INTRODUCTION
Marie-Justine-Benoîte Duronceray was an extraordinary, multi-talented artist, described by Bruce Alan Brown as a singer, actor, dancer and dramatist.Footnote 1 Her performances on the Paris stage between 1745 and 1771 met with general enthusiasm,Footnote 2 and her pioneering of realistic stage costume was influential.Footnote 3 Her mastery of the modern Italian aria, linked with Italianate acting style, was crucial to the development of modern opéra comique.Footnote 4 Biographers and others have recounted her life,Footnote 5 creatively linked with that of her husband, the dramatist Charles-Simon Favart,Footnote 6 and images, sometimes capturing a role that she played, have been reproduced; a sculpted likeness can be found in the Louvre.Footnote 7 Figure 1 celebrates Marie-Justine in 1753, an eventful year during which she even appeared at Fontainebleau opposite Marie Fel and Pierre Jélyotte, in La Coquette trompée (with music by Antoine Dauvergne and text by C.-S. Favart). Two overlooked librettos discussed in this article give the first known indication that she was working and travelling even before the events recorded in a memoir by her husband, written shortly after her death. These events launched her Parisian career early in 1745. The memoir states:
Marie-Justine-Benoîte Duronceray naquit à Avignon le 15 juin 1727 sur la paroisse Saint-Agricole. Elle étoit fille d'André-René Duronceray, ancien musicien de la chapelle de S. M., et depuis musicien du feu roi Stanislas, et de Perrette-Claudine Bied, aussi musicienne de la chapelle du roi de Pologne. Ce prince . . . eut la bonté de contribuer lui-même à l’éducation de la petite Duronceray, qui s'annonçoit déjà par des talens prématurés. Les plus habiles maîtres la formèrent pour la danse, la musique, les différens instrumens et les élémens de la langue. En 1744, sa mère obtint un congé du roi Stanislas pour venir à Paris. Mademoiselle Duronceray parut à l'Opéra-Comique à la Foire Saint-Germain sous le nom de mademoiselle Chantilly, première danseuse du roi de Pologne.Footnote 8
Marie-Justine-Benoîte Duronceray was born at Avignon, on 15 June 1727, in the parish of Saint-Agricole. She was a daughter of André-René Duronceray, formerly a musician in the chapel of His Majesty, subsequently a musician to the late King Stanislas himself [of Poland, 1677–1766]; and of Perrette-Claudine Bied, also a musician in the chapel of the king of Poland. This prince . . . had the kindness to contribute personally to the education of young Duronceray, whose talents marked her out early. The most skilled teachers trained her in dance, in musical skills, on various instruments and in the elements of language. In 1744 her mother obtained a leave from King Stanislas to come to Paris. Mlle Duronceray appeared at the Opéra Comique, Saint-Germain Fair, as Mlle Chantilly, première danseuse of the King of Poland.
Biographers have supposed that André-René, whose authentic family name was ‘Cabaret’, substituted ‘Duronceray’ (a place name) by reason of this being his place of birth. But Duronceray was also a known musical name in the south of France. Another musician called Duronceray is referred to in Léon Vallas's history of music and theatre in Lyons. He was employed there in 1729 and once sang a duet in company with the young Rousseau: ‘Duronceray est Duroncel, “fameux haute-contre de l'ancien Opéra de Lyon” que Jean-Jacques Rousseau entendit à Besançon et cita dans une de ses lettres du 29 juin 1733’ (Duronceray was the ‘Duroncel’, ‘famous haute-contre of the old Lyons Opéra’, whom Jean-Jacques Rousseau had heard at Besançon and named in a letter dated 29 June 1733).Footnote 9
Marie-Justine Favart, drawn in 1753 by Charles-Nicolas Cochin le fils, and engraved in 1762 by J. J. Flipart for the fifth volume of Théâtre, ou, Recueil des Comédies . . . de M. Favart (Paris: Duchesne, 1763–1772)
In the Introduction to his edition of C.-S. Favart's letters, Henri Dumolard explained the existence of Marie-Justine's stage-name ‘Chantilly’ by paraphrasing a letter, preserved within the Favart papers, in which the young singer's mother imposed it ‘out of respect for her family living in Paris’.Footnote 10 Dumolard also provides a useful date, just before this, which helps us to infer the rapid arrival of Marie-Justine in Paris, the subsequent rehearsal period and the initial performance schedule:
En effet, le 21 janvier 1745, madame Duronceray, femme d'un musicien du roi Stanislas, écrivit de Lunéville pour offrir à M. Favart ses talens et ceux de sa fille comme actrices et comme danseuses. . . . Bientôt après, mademoiselle Duronceray vint à Paris.Footnote 11
Indeed, on 21 January 1745 Mme Duronceray, wife of a musician to King Stanislas, wrote from Lunéville to M. Favart to present her own talents, and those of her daughter, as actresses and dancers. . . . Soon after that, Mlle Duronceray came to Paris.
All biographical narratives, to date, have adopted this account as their starting-point. However, the proposed journey by mother and daughter was actually prepared for by another joint trip, one year before, to the city of Lyons. Indirectly, this sheds light on the family's southern origins and connections.
THE ENGAGEMENTS OF 1744
As must have been known to the family, the Lyons opera had been going through a highly productive period since 1739 under the directorship of Nicolas Bergiron, himself a musician. Unfortunately, the books proved impossible to balance, and the final performances of his tenure took place in August 1744. The company then decamped to the court at Chambéry of Don Felipe (Spanish Infante, later the Duke of Parma, known in France as Don Philippe) and his wife Louise-Elisabeth of France.Footnote 12 Chambéry is 108 kilometres east of Lyons. Subsequently, the impresario Jean Monnet was invited to organize the Lyons opera in 1745, after the directeur of the Paris Opéra had terminated his privilège of the Opéra Comique on 30 May 1744.Footnote 13
Bergiron, or else his public, favoured the tragédie en musique; nevertheless, in 1741 he presented Favart's opéra comique La Chercheuse d'esprit. Its libretto, published in Lyons specially for the occasion, still survives there. But not all such local librettos have been preserved, at least for 1744 (if indeed they were ever published). Léon Vallas also noted that the feeble incidence of press sources further hinders a full understanding of these lyric seasons: for example, the Affiches de Lyon, annonces et avis divers was founded only in January 1750.Footnote 14
Modelled in appearance and design on librettos for the Académie Royale de Musique, Paris, the Lyons librettos give act-by-act names of participants in the divertissements. Their title-pages identify these operas merely by reference to their year of first performance and each revival year, to date, when they had been seen in Paris. No composer or librettist is named. For only two operas given in Lyons in 1743 are there surviving librettos: Hippolyte et Aricie of Jean-Philippe Rameau, given in February, and André Cardinal Destouches's Télémaque (1714), given in May, both showing a dance troupe numbering either six or seven members.Footnote 15 No sign of ‘Duronceray’ occurs in these, or indeed in the Lyons edition issued in 1742 of the libretto for Ajax (1716), with music by Bertin de La Doué.Footnote 16 It is in 1744 that we first find the names ‘Mlle Duronzeray fille’ and ‘Duronzeray mère’ among those of the dance troupe. (They may of course refer to another pair of dancers than Marie-Justine and Perrette-Claudine: I currently assume that these were the pair who had travelled from Lunéville.) These names occur in the only two Lyons librettos for 1744 that have been preserved: Les Caractères de La Folie, seen from 17 January, and Médée et Jason, on unknown dates during March.Footnote 17 The two women might well also have danced in Ajax, seen on 17 February in the presence of the visiting Infante, Don Felipe, and in Thésée two days later: Vallas (without supplying exact references) discovered these performances through records in the Almanach de la ville Lyon for 1745. They seem to have been staged.Footnote 18 Until a Lyons edition of these librettos is found, or some other document, we cannot know who danced in the divertissements.Footnote 19
There is a further intriguing possibility: that the Duronceray mother and daughter were in Chambéry even earlier in 1744, prior to the Lyons opening on 17 January. Henri Bédarida noticed this further link between Lyons and Chambéry: ‘À sa cour de Chambéry, [Don Philippe] offrait à ses vassaux provisoires comédies, concerts et opéras, faisant venir de Lyon des acteurs et des décors. La troupe débutait le 1er janvier 1744’ (At his Chambéry court, Don Philippe offered plays, concerts and operas to his provisional subjects, summoning actors and theatre sets from Lyons. The troupe commenced on New Year's Day, 1744).Footnote 20 Bédarida's subsequent sentences, which do mention ‘Mme Favart’, refer, though, to later events, prior to the battle of Rocourt (or Raucoux, as he calls it) on 11 October 1746, north of Liège.
Les Caractères de La Folie was what we now call an opéra-ballet, consisting of a Prologue and three entrées: L'Astrologie, L'Ambition and Les Caprices de l'Amour. It has an interesting text by Rousseau's friend Charles Duclos, with inventive music by Bernard de Bury.Footnote 21 The particular type of evidence offered below has been discussed and illustrated in dance research; and it must be for others to attempt to match ‘combinations of personnel’ recorded in Lyons with ‘the available music’ in printed scores.Footnote 22 In Lyons the leading couple in the Prologue's ballet were Monsieur Denis and ‘Mademoiselle Duronzeray la fille’, forming part of the ‘Suite de l'Amour et de La Folie’. Thus Marie-Justine was shown off before her associate dancers in this divertissement, Mlles Hyacinte, Texier and Lebert, who had all been seen in Ajax two years before. In the entrée entitled L'Astrologie, where dancers represented shepherds and shepherdesses, Marie-Justine again led the solo group with two male dancers, while her mother (‘Duronzeray la mère’) performed in the accompanying group with Mlles Hyacinte, Texier and Desiré. In the second-act divertissement, which takes place on Lesbos, Marie-Justine was one of three solo dancers alongside M. Dubois and Mlle Lebert (representing ‘Lesbiens’): her mother did not dance. And in the final entrée, where ‘Habitans de Cythère’ were represented, mother and daughter Duronceray both appeared as members of the entire group, consisting of twelve dancers.
Médée et Jason, as we can discern from the Paris performance dates on its title page, was the tragédie in five acts by Simon Joseph (abbé) Pellegrin, with music by Joseph François Salomon. The Act 1 ballet (no Prologue was included) featured all twelve dancers as ‘Guerriers et Guerrières’, including mother and daughter Duronceray as part of the main group. In the second-act divertissement, where Magiciennes, Magiciens and Démons all appeared, Perrette-Claudine peformed, but not her daughter. Then Marie-Justine led the Act 3 dancers together with M. Denis, in the guise of ‘Bergers et Bergères’; her mother was part of the general group. ‘Duronzeray mère’, but not her daughter, then danced in Act 4 (the group representing ‘Matelots et Matelotes’) and Act 5 (appearing as ‘Corinthiens et Corinthiennes’).
AFTER LYONS
In 1743 the Lyons opera season had extended as late as May, when Télémaque was given, but for 1744 we are not in a position to assess when the Duronceray couple might have returned to the north. By June 1744, Marie-Justine had reached seventeen years of age. However, it was a moment of turmoil in Lorraine. Stanislas Leszczyński, King of Poland, father-in-law of Louis XV, had received the Duchy of Lorraine in 1737. In his Lunéville palace stood a theatre, built in 1733 by the previous incumbent. During 1743 and 1744 Lorraine became a potential region of conflict in the later complexities of the War of the Austrian Succession, and in August 1744 the Austrian army of Prince Charles of Lorraine threatened invasion: Stanislas fled to La Malgrange castle in Nancy and his wife to Meudon.Footnote 23 Louis XV's own army advanced successfully; by 28–29 September he and his wife Marie (daughter of Stanislas) were received ceremonially at Lunéville.Footnote 24 Perhaps the Duronceray family performed for the court on this occasion. We know that Marie Leszczyńská liked opéra comique, not just traditional French opera, since she had invited that unofficial company from the Foire Saint-Laurent to perform at Meudon in 1736; Stanislas had also been there, to sign a secret document renouncing all future claims to Bar and Lorraine.Footnote 25 Stanislas and his family would travel to Paris in time for 23 February 1745, the day of the wedding of the Dauphin of France to Maria-Teresa of Spain.
From Charles-Simon Favart's memoir of his wife, quoted earlier, unique details are given which suggest that mother and daughter arrived in Paris within a month of Mme Duronceray's letter to him, referred to earlier, dated 21 January 1745. The memoir reveals that Marie-Justine acted, sang and danced in a piece by Favart designed to celebrate the dauphin's wedding in February: Les Fêtes publiques. Its exact date is unknown and all but one authority deem it as a missing source; nonetheless, it must have been premiered on or soon after 23 February.Footnote 26 But Favart's memoir also referred to his future wife's standing in the Lunéville court; and to judge by her readiness to undertake a professional trip to Lyons at the age of sixteen, she must have been active as a dance performer at Lunéville significantly earlier than the winter of 1743–1744. Favart writes:
Mademoiselle Duronceray parut à l'Opéra-Comique à la Foire Saint-Germain sous le nom de mademoiselle Chantilly, première danseuse du roi de Pologne. Elle débuta par le rôle de Laurence, qu'elle joua d'original dans une pièce intitulée les Fêtes publiques, faite à l'occasion du premier mariage de feu monseigneur le dauphin. Elle eut beaucoup de succès, tant dans la danse que dans le chant et le dialogue.Footnote 27
Mlle Duronceray appeared at the Opéra Comique, Saint-Germain Fair, as Mlle Chantilly, première danseuse of the King of Poland. Her debut was in the role of Laurence, which she created in Les Fêtes publiques, written on the occasion of the late dauphin's first wedding. She had much success, as much in the dances as in the sung music and the spoken dialogue.
Why did Favart draw back from all mention of Justine's earliest artistic engagements? Does it connect with his apparent lack of any invitation to Duronceray mère to perform in Paris? Neither André-René Duronceray nor his wife subsequently attended the Favarts’ wedding in December 1745, although both testified their assent to it via legal representatives.Footnote 28
EPILOGUE
Arthur Pougin's monograph Madame Favart, Étude théâtrale 1727–1772, followed by later authorities, listed only two works involving Marie-Justine's performance skills during 1745: Les Fêtes publiques in February, then Les Vendanges de Tempé on 28 August.Footnote 29 By rights, her Parisian career ought to have burgeoned immediately thereafter; but this same year saw the final phase of long-standing internecine battles between the main Parisian theatres, including the Opéra. Their perennial struggle for audiences was rekindled as the Foire Saint-Germain season began on 3 February 1745:
on se porta de même en foule au Spectacle de l'Opéra Comique, de manière que les Théâtres des Comédies françoise et Italienne parurent entièrement déserts, ce qui porta les premières à présenter une Requeste au Roy, tendante à demander la suppression de l'Opéra Comique. Par décision verbale du Conseil ce Spectacle fût seulement suspendu, et n'a été rétabli qu'en 1752.Footnote 30
People again came to the Opéra Comique in droves, to such an extent that the Comédie-Française and Comédie-Italienne theatres appeared completely deserted, which led the former to present a request to the king with the aim of suppressing the Opéra Comique. The latter, by verbal decree of the Conseil [du Roi], was instead suspended, not to be restored until 1752.
The Opéra Comique's success of this winter season was a lively parodie of Lully's Thésée premiered on 17 February, which generated strong disapproval in some quarters because this opera was particularly associated with monarchy: since foreign visitors were in town for the royal wedding, it gave a poor impression.Footnote 31 In March 1745 the Crown apparently invited the Opéra's directeur, Berger (who was managing the Opéra Comique: see note 13), to respond to the Comédie-Française's case. His planning had begun for the Saint-Laurent summer season, but on 6 June, about three weeks before its opening night, the lieutenant-general of police informed the duc de Richelieu (who would inform Berger) that the Opéra Comique was to receive an order suspending it for three years.Footnote 32 This order was later renewed. The Comédie-Française had claimed unfair financial losses, and it would be for them to prove their case over a fixed period.Footnote 33
Favart was, however, able to persuade the authorities to allow him to promote one final season, presented under the aegis of the English dancer ‘Mr Mathews’; no practical details of the collaboration are known.Footnote 34 Marie-Justine's contribution was a pantomime that centred on her talents as a movement artist: Les Vendanges de Tempé. Its only surviving source consists of an introductory essay and a scenario transcribed from manuscript, published in the Dictionnaire des théâtres by the brothers Parfaict.Footnote 35 As the ‘little shepherd’ in love with Lisette, Marie-Justine was required to carry the whole drama through gestural action across eight scenes, but not to sing; only later (25 February 1752) were two songs added when it was revised for the Comédie-Italienne as La Vallée de Montmorency, when new music was composed for it by Adolphe-Benoît Blaise. In 1745 time was short: thus Charles-Simon, or perhaps Marie-Justine, had the idea of giving the orchestra mainly vaudevilles to play – that is, familiar melodies whose remembered words were enough to tell the audience, or give it confirmation, of what was happening silently on stage. The orchestra's key role pointed towards the future, even to romantic ballet, but it is only now, with awareness of Marie-Justine's 1744 experience in professional dance, that her role as ‘Un petit berger’ can be placed in its proper perspective. Her skills surely facilitated this non-texted entertainment using talents that were to hand – one which, in the event, was so successful that it solved various immediate problems before being taken up elsewhere:
Le Directeur de l’Opéra eut tout lieu de se louer des Vendanges de Tempé, dont la réussite aida à le tirer d'affaire vis à vis plusieurs sujets qu'il avoit engagés pour l'année entière, & dont il mit en œuvre les talens. . . . Jamais Pantomime n'a été plus célébrée; les provinces s'en emparèrent, & en firent imprimer différents Programmes . . . Footnote 36
The directeur of the Opéra had every reason to be pleased with Les Vendanges de Tempé, whose success helped him to extricate himself regarding several employees whom he had hired for the year, and whose talents he could put to use. . . . Never was a pantomime more highly praised; the provinces instantly took it up and had different programmes printed for it . . .
The new evidence also provides proof that Marie-Justine's early training at the Lunéville court included classical French ballet, which she had obviously taken to a very high level of skill.
