Salle du Bel-Air
The Salle du Bel-Air[2] or Salle du Jeu de Paume de Béquet (Hall of the Béquet Tennis Court), also spelled Becquet,[3] was a 1672 theatre located in Paris, France. Originally an indoor tennis court (jeu de paume) it was converted by the Italian designer Carlo Vigarani into a theatre which was used by Jean-Baptiste Lully's Paris Opera from 15 November 1672 to 1 February 1673.[4] It was located in the Rue de Vaugirard, just west of the city moat (fossé) and the Rue des Fossés Monsieur-le-Prince (now the Rue Monsieur-le-Prince). Today the site of the former theatre extends into the Rue de Médicis, just south of no. 15 (or 13 bis) Rue de Vaugirard.[5]
History
The composer
On 23 August 1672, Lully hired the Italian stage designer Carlo Vigarani to remodel the theatre and to create the scenery for the first production,
Lully's Les fêtes de l'Amour et de Bacchus, which opened on 11 November 1672.
Notes
- ^ Nuitter & Thoinan 1886, after p. 130.
- ^ La Salle 1875, pp. 21–24.
- ^ Clark 2007, p. 228.
- ^ Wild 1989, p. 299; Harris-Warrick 1992, p. 856.
- ^ Nuitter & Thoinan 1886, after p. 284.
- ^ Nuitter 1886, p. 100; Clarke 2007, p. 228 (Clarke gives the year as 1770, an error); Johnson 2005, pp. 98–99.
- ^ A raised, sloped seating area, located behind the parterre, where spectators stood.
- ^ Clarke 1998, pp. 14–16.
- ^ Clarke 1998, p. 17, gives the date 15 November; Clarke 2007, p. 235, gives 11 November.
- ^ Harris-Warrick 1992, p. 856.
Bibliography
- Clarke, Jan (1998). The Guénégaud Theatre in Paris (1673–1680). Volume One: Founding, Design and Production. Lewiston, New York: ISBN 9780773483927.
- Clarke, Jan (2007). The Guénégaud Theatre in Paris (1673–1680). Volume Three: The Demise of the Machine Play. Lewiston, NY: ISBN 9780773453135.
- Harris-Warrick, Rebecca (1992). "Paris. 2. 1669–1725", vol. 3, pp. 856–858, in ISBN 9781561592289.
- Johnson, Victoria (2008). Backstage at the Revolution: How the Royal Paris Opera Survived the End of the Old Regime. Chicago: ISBN 9780226401959.
- La Salle, Albert de (1875). Les Treize Salles de l'Opéra. Paris: Librairie Sartorius. Copy at BnF.
- Nuitter, Charles; Thoinan, Ernest (1886). Les Origines de l'Opéra français (in French). Paris: E. Plon, Nourrit et Cie. Copies 1 and 2 at Google Books.
- Wild, Nicole ([1989]). Dictionnaire des théâtres parisiens au XIXe siècle: les théâtres et la musique. Paris: Aux Amateurs de livres. .