(real name - Jean-Baptiste Poquelin)
French playwright and actor
The immortal comedies of Molière are staged in many theaters of the world today. The most famous of his comedies are Tartuffe (1664), The tradesman in the nobility (1670), Scapin's Tricks (1671), and The Imaginary Sick Man (1673).
Moliere created a completely new genre - the classic, "high" comedy. Before him, only “high” art was played in theaters, which was represented by tragedies and melodramas. The comedy genre was considered a "low" art and was represented by farces, often crude and vulgar farce theaters and itinerant actors. Moliere created a comedy for the theater, built according to all the laws of classical art. The comedies of this playwright are full of funny disguises, unusual encounters, funny mistakes, unexpected surprises, funny tricks. Moliere created vivid satirical images that became immortal and ridiculed a variety of human vices: hypocrisy, stupidity, greed, vanity. All strata of contemporary society are represented in his comedies: the clergy, aristocrats, wealthy bourgeois, small artisans, common people.
Moliere created a theater troupe, which, after his death, merged with the troupe of the theater Marais, formed the theater "Comedy Française", or "House of Moliere". It still exists today. This is the oldest and one of the most famous theaters in France.
Molière's real name is Jean-Baptiste Poquelin. He was born in Paris to a prosperous bourgeois family. His father was a royal upholsterer and wanted Jean-Baptiste to take over his business. Molière was ten years old when his mother died. The boy was very attached to his grandfather, the father of his late mother. With his grandfather, he often visited fairs, where he watched the performances of clownish artists. The father placed his son in a privileged educational institution - the Jesuit Clermont College, where Jean-Baptiste studied theological sciences, Greek and Latin, ancient literature, and philosophy for seven years. The worldview of the future playwright was greatly influenced by the works of the Roman materialist philosopher Titus Lucretius Cara and the French philosopher Pierre Gassendi.
In 1643, Jean-Baptiste announced that he was relinquishing his father's affairs and relinquishing the title of royal upholsterer. There was a gap between them, which was formalized by a notary. And in accordance with the agreement between father and son, Jean-Baptiste received 630 livres of the maternal inheritance.
He took the pseudonym "Moliere" and decided to devote himself to the theater. He was friendly with the Bezhar artistic family, the eldest daughter, Madeleine Bejart, was a very talented actress. Together with the Béjarts, Moliere created in 1644 a troupe with the loud name "Brilliant Theater". But in Paris, the theater was not successful, it was ruined, and in 1645 Molière's troupe went to the provinces.
From 1645 to 1658 Moliere and his theater gave performances in many cities of France. At first they played tragedies and melodramas. Then Molière composed two comedies - "Naughty, or All out of place" (1655) and "Love Annoyance" (1656), which were a great success.
In the autumn of 1658, returning to Paris, Molière and his actors showed King Louis XIV the comedy The Doctor in Love. The king liked the play; Molière was given the theater Petit Bourbon. The playwright wrote several comedies that were a great success with the public. And very soon the Petit-Bourbon troupe became the most popular. However, Molière had many enemies and envious people, with whom the playwright was forced to fight until the end of his life. King Louis XIV loved Moliere and often patronized him. However, under pressure from the Queen Mother and the clergy, the king was forced to ban the comedy Tartuffe, which premiered in 1664.
"Tartuffe" is the pinnacle of Moliere's work. In the comedy, the author ridicules the hypocrisy of the clergy. The image of Tartuffe is the image of an unprincipled and hypocritical saint who hides his selfish goals and base interests behind words about Christian morality. The name Tartuffe has become a household name.
However, even one hundred and fifty years later, this play will seem seditious to the authorities, and Napoleon will declare that if this comedy had been written in his time, he would not have allowed it to be staged. And in the 40s of the 19th century, the bourgeoisie, and not the nobility, forbade the playing of Tartuffe in the theater.
In 1662 Molière married Armande Béjart. Their first son was baptized by the king.
Molière acted in his plays himself. In 1673, he staged his last comedy, The Imaginary Sick, in which he played the title role. On the day of the fourth performance of this play, the playwright, who had long suffered from lung disease, felt ill. The performance was finished, but a few hours later Molière died. The Parisian clergy forbade him to be buried in a Christian cemetery. Only after the intervention of Louis XIV, with whom Moliere's wife had obtained an audience, was permission obtained from the Archbishop of Paris to bury the great playwright, provided that the funeral took place at night. The night funeral gathered a crowd of seven hundred or eight hundred people. Among them was not a single noble person.
The beginning of an acting career
A legal career attracted him no more than his father's craft, and Jean-Baptiste chose the profession of an actor, taking a theatrical pseudonym Molière. After meeting with comedians Joseph and Madeleine Béjart, at the age of 21, Moliere became the head of the "Brilliant Theater" ( Illustre Theater), a new Parisian troupe of 10 actors, registered by a metropolitan notary on June 30, 1643. Entering into fierce competition with the already popular troupes in Paris Burgundy Hotel and Marais, the "Brilliant Theatre" loses in 1645. Molière and his fellow actors decide to seek their fortune in the provinces by joining a troupe of itinerant comedians led by Dufresne.
Molière's troupe in the provinces. First plays
Moliere's wanderings in the French province for 13 years (-) during the civil war ( opposition) enriched him with everyday and theatrical experience.
comedy parenting
No less fruitful was the influence of Molière outside of France, and in various European countries, translations of Molière's plays were a powerful stimulus for the creation of a national bourgeois comedy. This was especially the case in England during the Restoration ( Wycherly , Congreve), and then in the 18th century fielding and Sheridan. So it was in economically backward Germany, where acquaintance with the plays of Molière stimulated the original comedy creativity of the German bourgeoisie. Even more significant was the influence of Moliere's comedy in Italy, where, under the direct influence of Moliere, the creator of the Italian bourgeois comedy was brought up. Goldoni. Molière had a similar influence in Denmark on Golberg, creator of the Danish bourgeois satirical comedy, and in Spain - on Moratin.
In Russia, acquaintance with the comedies of Molière begins already at the end of the 17th century, when Princess Sofia, according to legend, she played in her tower “The Doctor involuntarily”. At the beginning of the XVIII century. we find them in the Petrine repertoire. From the palace performances Molière then moves on to the performances of the first state-owned public theater in St. Petersburg, headed by A. P. Sumarokov. The same Sumarokov was the first imitator of Molière in Russia. The most “original” Russian comedians of the classical style were also brought up at the Moliere school - Fonvizin , V. V. Kapnist and I. A. Krylov. But the most brilliant follower of Molière in Russia was Griboyedov, who, in the image of Chatsky, gave Molière a congenial version of his "Misanthrope" - however, the version is quite original, which grew up in the specific situation of Arakcheev-bureaucratic Russia in the 20s. 19th century Following Griboyedov and Gogol paid tribute to Molière by translating into Russian one of his farces (“Sganarelle, or the Husband who thinks he is deceived by his wife”); traces of Molière's influence on Gogol are noticeable even in The Government Inspector. The later noble ( Sukhovo-Kobylin) and bourgeois comedy ( Ostrovsky) also did not escape the influence of Molière. In the pre-revolutionary era, bourgeois modernist directors attempted a stage reassessment of Molière's plays from the point of view of emphasizing in them elements of "theatricality" and stage grotesque ( Meyerhold , Komissarzhevsky).
After October revolution some new theaters that arose in the 1920s included Molière's plays in their repertoire. There were attempts at a new "revolutionary" approach to Molière. One of the most famous is the production of "Tartuffe" in
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