Laughter: In Ravel's time

Abstract

Ravel's comic opera L'Heure espagnole (1911) has often been criticised for a certain coldness and lack of sentiment. Such characteristics, however, might profitably be seen in light of Ravel's modernity, an art where surface is privileged over depth. Parallels between Ravel's approach and Henri Bergson's nearly contemporaneous theory of laughter developed in Le Rire – in itself an articulate explication of the surface/depth binary – provide insight into Ravel's aesthetic. This orientation unfolds in the detached adaptation of two historical models in L'Heure espagnole: secco recitative from opera buffa and leitmotivic writing from Wagnerian opera.