Racine, Menestrier, and Sublime Effects

Extract

The year 1674 is a very interesting one for the study of Racine. In that year a quarrel had temporarily separated Lully and Quinault, and the composer needed a new libretto. Racine (aided by Boileau) began work on La Chute de Phaëton, and although the opera was never finished (as Louis XIV forced Lully to work again with Quinault) the fact that Racine agreed, however reluctantly, to compose verse for opera is not without significance. Indeed, Vanuxem has argued that Racine was here showing a continuing interest in this form since he had already been engaged three years earlier on an opera based on the story of Orpheus, of which nothing survives. Quinault's extraordinarily successful opera Alceste was performed at Versailles on 7 July 1674 while, in the same year, Boileau celebrated his increasing importance at Court and in literary circles with the publication of a translation from the Greek of a Treatise on the Sublime, a work traditionally attributed to Longinus. And finally, in August 1674, Racine's Iphigènie received its first performance in a spectacular setting, in a theatre, built at the entrance of the Orangerie at Versailles, created for the occasion by the Vigarani brothers. The play was much applauded, and yet the excitement it aroused was outdone by the illuminations and fireworks which exploded immediately after its performance. Some 30,000 varied fireworks were invented by Le Brun to celebrate the magnificence of Louis XIV triumphing over his foes despite ‘L'Envie representée par le Dragon’ belching forth from every orifice torrents of flame and thick smoke.