The true “punching bag” behind Molière’s The Middle-Class Nobleman

Abstract

Summary In 1670, the new ballet comedy The middle-class gentleman (Le bourgeoisgentilhomme) premiered at the theatre of the French palace before “theSun King” Louis XIV, on a text by Molière with music by Lully, hispermanent collaborator. Both were acting on stage. Since then, no one hasraised the question who is the real punching bag of the play’s aggression.The present author decided to research towards understanding it, in orderto compose new music responsibly for a performance at the MunicipalRegional Theatre of Crete, an island paradoxically connected directly withthe initial impetus behind the play’s composition. By studying historicalsources, events, linking the circumstances and analyzing in depth the textfrom a fresh viewpoint with emphasis on certain scenes, he concludedthat the target of the playwright’s merciless hard satire was the originalcomposer of the music for the play, because the two of them had entereda period of deep clash for personal, financial and legal differences. Theresearch, with its conclusions regarding the Molièresque attack on Lully,moves on the axes of his humble Italian origins, his greed, the forgery ofhis family history through the construction of a fake past of nobility, as wellas his widely conspicuous effeminacy and open homosexuality, by probinginto detailed historical, linguistic, etymological, political and sociologicalreferences. The compound historical study of events that took place in thepalace and motivated the writing of this play is combined with a socialstudy of the palatine conditions and habits, with juicy references to thecustoms and etiquette of the wider royal family and the Court, enhancedwith anecdotal facts and spicy commentary. The general attempt of thisnovel multifaceted theatrological viewing is the documentation througha narrative rich in authentic facts about the play, the author, the associatecreators and the era, largely unknown to the general public.