Comédie larmoyante
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Comédie larmoyante (French: tearful comedy) was a genre of French drama of the 18th century. In this type of sentimental comedy, the impending tragedy was resolved at the end, amid reconciliations and floods of tears. Plays of this genre that ended unhappily nevertheless allowed the audience to see that a "moral triumph" had been earned for the suffering heroes and heroines.
Thomas Heywood's masterpiece, A Woman kilde with kindnesse (acted 1603; printed 1607), can be considered a forerunner of this genre.
In
.Louis-Sébastien Mercier considered himself a supporter of this genre.
By blurring the distinctions between comedy and tragedy, the comédie larmoyante formed the basis for the subsequent genre known as
There are many examples of 'comédie larmoyante' in both French and Italian opera where it gave birth to the genre of opera semiseria: André Grétry's Lucile, Nicolas Dalayrac's Nina, ou La folle par amour, Pasquale Anfossi's La vera costanza (1776) and Joseph Haydn's work of the same name (1779).