the way we forget Greek statues were painted and not white. Now all that Baroque extravagance is being rediscovered. Le Malade imaginaire is another play that was meant to be more a musical comedy than just a play.
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This is another one, from the 18th century by Rameau, since we were talking about the "Indians". This is the famous dance and song called "les Sauvages" (the word I explained). It enjoyed immense success in Paris in the 1730s, at a time when, well, Canada was still French. The play is called "Les Indes galantes", which litterally means "The Romantic Indies", Indies as in "North America". A vision of the "good savage" in the forests of New France.
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This version doesn't have the dancing, but the singing is far superior (and the best you'll find anywhere). Two very brilliant singers.
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